Blog
Biden’s Team Comes to NC: We Respond
CHARLOTTE — Emancipate North Carolina, and the North Carolina Black & Brown Policy Network released the following statement ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg visiting North Carolina tomorrow: “In...
Emancipate NC Debates Police Reform
Emancipate NC’s Kerwin Pittman was featured in a televised debate on police reform at Wake Technical Community College last week. He was joined by Senator Amy Scott Galey (R, Alamance), Senator Mejtaba Mohammed (D, Mecklenburg),...
Emancipate NC Goes to the NC Supreme Court
Earlier this year, Emancipate NC submitted an amicus brief, authored by Dawn Blagrove and Ian Mance, to educate the North Carolina Supreme Court about the racial justice consequences of Juvenile Life Without Parole. On Wednesday,...
Lester Kearney’s Family Speaks
Photo depicts Lester Kearney's family, along with Advocate Cierra Cobb, outside of the Warren County Courthouse in October 2021. Lester Kearney is an innocent Black man facing the death penalty in Warren County, North Carolina for the 2018 murder of an elderly white...
Abolish Solitary Confinement Already
Personal commentary by Elizabeth Simpson If it wasn’t heartbreaking, it would be funny. Two weeks ago, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, through its unironically named research unit, the “Innovation Institute,” concluded: there is a body of...
Victory In Alamance County!
Artwork by Dawn Blagrove Last week, we reported that Dawn Blagrove appeared in court in Alamance County to represent two witnesses who had been threatened with subpoenas and motions to compel after they offered truthful testimony regarding the racist statements of a...
Attorney General Concedes Need for Hearing in Case Tainted by Jury Discrimination
Earlier this year, Emancipate NC published an Open Letter to Josh Stein, North Carolina’s Attorney General, challenging his first-term record on criminal appeals. Our letter observed that in too many criminal cases, “Stein’s positions and arguments have been...
Emancipate NC Joins Anti-Confederate Monument Tour
Last week, Kerwin Pittman joined the ACLU of North Carolina and Durham Community Bail Fund on a tour of Confederate monuments in front of North Carolina’s county courthouses. The tour criss-crossed the State of North Carolina to see so many of these reminders of the...
Protest Defense Update
Photo was taken by Associate Director Elizabeth Simpson while legal observing in Raleigh, North Carolina on May 30, 2020. It has been more than a year since the summer of BLM protests that rocked North Carolina, demanding righteous and transformative change to the...
Defending The Right of Witnesses in Alamance County
Photo credit to the News & Observer October 4, 2021, Executive Director Dawn Blagrove pushed back against the systemic and institutional racism that permeates Alamance County by representing two Black women. These women are witnesses in a defamation case brought...
Emancipate NC Files Writ of Mandamus
On September 30, 2021, Associate Director Elizabeth Simpson filed a writ of mandamus in Wake County Superior Court against Prison Commissioner Todd Ishee to compel him to transfer Ashlee Inscoe from a men’s prison to a women’s prison. Ms. Inscoe is a female intersex...
Wake DA & Challenger Go On the Record
Emancipate NC hosted a panel discussion on The Future of Wake County Criminal Justice Reform with Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman, Wake County District Attorney Candidate Damon Chetson, Emancipate NC’s Kerwin Pittman, and Save Our Sons’ Dr. Kimberly...
Poetic Justice 2021 Recap
Emancipate NC’s Poetic Justice 2021 was a powerful testimony. Our Advocate, Cierra Cobb, and our Poet-in-Residence, Hausson Byrd, curated our poets. Cierra cultivated five currently-incarcerated poets: Phillip Vance Smith, II, Timothy Johnson, Larry...
Oust Pretend Progressives
By: Attorney Dawn Blagrove, Executive Director of Emancipate NC As recent months have unfolded, many Americans, and people of color especially have been forced to wrestle with feelings of powerlessness. We are bombarded with news of threats to the dreams of...
We Demand NCDPS Transfer Ashlee
A coalition of legal and gender justice advocates is taking action to demand the transfer of Ashlee Inscoe, an intersex, transgender woman currently housed in a men’s prison in North Carolina, citing Eighth Amendment requirements. Emancipate NC Associate Director...