North Carolina

DuPont, Chemours Sued For Contaminating Drinking Water

August 11, 2017 Sharon Lerner, www.theintercept.com Resist! Contamination, Lawsuit, North Carolina, Water

By Sharon Lerner for The Intercept - AFTER YEARS of litigation over PFOA, an industrial toxin used to make Teflon and other non-stick and stain-resistant products, in 2009 DuPont introduced GenX. Now the slippery substitute has followed the path of the molecule it replaced, contaminating water near plants in West Virginia and North Carolina, and attracting its own intense legal interest. The lawsuits over PFOA exposed the chemical’s links to several diseases, including kidney and testicular cancer. Like PFOA, also known as C8, GenX is a perfluorinated compound and similarly, was the subject of internal DuPont research showing it poses many of the same health concerns as the original chemical. Also like PFOA, GenX persists indefinitely in the environment. In the past two weeks, two citizens groups in North Carolina announced plans to sue Chemours, the DuPont spinoff company that now makes GenX, over its release of the chemical from its plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority issued a letter of intent to sue both Chemours and DuPont last week over violations of the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act over release of GenX into the Cape Fear River, which is a source of drinking water for more than 250,000 people in the Wilmington area.

NC Demonstrators Rally For ‘Independence’ From Fossil Fuels

July 6, 2017 Darren Botelho, www.wlos.com Resist! Fossil Fuels, North Carolina, Protest Demonstrations

By Darren Botelho for ABC News 13 - ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — A protest against Duke Energy brought dozens of demonstrators to Lake Julian on Tuesday. They called for independence from fossil fuels on Independence Day—promoting renewable energy, like wind and solar. "For a long time people have talked about the need for a clean energy revolution in our country. The good news is, in a lot of ways, it's already underway,” Buncombe County Commissioner Brownie Newman, who spoke at the event, said. Newman helped fire up more than a hundred people at Lake Julian Park. "At our last county commission meeting, with the encouragement of some of the people that are here today, I along with county commissioners Jasmine Beach-Ferrara and Ellen Frost, and Al Whitesides proposed to establish a 100 percent clean and renewable goal for Buncombe County," Newman said. Pro-environmental group Community Roots hosted the event and eventually led the crowd to the water. Tyler Garrison, a board member with Community Roots, then led the paddle towards the Duke Energy plant. "We hope number one we'll accomplish, which we already have accomplished, a greater sense of solidarity in the community [which we're] all pushing for [and] what we all want to see,” Garrison said, “[to] stop the oppression of the fossil fuel empire that's currently got their hands around our necks."

North Carolina Anti-Voting Law Finished By Court Challenges

May 16, 2017 Derrick Robinson, www.lawyerscommittee.org Resist! Courts, North Carolina, Voting Rights

By Derrick Robinson for Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law - WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law issued the following statement regarding today’s Supreme Court move which leaves in place the 4th Circuit’s decision regarding North Carolina’s comprehensive voter suppression measure: “The Supreme Court’s move today now renders North Carolina’s law null and void, and brings to close a long and protracted battle over a law deemed one of the most egregious voter suppression measures of its kind,” said Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law president and executive director, Kristen Clarke. “We are pleased that the Supreme Court has left in place the 4th Circuit’s decision finding North Carolina’s draconian voter suppression measure unlawful because it discriminated against minority voters with ‘almost surgical precision.'” “The battle over North Carolina’s law reflects the fallout from the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder which gut a core provision of the Voting Rights Act. Had the Section 5 federal review process remained in place, North Carolina’s discriminatory voting law would likely have been blocked at the outset and never would have gone into effect.

