New claims added to NC voting rights lawsuit

The Advancement Project and the NC NAACP have filed two new claims this week on a lawsuit challenging North Carolina's new voting laws, according to a press release. Calling the laws "the country’s most extreme and restrictive voting legislation," the organizations listed three additional claims to the suit. The press release states that lawsuit now: 

·         Challenges the provision of the law that eliminates the pre-registration of 16- and 17-year olds 

·         Makes explicit that the law has a disparate impact on Latinos as well as African Americans 

Click here to read more about the plaintiffs who are suing North Carolina over its voter ID law and other related legislation, including the initial hearing held in Winston-Salem.

Edited: The Advancement Project corrected an initial press release stating that three claims were filed, confirming that only two items were added. A third claim, that the law violates the 24th Amendment prohibiting poll taxes, is not part of the suit as originally stated.

PHOTOS: Workers press Coble for immigration reform

Dozens of workers and immigrant allies rallied outside of US Congressman Howard Coble's office in Greensboro today, calling on him to support comprehensive immigration reform. The event — organized by Working America, the NC AFL-CIO, SEANC, Teamsters Local 391, Guilford County Association of Educations, Immigrant Rights Working Group of Guilford County and the Greensboro NAACP —began as a rally before the coalition delivered petitions to Coble's office.

Photos by Eric Ginsburg

Developing: Charlotte Observer reporter arrested while covering Moral Monday

Courtesy of the Advancement Project

Tim Funk, the faith reporter for the Charlotte Observer, was arrested today at the Moral Monday protest at the NC General Assembly, according to a statement released by the Advancement Project. Funk was covering the demonstrations and was one of almost 100 people who were arrested at the weekly action protesting regressive legislation put forward by the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

Protestors who intend to be arrested at the demonstrations are separated from the rest of the attendees, both in where they stand and (at least last week) by green ribbons around their risk indicating their intention to be arrested. The Advancement Project, one of the organizations behind the demonstrations, also released this fuzzy photo of Funk being arrested today.

We will post more information as it becomes available. Read more about Moral Monday here.

UPDATE: Jennifer Farmer, a spokesperson for the Advancement Project who witnessed the incident, said Funk was there to cover the protest, not participate, adding that he had been with protesters all day interviewing people.

"When he was arrested he was just covering the event," Farmer said. "It looked like he tried to explain to them that he was a reporter. This was definitely during the course of work for him."

A spokesperson for the NC Capitol Police was not immediately available for comment.

PHOTOS: Greensboro contingent joins Moral Mondays

 Here are a few photos from the protests at the NC General Assembly on Monday. Full coverage coming in Wednesday's issue of YES! Weekly.

Inside the building

Part of the Greensboro contingent

New Creation Community Church Pastor Frank Dew (in blue), before he was arrested for civil disobedience. 

A few Greensboro residents came to support and witness the civil disobedience

Rev. Nelson Johnson, left, and retired Bishop Chip Marble, right (both of Greensboro), talked to NAACP organizer Rob Stephens near the protests.

Rep. Pricey Harrison (D- Guilford County), flashed a thumbs-up, took photos and watched the protest before crossing the street to talk to participants (here with her hands on her hips).

Additional photos:

Demonstrators entering the building in pairs

Frank Dew, left, watches an arrest and waits his turn. 

Waiting for jailed protesters to be transported in buses (in the background)

Under surveillance: the NAACP and working with other agencies

This week's cover story about Greensboro police surveillance of activists is long, so long in fact that we had to cut two entire sections out to make it fit. Here they are in full:

NAACP

The civil rights organization has worked closely with the Beloved Community Center and Latin King leader Jorge Cornell over the years, but a request on the NAACP turned up a minimal amount of criminal intelligence.

One of the few mentions came from former Captain Charles Cherry, who alleged that, “Councilman Matheny in a August 23, 2010 e-mail directed the GPD to look for ways to charge NAACP members, because the citizens complained to Mr. Matheny.” Cherry, who says he was fired from the department for helping officers file complaints of discrimination, also claimed in the same message that Chief Miller intimidated an NAACP member.

