For those of you not on our Facebook page we wanted to make sure you saw our post from yesterday regarding our current outreach campaign for Ronnie Long. If every one of you takes just five minutes out of your day on Monday June 29th, we can flood Governor Roy Cooper’s office with calls and make a powerful show of solidarity on Ronnie’s behalf.
I have copied the posted message here to let you all know what we are doing and have included the phone number and an example script you can alter or use verbatim, if you’re unsure of how best to communicate your support.
From the Free Ronnie Long Facebook page:
Everyone did such a great job calling today! Governor Cooper’s mailbox is FULL! So, we want to repeat this on Monday! The pressure is ON and the more noise we make right now the better.
I know for some of us, it can be hard to know what to say when you call. Calling anyone (about anything) gets me kinda flustered so if anyone has been hesitant to call the governor because they worry they won’t say the correct thing, leave a comment to let me know and I can write a short script or bullet points for you to refer to.
However, I really want to emphasize that it doesn’t matter if we have the perfect words here. Just call, and speak from the heart, you’ll do fine!
With so many of us calling, virtually anything you say has a very cumulative effect. Gov. Cooper already has ALL the facts and is well aware of Ronnie’s case. We just need him to know that Ronnie has broad support from the public and that we expect the governor to do the moral and just thing here. I wish that truth and justice were enough of a motivation for him, but clearly that is not the case. If it were, Ronnie would already be free.
Frankly, I believe the only thing that will move Gov. Cooper is backlash from the public and fear of bad publicity/press. So, let’s make sure he knows that he can’t just sit back and do nothing, in the hopes that this will all go away. He needs to understand that this will only get worse for him and his approval rating as more and more people learn of the injustice Ronnie is suffering.
From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate every single one of you here. I know that Ronnie, Ashleigh and the rest of Team Ronnie Long do too. What you do for Ronnie, no matter how small it seems, matters more than you can know. Every call, email, post, tweet, conversation with a stranger, etc adds up. Only together, can we free this man.
Example script:
“I’m calling today to voice my support for Ronnie Long, an innocent man who has been wrongfully incarcerated in (our/your) state since 1976. There is not a single piece of physical evidence tying Mr. Long to this crime. In fact, the evidence makes clear that Ronnie could not have been the perpetrator. If North Carolina had run the fingerprints from the scene through AFIS or made a real effort to determine where the victim’s rape kit is so it could be tested, the whole ordeal Mr. Long has suffered would have been over many years ago and the real culprit would be behind bars where they belong.”
“I want to know why the governor allows this miscarriage of justice to continue on his watch. If black lives truly matter to Governor Roy Cooper, he needs to do more than just offer up words. He must act now, and free Mr. Long.”
NC Governor Roy Cooper roy.cooper@nc.gov
919-814-2000
NC Attorney General Josh Stein jstein@ncdoj.gov
919-716-6400
NC Clemency Office celemency@nc.gov
919-324-1456
#Team Ronnie Long