In February, a diverse group of criminal justice reform advocates launched a campaign to rid North Carolina courthouses of Confederate monuments and symbols. CDPL stands in solidarity with this effort and with civil rights advocates who seek racial justice in all aspects of the criminal punishment and carceral systems. The continued presence of these monuments, many of which were erected during the Jim Crow era as symbols of white supremacy, is indicative of our state’s broader failure to root out racism that lies at the heart of the criminal punishment system. Their removal is an important first step toward rooting out inequities.

CDPL is proud to announce RacistRoots.org, an ambitious new project that reveals the North Carolina death penalty’s deep entanglement with racism. Using historical narrative and multiple viewpoints, this project puts the modern death penalty in the context of history. The North Carolina death penalty began as a way to enforce slavery and Jim Crow, and its racist roots run deep. Today, it remains a way to disproportionately punish people of color for crimes against white people. The death penalty is another Confederate monument we must tear down. Please explore this project and tell us what you think.