Most of the e-mails pertaining to the group surrounded the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade that the organization coordinates. A 2007 police parade assignment document names four officers, including JR Robinson who appears on other intelligence reports and future gang-squad officer Ernest Cuthbertson.

The team was assigned to the parade route and surrounding area, aiming to “monitor activity and relay intel to [Incident Commander].” The following year the intelligence team for the parade was smaller, consisting of Richey, Flowers and Robinson, but had an identical assignment.

Cuthbertson was later the team leader for the “event response/arrest team” at a June 11, 2011 NAACP rally against reopening the White Street landfill. The team included six other officers, including gang unit officer Roman Watkins who regularly clashed with the Latin Kings.

Finch alerted other officers that the NAACP was planning a march to address the police department, landfill and other issues in May 2011 and that state NAACP President William Barber would be there.

“We’ll have the source in there so we don’t necessarily have to cover it,” he wrote on May 25, but didn’t give more details about he source. When asked about possible overlap with other groups, Finch said, “I know that Nelson Johnson and the Latin Kings will be at a few of the anarchist events. I’m not sure that Barber would want to align himself with the anarchists but I guess anything is possible.”

Sharing information

Part of Finch and Flowers’ regular duties required them to coordinate with other agencies. Officers in other departments who had attended Finch and Flowers’ training regularly requested the information, and the two spent time helping other agencies with intelligence.

Finch and Flowers forwarded information about demonstrations, like a Farm Labor Organizing Committee protest on May 6, 2011, to other departments and also met with other agencies to share intelligence. Reports show regular correspondence and meetings, especially between officers in major North Carolina municipalities, about various “subversive” tendencies.

E-mails show that Greensboro police coordinated and discussed responses to Occupy with police departments around the country, such as an Albany, NY officer asking for advice on dealing with occupations, and a Richmond, Va. officer cautioning against growing anarchist involvement. Finch forwarded an e-mail with the agenda for a statewide Occupy meeting, highlighting three workshops about the Democratic National Convention (or DNC), anarchism and homeland security.

In mid-May, 2011, the two helped Goldsboro police with “a large number of Pagans coming to town,” a few days later helping Mayodan police with intelligence on an Aryan Brotherhood member and Kentucky State Police about a Klan and National Socialist Movement member.

The department received regular updates on “extremist” activity throughout the country and world, from alleged anarchist riots in Greece to changing outlaw motorcycle gang allegiances. Bulletins, like one from the FBI on Feb. 21, 2012 entitled “Methods used by anarchist extremists while attempting to disrupt a political event,” were a regular occurrence.

Greensboro police were invited to a free training called the “Domestic Extremism Symposium” on June 29, 2012 in Illinois hosted by the Gang Professionals Network. It is unclear if any officers attended the event, which covered several of Finch and Flowers’ regular targets as well as lone offenders, black separatists and American Islamic and Puerto Rican extremists.

An FBI report on anarchist graffiti in Charlotte leading up to the DNC was forwarded to campus security throughout the state — including GTCC, Forsyth Technical Community College, Guilford College and UNCG — on March 30, 2012 and included a request for photos and notification of any “suspicious graffiti on your campus.”

Milton Harris with the Joint Terrorism Task Force called to request any intelligence gathered during the NC Rising anarchist conference, which primarily consisted of various workshops. Finch and Flowers went to Charlotte Nov. 29, 2011 to meet with the FBI and Charlotte police because “they have a bunch of people that they need identified and want to go over the files we have on them” for anarchists and Occupy participants.

They worked with Oakland police to help identify “several of our NC anarchists, including two from Greensboro” who were among 400 people arrested in an Occupy Oakland march in late January 2011. The two also provided surveillance and assistance to Asheville police during court dates for alleged anarchists who were charged with property destruction in downtown Asheville on May 1, 2010.

