One of the men arrested at Tuesday night’s Wake County Board of Education meeting has Richmond County ties, and described the school system offering to drop the charges if he agreed to stay off their property.

State NAACP Second Vice Chair Curtis Gatewood, the son of the late pastor of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Hamlet, said he did not accept the deal, and will face charges of second-degree trespassing and disorderly conduct rather than give up the privilege of attending the school board’s meetings.

“As far as I am concerned, the bottom line is being a voice for poor people who would otherwise have no voice,” he said.

Earlier in the day, hundreds marched through downtown Raleigh in opposition to the Wake County Schools plan for neighborhood schools and the abandonment of the school system’s previous diversity policy. The crowd included a delegation from the Richmond County NAACP with about 50 children.

“In my mind, it’s a good civic lesson (for the children),” said local NAACP member Gloria Mask. “They need to get involved in what is going on. They need to understand how things work, and they need to learn about peaceful demonstration.”

She said the demonstration was peaceful and orderly.

“On the whole, it was a great day and a great lesson for the children,” she said.

Mask’s son, Dr. Allen Mask, lives in Raleigh and contributes to WRAL-TV 5’s news broadcasts as a medical correspondent.

He described “powerful” speeches” at the rally, but said he was unable to get a ticket inside the school board meeting.

“The progressive citizens of North Carolina will not be lead backwards by a conservative group that is trying to turn back the clock,” Mask wrote in a Wednesday e-mail. “In fact, one survey showed that 94% of all Wake County residents are satisfied with the current system. Diversity has been a Godsend for all of our children. Creating high poverty, low income schools will not serve the needs of all of our children in North Carolina ... Ultimately, what is best for all of our children will prevail.”

He said there will be continuing efforts to resist the new policy.

Gatewood said he was in the first of a group of 16 people to be removed from Tuesday night’s Wake school board meeting, after chanting “Forward Forever, Backwards Never,” and had been asked to leave after speaking at a previous meeting before it was decided he wouldn’t be ejected on that occasion.

“The school board members walked away from their seat after we began chanting, like they were going to recess,” Gatewood said Wednesday. “Then, it seemed like out of nowhere officers came up to me, and a bunch of people began linking arms and continued chanting.”

Gatewood was given a $500 bond, which was posted by another NAACP member, he said.

Also arrested Tuesday was the state’s NAACP Director, Dr. William Barber, Rev. Nancy Petty of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh and another individual.

Both Barber and Petty had previously been arrested and informed not to return to school property by a letter prior to Tuesday.

Gatewood said the installation of three conservative members to the school board in January was a possible backlash among county voters to President Obama’s 2008 election, “and they pretty much have kept to their word that they ran on” to abandon the school system’s policy to bus students from diverse social and economic backgrounds to schools.

“While we don’t pretend the diversity program is the answer to all of our problems, all the data says that if we resegregate the schools and create high-poverty, racially-distinguishable schools, it is not going to be what’s best for the children,” Gatewood said.

He went on to say that one problem with having schools with lower socio-economic problems is recruiting teachers to stay there.

“It’s harder to get the most qualified teachers, because they want to have the most comfortable situations, so they usually take jobs with higher-income, predominantly white students,” Gatewood said.

Mask described the importance of Richmond County civil rights leaders getting involved in a struggle an hour and a half away.

“In my mind, this is like trickle-down economics,” she said. “If they’re allowed to do what we believe amounts to resegregating the schools, other places are going to feel like they can do it, too. So, we’re really trying to nip this thing in the bud in Wake County before it gets here.”

Staff Writer Philip D. Brown can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 32, or by e-mail at pbrown@yourdailyjournal.com.