“We keep us safe” is a familiar refrain in progressive spaces — and one we hold close at Emancipate NC. Like so many of our partners across North Carolina and beyond, we fight every day — with everything we’ve got — to ensure safety and justice for our communities.
But we also know this truth: the colonial infrastructure we call America is crumbling. And that’s frightening. We feel that fear just like you do.
Yet in the midst of fear, we also feel something else — something just as urgent: possibility. In a moment that feels chaotic, we are committed to finding and building a new kind of order — one rooted in righteousness, fairness, and justice.
That’s why we are launching a bold new campaign:
“With the state, without the state, and against the state.”
The idea is simple but transformative: to build the world we deserve, we must sometimes work with the state, sometimes against it — but most importantly, we must always be ready to build without it.
At Emancipate NC, we’ve long stood with communities fighting back against state violence and injustice. We’ve worked within state systems to improve policies and push for accountability. But we also recognize that we haven’t done enough to build outside of the state.
Now, as the state systematically strips away civil rights, bans our books, erases our histories, and limits access to food, housing, and jobs, we know this truth:
We must remember and revive our collective legacy of survival without the state.
So what does it mean to build without the state?
- As they ban books from our schools, we will build community libraries to ensure our children’s minds are fed.
- As they cut off food and housing support, we will grow our own food and create our own shelters.
- As they dismantle public education, we will teach our children ourselves — in homes, in neighborhoods, in community.
The state believes that what it gives, it can also take. But we know otherwise.
We have always carved independence, autonomy, and dignity out of the margins — and no one can take what we build, what we control, and what we nurture together.
The heart of this campaign is this:
No matter what the state does, the people must have what we need to survive, to thrive, and to build a future worthy of our children.
You’ve marched with us as we’ve fought against the state.
You’ve informed our strategies when we’ve worked with the state.
Now, we ask you to join us in building without the state.
We’re cultivating ideas, policies, and strategies to turn this vision into action — and we invite you to walk with us.
This is not a time to passively accept what the state does to us or for us.
This is a time to use our creativity, our brilliance, and our collective will to build a world that sustains us in hardship and allows us to flourish in abundance.
Stay tuned for concrete ways you can get involved.
The work begins now. The future is ours to build.