“We’d be very glad to come to Asheville and assist you guys in any way [during the court case],” Flowers wrote on Dec. 15, 2010. “We conduct a great deal of covert surveillance and have identified numerous state players in the anarchist movement.”

Finch and Flowers were taken up on the offer, and went to take pictures of people and vehicles and identify people in court supporting the accused.

The oldest e-mail turned up in the search is about a call to action for “Insurrection Night” in June 2004. FBI special intelligence officer Gary Evers warned that website called for acts of vandalism at specific sites coinciding with the G-8 Summit in Georgia.

“It should be noted that the web page is signed by the ‘Southeast Anarchist Network’, which is based in Greensboro, however no specific acts of violence are known for Greensboro at this time,” Evers wrote.

Around the same time, Evers offered Greensboro police a 347-page anarchist manual and “other information concerning anarchists,” the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front on a disc.

An inability, or lack of desire, to coordinate

It's no surprise that Trayvon Martin's murder sparked outrage and action in Greensboro, as it has around the world. Yet from my vantage point receiving one press release after the other, it's difficult not to wonder why the groups of people organizing protests and marches on the issue seem incapable or uninterested in coordinating their efforts.

Just this morning, I read a press release from the UNCG NAACP calling for a related march on April 11 and another from RockStar Church Inc. announcing plans for prayer vigils on the issue every week this month (April 5, 12, 19 and 26). As part of the demonstration against the new Guilford County Jail on April 12, there will be a Trayvon Martin youth contingent. On top of that, there is an open mic event about the issue tomorrow.

Greensboro has already seen back-to-back protests related to the case, first with an action at the post office called by DJs from 102 JAMZ and then a rally and march at Governmental Plaza the next day. I am terrible at estimating crowd sizes, but both events drew hundreds of supporters. A week later, an event about Martin at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum reportedly turned out hundreds as well.

There's nothing wrong with having separate or multiple events that highlight the same issues, in fact it may be more effective for keeping the conversation about the case — and everything it brings up — going. It makes sense that an open mic event, which is a significantly different format, would exist as a stand alone event. But it seems like two things are happening here.

First, some of the organizations calling for protests appear to have conflicting interests and do not want to work together. I am not surprised that a prayer vigil beginning at 6:30 a.m. doesn't appeal to the people organizing a demonstration against the new jail. Even though there were brief religious references at the march at Governmental Plaza, where the two largest banners were from the International Socialist Organization, I am not surprised that an explicitly religious group wants to go it alone.

Similarly, the ICRC&M and 102 JAMZ have their own agenda and names to promote, their own style of organizing to offer. I am not questioning whether anyone is genuinely taking action around the case — my perception is that all parties involved are — but it seems that self interest is also playing a decisive role in keeping these actions separate.

Secondly, there appears to be a huge lack of communication. Why not have the UNCG NAACP march on April 12 (a day after it is planned) beginning with a separate rally and turn into a feeder march to the new jail in coordination with the Trayvon Martin contingent? Do these groups even know about each other's events? Could the post office action have been scheduled for the end of the march at Government Plaza instead of two similar events a mere 25 hours apart?

In my experience doing this type of work in Greensboro and talking to people regularly who are involved in it, social justice work (or however people want to refer to it) happens in silos here. There is amazing and important organizing happening, but even groups working on the exact same issue seem unable to coalesce and cooperate. There are certainly legitimate reasons for different groups to approach the same issue differently, but when every single group appears to be trying to fight it alone, it's hard to imagine their isn't a more effective approach.

I'd love to hear more people's thoughts on this issue. It's possible that I am totally off the mark, but I've heard this complaint from people working on immigration, homelessness, get out the vote campaigns and so many other issues. The local efforts against Amendment One seem to be a notable exception, but maybe people on the grassroots level of the issue see it differently. What do you think?

