UNC Center for Civil Rights

UNC Center for Civil Rights The UNC Center for Civil Rights is committed to training law students in civil rights and social jus Inspired by civil rights attorney, Julius L.

Chambers in 2001, the UNC Center for Civil Right strives to extend America's promise of justice, prosperity and opportunity by elevating families and communities above the boundaries of race, class and place. The Center's mission is to use community-based impact advocacy and legal education and scholarship to advance strategies that secure social, economic and environmental justice for low wealth,

minority families and neighborhoods. Using a range of advocacy strategies which include community education, research, and public policy efforts, the Center is recognized nationally as one of the principal, university-based hubs of civil rights advocacy in the South. The Center draws on the strengths and resources of the School of Law, the university, its client communities, and a range of nationally renowned advocates, scholars, and lawyers to further its progressive civil rights agenda. The goals of the Center's intersecting programs and initiatives are to:

1) Represent, educate, and advocate for minority and low-income people, principally in the American South, building their capacity to remove unfair racial and economic barriers and to improve their own communities;

2) Lead in influencing public policies at local, state, and national levels and in developing innovative, effective, and sustainable programs that remove racial and economic inequalities; and

3) Ensure that future generations of attorneys are equipped to continue the ongoing campaign to secure fair and equal opportunities for minority and low-income people. Areas of Research Include:
• School integration, diversity and equity
• Justice
• Fair Housing
• Equitable Access to Public Services
• Civic Engagement

Since 2004, the Center has hosted or otherwise engaged in the North Carolina Election Day call center as part of the national, non-partisan Election Protection voter advocacy and information program. Election Protection is the nation’s most ambitious non-partisan program for preventing voter disenfranchisement. Center staff train law students on North Carolina election law and then those students staff the hotline and directly engage with voters to provide the information they need. Hundreds of students have staffed the hotline over the last 10 years. Make a gift online at GO.UNC.EDU/M7G5K

07/05/2024
01/15/2024

We celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and recommit ourselves to his vision of peace and justice in a world that needs it more than ever.
- Ted Shaw
Director of the UNC
Center for Civil Rights

11/23/2022

The UNC Center for Civil Rights mourns the deaths of five Club Q patrons and the injury of eighteen others in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Club Q is an L.G.B.T.Q.+ nightclub.

We condemn the hatred of L.G.B.T.Q.+ people and violence directed at them. We urge greater legal protections on their behalf. Here at Carolina Law, we urge all members of our community to create a welcoming community, to reject homophobia, and to condemn and reject those who would use freedom of speech to mask hatred and prejudice. We cannot allow silence to become violence.

The UNC Center for Civil Rights stands as an ally with the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community. We say the names of those killed at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado: Kelly Loving, Daniel Alston, Derrick Rump, Ashley Paugh and Raymond Green Vance.

We pray for an end to the senseless violence perpetrated under the guise of Second Amendment protected rights.

Please join civil rights advocates, family and community members on Monday, 11/21 to honor James Lewis Cates, Jr. Read m...
11/14/2022

Please join civil rights advocates, family and community members on Monday, 11/21 to honor James Lewis Cates, Jr.

Read more here:
https://south.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1092/2020/11/JamesCatesTwitterThread.pdf

11/09/2022

Interested in making a difference in the lives of others? We're hiring! The UNC Center for Civil Rights is hiring a Business Service Coordinator. Apply today! https://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/245324

It's Election Day! Attached is an overview guide of the candidates for statewide positions on the ballot today! Bring yo...
11/08/2022

It's Election Day! Attached is an overview guide of the candidates for statewide positions on the ballot today! Bring your friends, your family and neighbors to vote with you today!

Your voice matters! Your vote counts! If you haven't already, be sure to vote November 8th (tomorrow)! Check out our Ho...
11/07/2022

Your voice matters! Your vote counts! If you haven't already, be sure to vote November 8th (tomorrow)! Check out our How-To Guide to help you prepare.

On Nov. 8th, polling places are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m: Any voter in line at their assigned polling place at 7:30 p.m. will be able to vote. The voting lines can be busy early in the morning and just before the polls close.

