Blog
Toia Presents Proposed DSS and A/N/D Court Reforms to Safety & Wellness Task Force
The Durham Safety and Wellness Task Force was convened with the mission to develop proposals to increase the safety and wellness of all of Durham’s residents. Emancipate’s Toia Potts is a member of the Task Force, appointed by the Durham County Commission. Over the...
Report-out from Family Defense Training
The room at the WG Pearson Center last Friday was full. Emancipate NC and representatives from the Movement for Family Power, Civil Rights Corps, and Operation Stop CPS brought together impacted parents, community members, social workers, law students, and lawyers for...
Emancipate NC Joins United for Democracy
Team Emancipate is proud to be part of a new national coalition, United for Democracy, to “shine a spotlight on the impact of this Supreme Court on our families, our communities, our freedoms, and our democracy.” Emancipate knows as well as anyone how much power lies...
Alamance Community Celebrates Civil Rights Win
We wrote in our last newsletter about the significance of Black activist Dejuana Bigelow’s legal victory in a defamation case brought against her by a Confederate monument supporter. That significance was not lost on the pro-justice community of Alamance County. In a...
Welcome, Summer Interns!
Manasi Deorah is a rising 2L at UNC Law, and is excited to be with Emancipate NC this summer! She is primarily interested in movement lawyering and passionate about community organizing, on both the personal and professional level. She is also looking forward to being...
Indy Week Covers Irving v. Raleigh Settlement
Last week, the INDY Week covered our $350,000 settlement with the City of Raleigh in litigation about a wrongful home raid executed against Yolanda Irving and Kenya Walton and their families: During the 16 months the case was fought in civil court, lawyers...
Justice is Served in Alamance!
In October 2021 and in December 2022, we covered developments in an Alamance County defamation suit against a Black anti-racist activist, Dejuana Bigelow, and the role that Emancipate NC has played in the case over time. Last week, Ms. Bigelow and her attorneys, Erika...
Lunch & Learn with Movement for Family Power and Operation Stop CPS
The Family Policing ("child welfare") System tears families apart rather than providing them the resources they need to thrive. It's time to build the power of families struggling against this system. Next Friday, June 16, at 12:00pm, Emancipate...
Dawn and Ben Crump Team Up Again to Represent the Family of James Lanier
James Lanier, a Black man, was unarmed, unclothed, and suffering from a mental health crisis when he was tased, shot, and killed by police in February outside a mini mart in his hometown of Wallace, NC. Lanier had struggled with schizophrenia from a young age; police...
Locked Up 20 Years for a Crime You Didn’t Commit
Have you shared and subscribed to the Black Light Mass Incarceration Show yet? Host Cierra Cobb is dropping new episodes every Thursday full of intimate, earnest, heart-wrenching, and inspiring stories. From the 17-year-old convicted for decades on...
Settlement Reached in Irving v Raleigh
Photo credit: Cornell Watson (Kenya Walton (L) and Yolanda Irving (R)) On May 23, 2023, the Plaintiffs in Yolanda Irving et al. v. City of Raleigh et al., reached a settlement in their federal lawsuit with the City of Raleigh for $350,000.* Plaintiffs—two Black...
Team Emancipate Meets with USDOJ About Raleigh Police
On Wednesday, Team Emancipate met with attorneys from the Civil Rights Section of the United States Department of Justice. USDOJ agreed to meet with us after we sent a letter detailing systematic constitutional violations by the Raleigh Police Department (RPD). ...
More Witnesses Speak Out about the Harms of Durham DSS
When Mrs. Priscilla Smith shared the story of how the Durham Department of Social Services (DSS) mistreated her family, it inspired several others to come forward. Three additional individuals have offered their own painfully similar accounts of how Durham DSS and the...
Support LGBTQ+ Rights at Drag Trivia
Please support our friends at the Pauli Murray Bar Association by attending a drag trivia event next month. They stepped up to host it after the North Carolina Bar Association suddenly canceled the event out of fear of the homophobic and transphobic political climate...
Dawn Pens Op-Ed for Mental Health Awareness Month
Emancipate NC Executive Director Dawn Blagrove writes an urgent call for action in Raleigh this Mental Health Awareness Month: Helplessness. Fear. Internal turmoil. These are just a few of the emotions you may feel if a loved one was having a mental health crisis. You...