2023 was a beast, y’all. Despite that truth, Emancipate NC continues our fight for liberation and freedom from the racist carceral state and the systems and structures that enable and perpetuate it. 2023 has been a year of growth as much as it has been a year filled with new challenges. The only outcome is liberation. We will get free . . . together.
The last few years offered more hope to the people than we have seen in a very long time. But, 400-plus-year-old systems of oppression and white supremacy don’t die without a fight. After a period of progress and hope, the results of the 2022 election transformed North Carolina and presented formidable challenges to our efforts to help Black communities remember their power. The state Supreme Court flipped to a conservative and repressive majority. The new majority wasted no time rolling back the progress of previous courts and dragging North Carolina back to Jim Crow, reversing landmark decisions issued by the previously progressive court with surgically precise policies and practices aimed at lynching growing Black civic power. The elections also shifted the partisan majority of the General Assembly, which fast-tracked and approved the passage of HB 40, a bill that punishes and criminalizes acts of protest and public discourse.
But, Emancipate NC was built for times like these. We have pivoted our approach, investing resources into helping amplify the political power of the people. We are changing the rules of engagement, away from those established by the current oligarchy that were NEVER designed to build people power, towards a more guerrilla warfare approach to freedom. Emancipate NC knows the road to liberation has to be paved anew. So, we listen to the people and follow their lead through a jungle of white supremacy towards freedom. With proverbial machetes, we are making our own path and clearing the way to our self-determination.
In Durham, the local Safety and Wellness Task Force passed a proposal that includes transformative changes to pre- and post-arrest diversion, cash bail, and abuse/neglect/dependency court. In Raleigh, the police department has banned the use of no-knock warrants, and city officials have signaled a willingness to approve the establishment of an alternative crisis response unit that will deploy mental health professionals, rather than armed police, to non-violent emergencies. We are replicating successes like these in small- and mid-sized rural communities throughout the state.
We have injected new energy into our organizing work by welcoming several new staff members. Team Emancipate now includes Jatoia Potts, Organizer; Jaelyn Miller, Community Lawyering Fellow; and Margaux Lander, Investigator & Strategist.
This year, we were reminded that the systems we are fighting are not designed to allow us to win – but we will never be defeated.
Our strength continues to lie in activating people like you, who feel the oppression of the racist carceral state most acutely, in efforts to abolish it. Our advocacy, education, and organizing are powered by people directly impacted by policing and incarceration – and strengthened by our solidarity with interconnected movement ecosystems.
Thanks to you, we are emancipating North Carolina – not only from prisons and jails, but also from white supremacy and legacies of slavery, slave patrols, and Jim Crow laws.
In Solidarity,
Dawn Blagrove