The Dawn of a New Fulfillment: Equal Justice Under the Law 50 Years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act
On April 11, 2014 you are invited to attend a FREE Symposium at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, NC bringing together top experts from across North Carolina to speak on the state of minority rights in North Carolina on the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This event is co-sponsored by the North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers and North Carolina Advocates for Justice.
Speakers include SCSJ Executive Director Anita Earls, Criminal Justice Staff Attorney Daryl Atkinson, and Board Member James Ferguson.
To register, please email or call Michelle LaPorte
michelle@ncaj.com or 919.836.4215
AGENDA
8:30 AM DOORS OPEN/ Continental Breakfast
9:00 AM WELCOME
James E. Williams, Jr.
9:05-9:55 AM Revival of Plessy: The New Challenge of School Re-segregation
Professor Mark Dorosin
Pimping Brown v. Board of Education: The Destruction of African-American Schools and the Mis-Education of African-American Students
Professor Irving Joyner
10:00 -11:00 AM Congressman G.K. Butterfield
11:00-11:15 AM Break
11:15-12:00 PM Racialized Mass Incarceration: The New Jim Crow?
Daryl Atkinson
Raising Race in North Carolina Criminal Cases
Alyson Grine
12:00-1:30 PM Lunch On Your Own
1:30-2:00 PM Commemorating Legal Scholar and Civil Rights Giant-Julius L. Chambers
James E. Ferguson, II
2:00-2:55 PM The Impact of Voter Suppression Laws on the American Democratic Ideal
Anita Earls and Professor Kareem Crayton
3:00-3:40 PM The Perils of Litigating Discrimination Cases 50 Years After the 1964 Civil Rights Act
Geraldine Sumter
3:45-4:20 PM The Battle Over Reproductive Justice: Politicians in the Doctor’s Office
Sarah Preston
4:20-4:30 PM Questions/ Wrap-Up
James E. Williams, Jr.
4:30-5:30 PM Reception
Speaker bios:
Congressman G.K. Butterfield:
Congressman G. K. Butterfield is a life-long resident of eastern North Carolina. Raised in Wilson, Congressman Butterfield spent his formative years attending Charles H. Darden High School and worked tirelessly in the Civil Rights Movement as a youth. His parents were Dr. & Mrs. G. K. Butterfield, Sr. His father practiced dentistry for 50 years and served as the first black elected official in Wilson since Reconstruction. His mother was a teacher for 48 years.
Congressman Butterfield graduated from college and law school at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina. After earning his law degree, Congressman Butterfield founded a law practice in Wilson and served the community in that capacity for 14 years. He is best known for his successful litigation of voting rights cases that resulted in the election of African-American elected officials.
In 1988, Congressman Butterfield was elected as Resident Superior Court judge. In this role, he presided over civil and criminal court in 46 counties of North Carolina. For two years, he served on the North Carolina Supreme Court by appointment of the governor. Butterfield retired from the judiciary after 15 years of service and successfully ran for Congress. He was elected to serve the First District of North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election on July 20, 2004, where he continues to serve today.
Attorney James E. Ferguson, II: Commemorating Legal Scholar and Civil Rights Giant Julius L. Chambers
For many decades Mr. Ferguson has been recognized as one of the nation’s top civil rights, personal injury, and criminal defense attorneys. He has been honored by the National Law Journal as one of the nation’s top ten litigators, he has been listed in every edition of The Best Lawyers in America, and he is a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, an organization limited to 100 of the nation’s top trial lawyers. Mr. Ferguson is based in Charlotte. He served as lead counsel for the Wilmington Ten. He was also one of the attorneys for the defendant in the first hearing under the Racial Justice Act, which resulted in the conversion of Marcus Robinson’s death sentence for murder to life in prison without parole.
Professor Mark Dorosin: “Revival of Plessy: The New Challenge of School Re-segregation” Mark Dorosin is an Adjunct Professor of Law and Managing Attorney, Center for Civil Rights, at the University of North Carolina School of Law. In that role, he oversees and coordinates the Center’s litigation and advocacy agenda in its core program areas, Educational Advancement and Fair Opportunities and Community Inclusion. The Center’s work in these areas focuses on the most prominent impacts of racial exclusion, including inadequate or substandard housing; lack of basic infrastructure and beneficial economic development; targeting of environmental hazards or socially disfavored land uses; restrictions on civic engagement and political participation; and discriminatory school district boundaries, and school siting, attendance zones and student assignment decisions.
Professor Irving Joyner: “Pimping Brown v. Bd. Of Education: The Destruction of African –American Schools and the Mis-Education of African-American Students.”