NAACP asks DOJ to reject Guilford redistricting plan

UPDATE: Allison Riggs, voting rights attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice who is working with the NAACP on the challenge, says the charge of racial packing is based on the 3.0 percent increase in black voting age population in the Davis district.

"Black voters in High Point are concentrated in a number that is higher than Bruce Davis needs to win," she said.

Riggs, who was joined by Barber on a conference call, discounted the notion that maintaining at least 50 percent black voting age population is necessary to avoid retrogression under the Voting Rights Act.

"There are situations of retrogression where you have unavoidable retrogression," she said.

ORIGINAL POST: The North Carolina NAACP is calling on the US Justice Department to reject a redistricting plan for the Guilford County Commission that was imposed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly in July. Guilford County is covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires that any change in voting districts must be approved by the federal government.

The news of the challenge comes in a press release from the Rev. William J. Barber, president of the state NAACP. Greensboro NAACP President Cardes Brown and Guilford County Commissioner Carolyn Coleman said a press conference will be held tomorrow in High Point.

Brown and Coleman took particular exception in an interview this evening to the effect of the GOP plan on two white Democrats on the commission, Kay Cashion and Kirk Perkins.

"[The Republicans have] worked hard to eliminate allies to the black community who have at least been open to compromise and cooperation," Brown said, "and [they are] stacking it with people who are estranged to the community and are attempting to keep it oppressed."

"What they did is they took out of Kirk Perkins' district the 35 percent African American population that would have been important because that gives us influence," Coleman added.

Coleman's district is 5.3 percent below ideal population following the 2010 Census count and would need to pick up an extra precinct to be rebalanced. All of the adjacent districts have either lost population or remained about even except Perkins' district, making it a logical source of population to replenish Coleman's district. A map submitted by Democratic County Commission Chairman Skip Alston overcame both a demographic and a challenge problem by having Coleman's district grow west into Greensboro's Irving Park neighborhood and beyond.

"They're taking away the at-large people, which is where we would have some influence," Coleman said. "They're putting Kay Cashion and Linda Shaw together. That's a more Republican district. I'm not going to comment on who would win or lose. Kirk Perkins' district becomes more conservative. I just don't see where our influence will come from, or where we will be able to exert the influence."

Changes to the three minority-majority districts are subtle and partly caused by demographic realities; all three have lost population over the past decade, and the drop from nine to eight districts means that ideal population has increased. Those two factors combined mean that the three districts must expand geographically.

The Republican plan bleeds black voters — whose registration leans heavily Democratic — out of Perkins' district by transferring six precincts into Coleman's district. Three of them have large black majorities. The district represented by Alston grows west and picks up five racially mixed precincts. The district currently represented by Bruce Davis compensates for a loss of black population in High Point by growing into Greensboro. That is a feature of all proposed plans that meet population-balance requirements, including the one put forward by Alston.

The NAACP press release contains two assertions — one echoed by Brown — that are at odds with reality.

"These new districts pack African-Americans into three districts, limiting minority influence in other districts," the press release reads. Brown said in his comments, "They are stacking and packing minority districts...." The term "packing" suggests that the percentage of black population is being increased.

In considering whether the Republican plan increases the concentration of black population in the three minority-majority districts, I bench-marked black voting age population in the current district plan based on data provided by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. District 1, represented by Davis, has a black voting age population, or BVAP, of 47.7 percent. District 8, represented by Alston, has a BVAP of 62.0 percent. District 9, represented by Coleman, has a BVAP of 63.7 percent.

Based on statistics provided by the NC General Assembly, the new District 1, where Davis is the incumbent, has a BVAP of 50.7 percent. The new District 8, where Alston is the incumbent, has a BVAP of 59.9 percent. The new District 7, where Coleman is the incumbent, has a BVAP of 64.3 percent.

The greatest change, an increase of 3.0 percent, is seen in Davis' district, where the Voting Rights Act requires that black population be at least 50 percent to avoid retrogression. The other increase, in Coleman's district, is insignificant: a bump of 0.6 percent. In Alston's district, BVAP actually decreases by 2.1 percent.

