I'm not off work today (go telecommuting), but it sounds like a lot of you are. What's going on out there?

Did you know that the first civil rights "freedom ride" took place in 1947, fourteen years before the 1961 riders captured the nation's attention by exposing the brutality of Jim Crow in the South? The Journey of Reconciliation was organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which was born at the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), and was led by FOR staff members Bayard Rustin and George Houser.

The interracial group of nine men on the Journey of Reconciliation set out from Washington, D.C. on April 9th, 1947. They met some resistance from passengers and drivers on buses in Virginia and North Carolina. But when they attempted to sit at the front of a bus in Chapel Hill on April 12th, the driver refused, and removed some of the riders by force. They were then attacked by angry cab drivers at the Chapel Hill bus station, and arrested by local police. Their subsequent time serving on a chain gang led Rustin to write about the experience. His serialized journal led to major reforms in the North Carolina prison system.

I ran across the yard sign pictured at left quite a few times as I was driving through central Orange County today, particularly plastered along the strip-mall section of Hillsborough along Churton St between the two interstates. Something tells me these folks aren't interested in "revolting" by lobbying their state representatives to allow us to utilize alternative revenue options. Does anyone have any insight about the story behind the signs? Is this a grassroots effort or is there an existing anti-tax group sponsoring this?