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"With the legalization of marijuana, what we will find is that it will minimize the touch of law enforcement in many communities that are already overpoliced," said Dawn Blagrove, Executive Director of Emancipate NC.

University lawyers filed court documents Tuesday in the case brought by protesters working with the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, Emancipate NC, and Washington, DC-based Muslim Advocates.

“Tyrone Mason, maybe, could be alive,” Blagrove said. “Maybe he could be here to tell you his story, and we’ll never know, because the trooper that ran him and chased him into a bridge did nothing to render aid in those crucial seconds after the accident.”

At the Thursday event, Mason’s family will be joined by civil rights attorneys Bakari Sellers and Ben Crump, Raleigh attorney Sean Cecil, national political activist Rev. Gregory Drumwright, and Emancipate NC Executive Director Dawn Blagrove. Local elected officials and community leaders will also be present.

On Thursday (May 29), the family will be joined by nationally renowned civil rights attorneys Bakari Sellers and Ben Crump, Raleigh attorney Sean Cecil, national political activist and organizer Rev. Gregory Drumwright, Emancipate NC Executive Director Dawn Blagrove, local elected officials, and community leaders at 10 a.m. in front of the Wake County Judicial Center.

Mason's family was joined by a Raleigh attorney and civil rights attorneys Bakari Sellers and Ben Crump at the rally held outside the Wake County Justice Center. Also in attendance were state Sen. Natalie Murdock, D-Chatham and Durham counties, and Dawn Blagrove, an attorney and executive director of Emancipate NC.

Two UNC students, a Duke student and professor, and a Meredith student are all plaintiffs in the case arising from events last spring. They are working with lawyers from the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, Emancipate NC, and Washington, DC-based Muslim Advocates.

The protest comes as the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, Emancipate NC, and Muslim Advocates have filed a lawsuit against UNC, alleging that the university violated the free speech and due process rights of five pro-Palestinian protesters banned from campus after last year’s encampment.

La demand was represented by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NCCU) School of Law and the organization Emancipate NC.

Riggs was the final speaker at the “In Our Court” conference, sponsored by Common Cause NC, the American Constitution Society, Emancipate NC, Democracy NC, and about a half dozen other groups.

“These latest revelations about young Jefferson Griffin only reinforce the deeply problematic character flaws that we see in him now,” said Dawn Blagrove, executive director of the advocacy nonprofit Emancipate NC.

City and county officials cut checks recently totaling $120,000 to five people who were arrested during a Nov. 23, 2019, protest in the city of Graham, the county seat of Alamance County, said Jaelyn Miller, an attorney with civil rights organization Emancipate NC. Miller and others represented the protesters.

“That's really the main amendment that separates us from a democracy to a dictatorship,” Emancipate NC Staff Attorney Jaelyn Miller said.

“What we are seeing today about Jefferson Griffin from high school and from college has a straight line to the Jefferson Griffin that we see today who is challenging legal votes of 60,000 people,” Dawn Blagrove said. “And just like the Confederates lost the Civil War, Jefferson Griffin will lose this election.”

“I am hopeful that he will serve from his lived experience as a Black man in America, fully informed by the systemic and institutional racism that well-documented academic and empirical research established as infesting the legal system,” Emancipate NC Executive Director Dawn Blagrove said.

“Despite Carrboro and Chapel Hill police emphatically rejecting UNC’s request, police departments all over the State, including as far away Boone, eagerly showed up to engage in violent, excessive force against individuals who were peaceful and committing no crime,” EmancipateNC staff attorney Jaelyn Miller said in a statement.

"Protesting is a way to show and remind the people in power to whom they are accountable and that is us," said Dawn Blagrove with Emancipate NC.

“Having to come [back] into society, I realized that I had a hard time being able to access services because I had to go so many different places and stand in line, and then I had to wait,” Pittman said in an interview with The News & Observer. “So the idea was to bring services to the people.”

“We are in a very scary time,” said Dawn Blagrove, CEO of Emancipate NC. She called Griffin’s effort “a blatant, unadulterated attempt to steal an election.”

“It’s amazing to witness the tears of the spirit turn to tears of joy, witnessing the frowns of individuals’ faces as they walk up to the center and then them smiling as they’re leaving,” Pittman said.