Blog
Dawn Receives Award from Color of Change
Join the rest of Team Emancipate in congratulating Executive Director Dawn Blagrove on receiving the Consider It Done award this month from Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization! Color of Change hosted the Black History Now awards in...
Emancipate Files Against Summary Judgment in Bottom Case of Police Excessive Force
For more than a year, Emancipate NC’s Ian Mance has been working on a case involving yet another excessive use of force by police, this time in Salisbury, NC. Stephanie Bottom, a 67-year-old Black woman who works as a public librarian, was driving from her home in...
Application Closing Soon! Apply Now for 2023 Justice League Cohort
Emancipate NC mobilizes and trains youth and justice-impacted people of all ages in a fellowship program called the Justice League. We are currently seeking nominations of formerly-incarcerated people, justice-impacted people, and youth impacted by incarceration to...
Toia’s Fight to Reunite Her Family Builds Steam
Even in a system that has already done so much harm to Toia Potts’ family, DSS illegally directing the clerk of court not to file adoption petitions on behalf of her children’s biological kin still seemed almost unbelievable. And yet these actions were exactly what...
Emancipate NC and Ben Crump Join to Denounce RPD’s Murder of Darryl Williams
Team Emancipate and the rest of the Raleigh Demands Justice coalition have been calling for accountability and the implementation of our six demands since Raleigh PD murdered Darryl Williams. Last month, we welcomed reinforcements to this fight in the form of attorney...
Toia Potts Interviewed on WBTV Charlotte
For Team Emancipate, the work to transform “child welfare” is personal. It is shaped by the experiences of Toia Potts, a grieving mother and Emancipate’s newest organizer. Durham’s family policing system terminated her parental rights for two boys after she spent...
Durham DSS Slow to Reunify Kids with Families
Last month, we shared our first set of infographics to visualize data from the Durham Department of Social Services. Our latest findings reinforce Toia's personal experience: as we continue to review the public records – which DSS denied to us until we sued them under...
Catch the Latest from Black Light Mass Incarceration Show
Don’t miss the latest episode from Emancipate’s Black Light Mass Incarceration Show, “The Life of a Lifer.” From education to mental health, hosts Cierra and Jeffrey Cobb – plus a special guest – break down what life is like for individuals facing...
Join a Virtual Listening Session on the Harms of Solitary Confinement
On Tuesday, February 28, 2023, from 7pm - 8pm, Emancipate NC and other groups in the End SolitaryNC Coalition will co-host a virtual listening session via Zoom to discuss and help raise awareness about the harms caused by exposure to solitary confinement...
RPD Releases Bodycam Footage of Darryl Williams Murder
Image credit: Bob Karp (@photopup) Last Friday, after revealing the videos to his family, the Raleigh Police Department released the bodycam and security camera footage of its officers tasing Darryl Williams to death. The recordings capture the violence with which...
Emancipate ED Dawn Blagrove Essay on Changewire
Graphic by Olivia Lei “‘Hello, parents!’ That was the phrase, offered by Tyre’s mother as a normal greeting from him when he came into the house, that broke me this time.” So begins Dawn Blagrove’s latest story on Changewire.org, titled “From Memphis to...
“We apologize for the confederate statue. We’re working on it.”
Even when the long shadow of structural racism and white supremacy falls more quietly upon Black and brown communities, it is still harmful. The Move the Monument Coalition Edenton-Chowan has been fighting to remove a Confederate monument in Edenton, NC, one of the...
Demanding Accountability and Change, in the News and in the Streets
Image credit: Bob Karp (@photopup) In the wake of police murders, Emancipate responds. Gone are the days when Raleigh PD can direct the media narrative and make undisputed claims that its officers’ killings are “justified force.” On Tuesday, January 24, we...
We Must Invest In Authentic Alternatives to the Police
Emancipate NC seeks to build a vision — and reality — of authentic safety and wellness for our communities. We seek to dismantle systems of structural racism that mean that Black people are over-policed, over-incarcerated, and over-regulated – all...
The Story of Lester Kearney
The following is commentary by Elizabeth Simpson about the trial of Lester Kearney, and Emancipate NC’s role in shifting the narrative in the case, in the face of unethical prosecution tactics. Lester Kearney is an innocent man. Or, at least, he’s absolutely innocent...