Hi Friends,
We are truly in our feelings at Emancipate NC at the end of 2020. We’ve had a year that is full of heartbreak. And also full of love.
We know so many of you have lost people to COVID-19. We mourn with you. Emancipate NC has also lost loved ones. So many family and friends are gone too soon.
We mourn all the individuals who have died of COVID-19 in North Carolina’s prisons and jails. We worked so hard to get everyone home from those cages. We sued. We advocated. We pleaded and begged. We did get some folks free. But so many more are left behind. We’re still fighting.
We had a summer of beautiful, joyful, defiant uprising. So many of you went to the streets to insist: Black Lives Matter! We were there with you. We bailed you out of jail. We hooked you up with a free lawyer. We’ll be there in 2021, too. We are going to sue those racist police–over unlawful curfews, tear gas, kettling, and excessive force.
We moved hundreds of thousands of dollars into the hands of incarcerated people with our stimulus push. We negotiated with the prison’s General Counsel to get the information about stimulus money into the prisons when they didn’t want to deal with it. Our Justice League Fellows answered hundreds of hotline phone calls from prisoners and family members. We’re still working to answer all the letters we received.
Please know that this fight is for everyone who yearns for freedom in their heart. We are living liberation in our lifetime.
We are practicing abolition: by bailing someone out at 2 a.m., by answering calls from the prison hotline, by attending a training session, by protesting in the street, by speaking truth to power on the Racial Equity Task Force, by posting a website update, by balancing our books, by making a spreadsheet, and by drafting this email to YOU.
We love you.
In Solidarity,
Dawn Blagrove, Elizabeth Simpson, Kerwin Pittman, and all of the Justice League Fellows, interns, poets, pro bono lawyers, law students, and Board members that make this happen
P.S. Because of COVID, folks who don’t normally itemize charitable deductions can deduct up to $300 off the front of their taxes. Check it out!