NAACP Calls For Boycott Of North Carolina

February 28, 2017 Staff, www.naacp.org Resist! boycott, NAACP, North Carolina

By Staff of NAACP - RALEIGH, NC—The NAACP Board of Directors announced a resolution calling for the discussion of the first steps of an international economic boycott of the state of North Carolina in response to actions of an all-white legislative caucus, which unconstitutionally designed racially-discriminatory gerrymandered districts, enacted a monster voter suppression law, passed Senate Bill 4 stripping the incoming Governor of power and passed House Bill 2. HB 2 is anti-transgender, anti-worker and anti-access to the state court for employment discrimination. NAACP National President/CEO Cornell William Brooks and North Carolina State President and National Board Member Rev. Dr. William Barber II, will hold a press conference today (Friday, Feb. 24th @ 11:00 am) at the NC General Assembly to discuss the economic boycott and rally supporters for direct actions against the legislators.

North Carolina County Sued For Discriminating Against Black Voters

February 17, 2017 Kira Lerner, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! North Carolina, Racism, Voting Rights

By Kira Lerner for Think Progress - As Attorney General Jeff Session’s shifts the Department of Justice’s focusfrom protecting voting rights to investigating claims of nonexistent fraud, the rights of an increasing number of minority voters will likely go unprotected. But in that vacuum, a growing number of organizations and advocacy groups have said they will step up to protect voters. On Monday, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed the first major federal voting rights lawsuit of the year, alleging that Jones County, North Carolina’s voting system discriminates against African-American residents. Jones County is roughly one-third black, but the black population has not elected a candidate-of-choice to the Board of Commissions in over two decades. According to the lawsuit, this is due to the county’s at-large voting system — a Jim Crow-era tactic that allows localities with white majorities to dilute black voting power.

RESIST: 80,000 March In Raleigh For Voting Rights, Democracy & #MoralResistance

February 13, 2017 Staff, www.commondreams.org Resist! Democracy, North Carolina, Voting Rights

By Staff of Common Dreams - Outrage over the Trump administration helped bring tens of thousands of marchers to downtown Raleigh, North Carolina on Saturday. Trump and the policies he will try to enact with the GOP-led Congress on immigration, health care and civil rights motivated many at Saturday’s march. Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP branch and leader of the “Moral Monday” movement, said in a speech: “A racist and greedy extremism that came to power in North Carolina four years ago now controls the White House and the Congress in D.C. Millions are afraid.

Video Shows NC Police Officer Slamming High School Girl To Ground

January 5, 2017 Monique Judge, www.theroot.com Resist! North Carolina, Police abuse, police brutality

By Monique Judge for The Root - A police officer in Rolesville, N.C., is on administrative leave after video posted to Twitter on Tuesday showed him picking up a female high school student and slamming her violently to the ground. The eight-second video shows a group of students at Rolesville High School crowded together, and then the officer slams the girl to the ground. After throwing her to the ground, the officer picks her up and leads her off with her hands behind her back. Police told WTVD/ABC11 that a fight occurred at the high school earlier that morning. A second video sent in to WTVD shows the fight that led up to the incident with the officer.

Rev. Barber Calls For Boycott In NC After GOP Power Grab

January 2, 2017 Amanda Terkel, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! boycott, GOP, North Carolina

By Amanda Terkel for The Huffington Post - The Rev. William Barber, head of the North Carolina NAACP and a leading voice on civil rights, is calling for a national economic boycott of his state due in part to its General Assembly’s failure to repeal the anti-LGBTQ law known as HB2. “We did it in South Carolina when they raised the Confederate flag,” he said. “We must do it, we believe, as this new legislature is trying to raise a new Confederacy, in policy, right here in North Carolina.” Barber said Thursday that his chapter would draft a letter to the national board of the NAACP later this month and ask for a boycott.

Can North Carolina’s Moral Mondays Movement Spark New Civil Rights Fire?