On the eighty-sixth anniversary of the birth of Julius L. ChambersJulius L. Chambers was born eighty-six years ago today...
10/06/2022

On the eighty-sixth anniversary of the birth of Julius L. Chambers

Julius L. Chambers was born eighty-six years ago today, on October 6, 1936. He lived seventy-six years, during which he made his state, his country, and the world better than he found it. Julius’ legacy is memorialized by a portrait that graces UNC Law School, in a biography authored by Richard Rosen and Joseph Mosnier, and with a statue in Charlotte, N.C. Streets, highways, and a high school bear his name. Julius’ legacy is part of the institutions he led, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, North Carolina Central University, and the Charlotte law firm he founded. One of Julius’ last endeavors was the creation of the UNC Center for Civil Rights. It is part of his living legacy.

But if you want to understand Julius’ legacy, search the cases he litigated and argued in trial, appellate and in the U.S. Supreme Court. Find the lawyers who worked with him and under his direction, and those he inspired to become lawyers. Talk to the clients he represented and counseled.

Julius is now part of the pantheon of great civil rights lawyers. He walks with Charles Houston, Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, Robert L. Carter, and Jack Greenberg. I especially hope that new generations of UNC Law students, faculty, administrators and employees, as they pass through the Law School’s rotunda pause, look at Julius’ portrait, learn about and reflect on his life and career, and honor his memory.

-Theodore M. Shaw

Today on September 15th, we say the names of four innocent and beautiful black girls; Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Denise...
09/15/2022

Today on September 15th, we say the names of four innocent and beautiful black girls; Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Denise McNair (age 11), Carole Robertson (age 14), and Cynthia Wesley (age 14), who were killed by the Ku Klux Klan in what is known as the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963.

The girls were dressed in their Sunday best eager to sing and serve as ushers for the adult service that day. As they prayed and prepared together in the ladies' room located in the basement, a powerful bomb containing 19 sticks of dynamite exploded. Ten-year-old Sarah Collins (now Sarah Collins Rudolph) who was also in the restroom at the time of the explosion, lost her right eye, and more than 20 other people were injured in the blast. Rudolph still has pieces of glass inside her body. She told the Associated Press that then-Gov. George C. Wallace helped lay the groundwork for the Ku Klux Klan attack on 16th Street Baptist Church with his segregationist rhetoric. “If they hadn’t stirred up all that racist hate that was going on at the time, I don’t believe that church would have been bombed,” said Rudolph who wears a prosthetic in place of her right eye and still incurs medical expenses from the explosion.

Freedom of speech is guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. We cannot allow that "freedom" to have the power erase the other freedoms afforded by the Constitution. We must stand up and speak out against hate speech, actions of hate and to those who spew hate-filled messages.

Allen Buansi Wins Primary for NC House SeatAllen Buansi, an alumnus of UNC Law School and a former staff member of the U...
05/18/2022

Allen Buansi Wins Primary for NC House Seat

Allen Buansi, an alumnus of UNC Law School and a former staff member of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, won a primary election contest for a seat in the North Carolina General Assembly last night. There was no Republican primary candidate; guaranteeing that Allen will soon be Representative Buansi, serving N.C. House District 56. This is not Allen’s first foray into public service. Allen grew up in Chapel Hill, attended Chapel Hill public schools and has served on the Chapel Hill Town Council. We are immensely proud of Allen for all that he is, for all he has done, and for all he will do.

A message from UNC Center for Civil Rights Director, Theodore M. Shaw on the passing of Walter Dellinger: While Walter ...
02/16/2022

A message from UNC Center for Civil Rights Director, Theodore M. Shaw on the passing of Walter Dellinger: While Walter was on the faculty down the road at Duke, he was no stranger to those of us in Chapel Hill. Many of us had friendships and professional relationships with Walter. My decades-long friendship with Walter dated back to my days at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, when he collaborated on numerous issues, and included his time at the Justice Department as Acting Solicitor General. It would have continued on amicus strategies in the UNC/Harvard diversity cases now pending in the Supreme Court.

Walter was brilliant, kind, gentle, and generous. I remember his participation in the Fourteenth Amendment/Bakke symposium the Center for Civil Rights hosted a year ago. I especially recall his powerful remembrances as a son of the South of the time before and the moment at which Brown v. Board of Education was decided.
Walter’s passing caught me by surprise. I shall miss him.

Ted Shaw

Walter E

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