The Latest: Barber says civil rights movement will win

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The Latest on the annual “Moral March on Raleigh,” held Saturday in downtown Raleigh (all times local):

2:15 p.m.

A leader of North Carolina’s civil rights movement says bad election laws from the General Assembly ultimately will be overcome as people opposed to Republican tactics keep showing up to vote.

The Rev. William Barber of the state NAACP delivered the keynote address Saturday at the 10th annual march and rally of the “Forward Together” movement. The size of the gathering in sub-freezing temperatures reached into the thousands but didn’t appear to match crowds from the past two years.

Barber talked about a federal court’s redistricting decision that struck down two majority-black congressional districts as racial gerrymanders. He says the map’s authors need to repent for boundaries that suppress voting. A federal judge also is weighing the legality of a new voter identification requirement.

4 a.m.

Demonstrators seeking what they call progressive policies in North Carolina state government are gathering for their 10th annual march and rally, led by the state NAACP.

Organizers of Saturday’s “Moral March on Raleigh” plan to focus on get-out-the-vote efforts during an election year in which photo identification is required for the first time during next month’s primary.

The NAACP and others have sued to stop the voter ID requirement. The movement’s leaders have condemned this and other Republican policies pushed through state government this decade. Marchers may be buoyed by a federal court ruling last week that threw out two GOP-drawn congressional districts as illegal racial gerrymanders.

The march began in 2007 and routinely attracts thousands, with the largest crowd coming in 2014.