December 31, 2016 William Barber II, www.ebony.com Strategize! Civil Rights, Moral Mondays, North Carolina

By William Barber II for Ebony - Donald Trump’s triumph across the South and Midwest, which won him the Electoral College and the White House, did not extend to Governor Pat McCrory in my home state of North Carolina. After fighting his loss with false accusations of voter fraud, McCrory finally conceded in early December, becoming the only incumbent GOP governor in America to lose reelection. But partisan extremists in the North Carolina legislature called a special session last week to strip power from McCrory’s opponent, Democrat Roy Cooper.

North Carolina Is No Longer Classified As A Democracy

December 26, 2016 Andrew Reynolds, www.newsobserver.com Educate! Democracy, North Carolina

By Andrew Reynolds for The News and Observer - In 2005, in the midst of a career of traveling around the world to help set up elections in some of the most challenging places on earth – Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, Lebanon, South Africa, Sudan and Yemen, among others – my Danish colleague, Jorgen Elklit, and I designed the first comprehensive method for evaluating the quality of elections around the world. Our system measured 50 moving parts of an election process and covered everything from the legal framework to the polling day and counting of ballots. In 2012 Elklit and I worked with Pippa Norris of Harvard University, who used the system as the cornerstone of the Electoral Integrity Project.

Greensboro First Southern City To Allow Citizens To Decide City Spending

December 22, 2016 Ken Otterbourg, www.yesmagazine.org Create! North Carolina, Spending

By Ken Otterbourg for Yes! Magazine - His frustration could have ended there, but it didn’t. Through a friend, he heard about a process called participatory budgeting, which Greensboro’s city government was using for the first time this year. It allowed city residents, rather than elected representatives, to directly decide how to spend a portion of city funds. The result: The Greensboro Transit Authority is installing software that will allow passengers to track bus movements and better plan their days. “I was really happy,” said Black, who this year is starting a master’s program in information technology at North Carolina A&T State University.

Uprising Activists: Charlotte Mayor, Police Chief Should Resign

September 29, 2016 Ann Doss Helms, www.charlotteobserver.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Activists, Black Lives Matter (BLM), North Carolina, police brutality

By Ann Doss Helms for The Charlotte Observer - Local and state activists called Monday for Police Chief Kerr Putney and Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts to resign, as the city’s latest round of tension between police and the black community moves into its second week. At a Monday news conference held by Charlotte Uprising, a coalition that emerged during last week’s protests, speakers said both officials have failed to protect the city’s African American and working class citizens and withheld information about two fatal shootings last week.

Charlotte Is Drowning In Systematic Injustice

September 28, 2016 William J. Barber, II, www.nbcnews.com Resist! Injustice, North Carolina

By William J. Barber, II for NBC News - Just before 4pm, on Tuesday, September 20th, a Charlotte police officer shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott outside Scott's parked car. Eyewitness and police reports do not agree on who the officer was, whether Scott was holding a book or a gun, or what took place between officers and Scott before the shooting. There is much we do not know. But there is unrest in Charlotte because of what we do know.

Here’s What Activists In Charlotte Want From City’s Police Department

September 27, 2016 Julia Craven, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Activists, North Carolina, Police

By Julia Craven for The Huffington Post - CHARLOTTE, N.C. ― Sixteen North Carolina-based activist organizations dedicated to ending police violence released a list of demands to increase transparency in the death of 43-year-old Keith Scott on Friday. Charlotte Uprising, the designation for the recently founded collective, revealed its demands after Scott was shot and killed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers on Tuesday.

Cities Begin Marching In Solidarity With Charlotte

September 26, 2016 Jack Jenkins, www.nationofchange.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), North Carolina, police brutality, Protests

By Jack Jenkins for Nation of Change - Charlotte, North Carolina entered a fourth day of peaceful protests Friday night, sparking solidarity demonstrations in other parts of the country as people continue to express outrage over the killing of Keith Lamont Scott, a black man, who was shot dead by police earlier this week. More than 100 demonstrators chanted and waved signs reading “Just Release the Tapes” as they marched through Charlotte’s business district, demanding that local police release videos of the shooting recorded on dashboard and body cameras.

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