Irving Joyner has worked as a Professor at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) School of Law since 1982. From 1984 to 1992, Joyner served as the Associate Dean of NCCU School of Law. He regularly teaches courses in Criminal Law; Criminal Procedure; Civil Rights; Race and the Law; Professional Responsibility; and Trial Practice. As a member of the faculty, Professor Joyner serves on a number of Law School and University committees. Professor Joyner provides pro bono legal counsel to several political, religious and community organizations and to needy individuals in civil rights and criminal appeals cases.
Attorney Alyson Grine: “Raising Race in North Carolina Criminal Cases”
Alyson Grine joined the School of Government in 2006 and is the Defender Educator at the School of Government. Prior to that, Grine worked for five years as an assistant public defender representing many non-English speaking Hispanic clients in Orange and Chatham counties. She previously served as a judicial clerk for Chief Justice Henry Frye of the NC Supreme Court in 2000 and Judge Patricia Timmons-Goodson of the NC Court of Appeals in 1999. Grine earned a BA with distinction from UNC-Chapel Hill, a MA in Spanish from the University of Virginia, and a JD with honors from UNC-Chapel Hill. She was honored with the School of Government’s Albert and Gladys Hall Coates Teaching Excellence award for 2013-2014.
Attorney Sarah Preston: “The Battle over Reproductive Justice: Politicians in the Doctor’s Office”
Ms. Preston has been with the ACLU-NC since 2006, directing that organization’s statewide legislative and policy program. After receiving her bachelor’s degree cum laude from St. Catherine University in Minnesota, she attended Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, receiving her law degree with certificates in Constitutional Law and Civil Rights and Legislative Practice. Ms. Preston has been admitted to both the Iowa and North Carolina Bars and sits on a number of state boards, including NC Child, North Carolina Citizens for Justice and the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
Attorney Geraldine Sumter: “The Perils of Litigating Discrimination Cases 50 Years After the 1964 Civil Rights Act”
Geraldine Sumter joined the firm. Ferguson, Chambers, and Sumter on December 31, 1982. Since joining the firm, Geraldine has concentrated on employment work primarily. Her other areas of practice include workers’ compensation, small business, non-profit, and other civil rights work including voting rights and school desegregation. Geraldine received a B.A. from Howard University in 1978 with a major in Political Science and Economics. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude and was inducted into the Political Science Honor Society (Phi Sigma Alpha). She received her J.D. from Duke University in 1981 where she served on the 1980 National Winning Team of Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition and the Duke University School of Law Moot Court Board. Geraldine is a member of the North Carolina and South Carolina State Bars. For a number of years, Geraldine has been voted by her peers as a Super Lawyer in employment litigation, as well as a member of the “Legal Elite” by Business North Carolina.
Attorney Daryl Atkinson: “Racialized Mass Incarceration: The New Jim Crow?”
Daryl Atkinson is a staff attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice focusing on criminal justice reform issues. Daryl received a B.A. in Political Science from Benedict College, Columbia, SC and a J.D. from the University of St. Thomas School of Law, Minneapolis, MN. Prior to coming to SCSJ, Daryl was a staff attorney at the North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services (IDS) where he co-managed the Collateral Consequence Assessment Tool (C-CAT). C-CAT is an online searchable database that allows the user to identify the civil disabilities triggered by North Carolina arrests, indictments, and convictions. Because of Daryl’s intimate knowledge of collateral consequences he was chosen to serve on an advisory committee for the American Bar Association’s collateral consequence project.
Attorney Anita Earls and Professor Kareem Crayton: “The Impact of Voter Suppression Laws on the American Democratic Ideal.”
Anita Earls is an accomplished civil rights attorney who is serving as Executive Director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice in Durham, North Carolina. She is one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs who are challenging the gerrymandered redistricting that was passed by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2010. Prior to founding the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, she was Director of Advocacy at the UNC Center for Civil Rights and Director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. In the Clinton Administration Ms. Earls was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where she had responsibility for the Division’s Voting, Educational Opportunities, Disability Rights and Coordination and Review sections.
Kareem Crayton is an Associate Professor at UNC School of Law. Crayton is a innovative scholar whose work integrates law, politics and race. He is one of the very few academics with formal skills in law and political science whose work addresses the relationship between race and politics in representative institutions. The insights from Professor Crayton’s research have distinguished him as a leading voice in the academy and in public institutions. His commentary, insight, and analysis regularly appear in major media outlets including The New York Times, PBS, and Fox News.