Blog
Standing Up to SRO Abuse in Greenville
Image by Amanda Denise, NewsChannel 12. School Resource Officers are supposed to keep students safe -- but like most police in this country, they are actually trained to view the very people they are supposed to protect as the enemy. At North Pitt High School in...
Emancipate NC Settles Public Records Suit With Durham DSS
Photo depicts some of the attendees at a Roundtable event at Duke Law School to discuss “Keeping Families Together in Durham County” held on December 6, 2022. Last month, we reported that Emancipate NC sued the Durham County Department of Social...
Emancipate NC Forces RPD to Ban No-Knock Warrants
Image by Brett Villena for the Indy Week The Indy Week’s “Trauma and Lawsuits” article on Wednesday profiles two families’ whose homes were wrongfully invaded by Raleigh police using unconstitutionally quick warrant entries. The families are represented...
Dear Raleigh PD, De-Escalation Takes More than A Few Words
Image of Kerwin Pittman being interviewed by ABC11 News For over four years, Emancipate NC has been demanding accountability for misconduct by the Raleigh Police Department. The tragic and all-too-familiar cases ranging from Kyron Hinton in 2018 to Daniel Turcios...
Victory in Alamance!
This month, an Alamance Superior Judge entered an order dismissing the majority of a defamation suit against a Black anti-racist activist, Dejuana Bigelow, and the entirety of a defamation suit against her co-defendant, a white anti-racist activist, Jennifer Love. Ms....
Emancipate NC Joins First Amendment Lawsuit Against Graham Police
Photo by Julia Wall, The News & Observer Earlier this month, Emancipate NC partnered with a pair of local attorneys to file the latest in a series of lawsuits against the City of Graham and law enforcement officials in Alamance County concerning the violation of...
Kerwin Returns to the Taskforce for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice
Earlier this week, Emancipate’s Kerwin Pittman accepted his reappointment by Governor Cooper to the NC Taskforce for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice (TREC). In this role, Kerwin has helped propose much-needed changes to the state’s criminal justice system...
Duke Law Students Host Roundtable on Child Welfare Reform
Art by Dawn Blagrove Law students at Duke Law School will host a roundtable discussion with Professors Crystal Grant from the Children’s Law Clinic and Allison Korn from the Health Justice Clinic on the importance of family preservation and local...
Emancipate NC Sues Durham County For Public Record Transparency
Art by Dawn Blagrove In September, Emancipate NC and Thrive Tribe NC released a comprehensive report on the pressing need for child welfare reform in Durham County. We urged the county to collaborate with all community stakeholders –...
Raleigh PD’s Draft De-Escalation Policy Falls Short
Artist unknown During the summer, the Raleigh Police Department (RPD) launched a “listening tour” as part of its announcement that it would be adopting its first de-escalation policy. This announcement came in response to strong community pressure. Persistent...
Emancipate NC: The CLE Seminar
Emancipate NC is excited to bring you a highly-demanded Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminar to kick off the new year. Sliding scale for attorneys and free for students! Join us on Friday, January 20, 2023, from 9:30am - 4:00pm for Lawyering in Service of...
Upcoming Event: Behind Closets and Bars
Join us at Duke Divinity School on November 9, at 6:30 pm, for a panel discussion about issues at the intersection of prison and LGBTQ rights. Strategic Director Elizabeth Simpson will join her former client, Amanda Marriner, a formerly-incarcerated...
Dedan Is Acquitted
Last week, Emancipate NC Organizer Dedan Waciuri was acquitted of Resist, Delay, Obstruct misdemeanor charges, in a district court trial in Pitt County, North Carolina. Dedan was represented at trial by Strategic Director Elizabeth Simpson, with assistance from UNC...
Dawn’s Vote4Justice Tour Continues at Shaw University
With critical midterm elections now less than a week away, Team Emancipate’s Dawn Blagrove has continued her Vote4Justice tour of North Carolina HBCUs. Most recently she spent an evening talking with Shaw University students about the importance of voting –...
Congratulations to the Justice League 2022!
On October 22, 2022, Kerwin Pittman and Cierra Cobb held the final meeting of the 2022 Justice League cohort. Our Justice League Fellows have done amazing work this year – founding new organizations, mobilizing students, organizing...