MORRISVILLE, NC (11/19/21) — Today, we witnessed a criminal justice system that protected a violent white supremacist over the rights and safety of racial justice protestors. While the Rittenhouse trial verdict is unconscionable, it is in no way surprising for many communities across North Carolina.
This is the foundation of white supremacy at work – a two-tiered system driven by white privilege and power, where Black, Latine, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Indigenous communities are continuously victims of state-sanctioned violence and oppression, and right-winged nationalists walk free from murder charges.
We must not forget our own state’s tragic past of racism, violence, and terror. The Wilmington Massacre of 1898 was a bloody attack on a growing Black community by a heavily armed white mob, or the Battle of Hayes Pond where the Lumbee Tribe organized armed resistance to the Ku Klux Klan in 1958, or more recently when a Pasquotank County Sheriff’s deputy murdered Andrew Brown Jr., sparking months-long protests from communities across the state. What was our state legislative response? House Bill 805, a retaliatory bill designed to take away the voice of the people who not only have a right to protest, but a real and substantiated distrust of police.
Cheryl Carter, Interim Co-Executive Director of Democracy North Carolina, expressed her deepest sentiment for those who continually fall victim to racial injustice and white supremacy,
“We grieve for so many today. Those who suffer deep harm from the oppressive hold of white supremacy and power, and those who continue to organize and mobilize against these unjust systems. For almost 30 years, we have been a people-powered organization, centering our most marginalized voices to uplift and empower those who are purposely forgotten.”
Black Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter. Racial Justice Matters. Time and time again, we recommit to our mission – to build power among disenfranchised communities, and inspire confidence in a transformed political process that works for all.
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Democracy North Carolina is a statewide nonpartisan organization that aims to strengthen democratic structures, build power among disenfranchised communities, and inspire confidence in a transformed political process that works for all.