The NAACP press release also states that the Republican plan "bunks white and black incumbents together creating the possibility that there will be no black representation in High Point."

That is not correct. Bruce Davis, a black High Point Democrat, is the only incumbent in the new District 1.

Brown and Coleman could not explain the basis of the assertion in the press release, but Coleman said, "Generally an incumbent finds it easy to win reelection, but if [Davis] leaves that district it is very possible that an African American will not be elected."

NAACP leaders are also criticizing the process by which the Republican redistricting plan was adopted, arguing in the press release that the plan "was enacted with discriminatory intent and will be retrogressive for minority voters. The reduction in representation, coupled with the non-participatory process by which this change in election method occurred, warrants an objection. We call on the US DOJ to reject the submitted plan as the jurisdiction has failed to show that the plan will not be retrogressive to African-American voters."

NAACP leader challenges new Republican leadership in Raleigh

The Rev. William Barber II visited Greensboro today.

The Rev. William Barber II made a stop in Greensboro today to drum up support for the NC NAACP’s upcoming Historic Thousand on Jones Street assembly on Feb. 12 and to lend support to the cause of a group of black officers who have been fired after complaining about employment discrimination.

“We are in full support of bringing a just conclusion to these unjust racial firings and wrong that have gone on in Greensboro’s police department. There will be no turning back on that matter until there is justice,” Barber said at a noontime program at Faith Community Church.

Five years ago, the state NAACP committed to redressing “ugly chapters in North Carolina’s racist history,” including Klan-Nazi shootings in Greensboro in 1979.

“Until you address that, we continue to see new manifestations of the same things,” Barber said. “That is why we must stand strong, and we must stand clear and we must stand firm. Because anytime you have a breakage, a breakdown of trust within your police department, it actually undermines public safety, because where there is no public trust, there can be no public safety.”

He added later: “Right in this city, again, they want to violate fundamental civil rights and protections. You can’t just fire people because you don’t like them. You can’t just fire them because they’re black. You can’t intimidate people on the job, run them off their job. There are laws against those kinds of things.”

The rallying cry of Historic Thousands on Jones Street, an annual gathering lead by state NAACP and comprised of a broad coalition of progressive groups, this year is, “Forward together, not one step back.” Barber pledged to fight rather than accommodate the conservative policies of the new Republican majority in the General Assembly, including pledges by legislative leaders to make up a budget shortfall entirely through spending cuts.

“We’re doing it this year [gathering] particularly in the face of the ultra-conservative, extreme right-wing tea party elements that are trying to infiltrate both parties with the regressive politics that is rooted in the politics of yesterday rather than in the politics of tomorrow,” Barber said.

The civil rights leader noted the irony of observations about the Republicans taking power for the first time in a hundred years, considering that the Republican Party of the 19th century in North Carolina occupied the opposite end of the political spectrum.

“A hundred years ago the Republicans were Lincoln Republicans,” Barber said. “They were Republicans that were pro civil rights and pro labor rights and pro educational funding and pro lifting up from the bottom. Those were the Lincoln Republicans. And it’s yet to be seen if this crowd is in the same historical genre as the Lincoln Republicans. They can’t claim that history easily. The Lincoln Republicans formed fusion politics with blacks and whites. The Lincoln Republicans worked together, and between 1868 and 1898 there were more African Americans and whites working together in the General Assembly than we have today.

“The Lincoln Republicans and African Americans rewrote North Carolina’s constitution, and removed race and white supremacy from, and placed equal protection laws in our constitution,” he continued. “The Lincoln Republicans, that’s a different group. That’s a different history. And they were put out of office in 1902 after the Wilmington riots. And then you had the Dixiecrats come in, and they reinstituted white supremacy. So we say to the current Republican Party and the ultraconservatives and extreme white wing: We know history. And you can’t just claim that you’re back in office after a hundred years. The proof will be in the bills you pass.”