MEMORIAL SERVICE SET FOR
ATTY JAMES E. FERGUSON
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
A memorial service has been set for Charlotte Attorney James E. “Fergie” Ferguson II, who co-founded North Carolina’s first integrated law firm, worked to successfully desegregate public schools in Charlotte and across the nation, and served as defense attorney for the later exonerated Wilmington Ten, among other noteworthy accomplishments..
Atty Ferguson died July 21st of an “extended illness,” according to his family.
He was 82.
“James “Fergie” Ferguson was a legal warrior for civil and human rights who I worked with for over 50 years,” recalls Atty Ferguson’s close friend and associate, Atty Irving Joyner, professor of law at North Carolina Central University’s School of Law in Durham. “He was bold, courageous, articulate, creative and an engaging attorney who used his immense legal skills to fight for justice. Along the way, he trained and inspired other attorneys to better utilize their legal skills and talents to join this ongoing fight for freedom, justice and equality.”
Upon word of his death, one of attorney Ferguson’s most successful students, NC Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls, took time to memorialized him on social media.
“My heart is heavy to know that my forever friend, mentor and former law partner, James E. Ferguson II, known to me as “Fergie,” is no longer with us,” Justice Earls wrote. “He taught me how to be a lawyer, and more than anything else, how to stand strong for racial justice and the essential humanity of every person.”
Even North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, son of Atty. Ferguson’s first white law partner Adam Stein, offered words of pride and remembrance.
“For as long as I can remember, Fergie has been my hero,” Gov Stein said in a statement. He was a steadfast champion of civil rights and spent his life fighting for the betterment of others. He was also incredibly charismatic, charming and kind.”
“And to my entire family, but especially my dad Adam, he was a dear friend.”
James E. Ferguson II was born in Asheville in 1942, one of seven siblings on the Southside. He grew up there knowing firsthand the legal racism of the Jim Crow South, something that would remain with him for the rest of his life. As a high school student, he led successful demonstrations opposing segregation and racial discrimination there, later cofounding the Asheville Student Committee on Racial Equality (ASCORE).
In April 1960 , young Ferguson led a student delegation that participated in the founding of SNCC (the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) at Shaw University in Raleigh.
As a college student at North Carolina College for Negroes in Durham - now known as North Carolina Central University - young Ferguson joined with other notable civil rights activists like Atty Floyd McKissick, Benjamin Ruffin, Eva Clayton and others in the fight for racial justice. Upon graduating NCCU with honors in 1964, young Ferguson attended Columbia University’s School of Law, one of the few African-American students to do so. While there, Ferguson fought against racial discrimination both at the school and in the surrounding Harlem community.
Graduating Columbia Law School in 1967, Atty Ferguson was invited by civil rights icon Julius Chambers and Adam Stein to form the first racially integrated law firm in the nation in Charlotte. This firm later formed a litigation relationship with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (now LDF). From that he helped to form the Southeastern Lawyers Association, which helped to produce lawyers throughout the South to combat segregation. After a split, part of that organization became the NC Association of Black Lawyers (NCABL), of which Ferguson became one of its first presidents.
In 1971, Ferguson led the defense team for several activists accused of burning down a white-owned grocery store and shooting at police and firemen in Wilmington. They were known as the Wilmington Ten, and their prosecution became worldwide news as the ten activists were framed, and deemed to be “political prisoners” by Amnesty International.
Despite all efforts, the Ten were unjustly convicted, and imprisoned. Their sentences were later shortened by Gov. Jim Hunt in the latter 1970s, but their false convictions would remain until 2012.
Also in 1971, Atty Ferguson led the historic litigation to help black students get an equal education in the landmark Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education case, which established using school busing as a means to desegregate public schools in North Carolina and across the country. The controversial case made it all the way to the US Supreme Court.
In recent years, Ferguson advocated successfully for Daryl Hunt to reverse his false 1984 murder conviction and obtain just compensation from the state.
Ferguson also worked to successfully have the Racial Justice Act signed into law, ensuring that defendants in capital cases had legal recourse if it could be proven that racial bias prevented them from getting a fair trial. The law was late overturned by Republicans.
In 2012, Ferguson helped lead the effort, along with Atty. Irv Joyner and the Black Press, to secure pardons of innocence for the Wilmington Ten and obtain just compensation from the state for the living members after forty years.
Those were just some of the many cases Atty Ferguson championed over almost 60 years in the legal profession fighting for justice and the downtrodden.
“Mr. Ferguson was recognized for decades in the The Best Lawyers in America publication. He was featured in The National Law Journal as one of the top ten litigators in the country. He was featured in the Charlotte Observer as "The Lawyer Lawyers Come to See", was recognized as a Super Lawyer by Super Lawyers Magazine, and was a member of the coveted Inner Circle, a group of 100 of the best plaintiffs' lawyers in the country,” The obituary from Atty Ferguson’s family states.
He also organized and participated in legal education and training programs in South Africa to inspire and improve litigation skills of African lawyers during its Apartheid era, also in litigation training programs for lawyers as an activity of the National Institute of Trial Attorneys (NITA).
Recently Atty Ferguson was awarded North Carolina’s highest civilian award, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine by Gov. Josh Stein.
After word of his death had spread, tributes from the NC NAACP, the Legal Defense Fund, the NC Association of Black Lawyers, NC Advocates for Justice, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation and others, poured in.
“Fergie” remains one of my heroes,” Duke Prof. Timothy B. Tyson, author of Blood Done Signed My Name - the true story of the 1970 prosecution of a Granville County Klan member for murder Ferguson took part in - wrote on social media, “… and [he] should always be remembered for his service to justice, kindness and wisdom.”
A memorial service will be 12:00 PM, Thursday, August 07, 2025, The Park Church, 6029 Beatties Ford Rd, Charlotte, NC 28216.
A.E. Grier & Sons Funeral & Cremation Service LLC, 2310 Statesville Ave., Charlotte, NC 28206 is providing service to the family in Charlotte.
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WHAT A DEMOCRAT COOPER
SENATE VS. GOP WHATLEY
RACE COULD MEAN
By Cash Michaels
An analysis
This might become the most expensive U.S. Senate race in American history, let alone North Carolina history.
Democratic former NC Governor Roy Cooper versus Republican former NC GOP Chairman Michael Whatley, to fill the soon-to-be vacated U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who announced after publicly opposing Pres. Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that he would not be running for a third term.
Cooper made it official Monday morning on X, saying "I have thought on it and prayed about it, and I have decided: I am running to be the next U.S. Senator from North Carolina."
As his much celebrated appearance at the annual NC Democratic Party Unity dinner last Saturday night showed, the former two-term governor remains the most popular, and most influential Democratic politician in the state.
Because of his Eastern North Carolina roots and moderate politics, Cooper has proven to be a formidable politician over the years with the ability to attract voters from both rural and urban areas of the state. Republican opponents have always tried to portray the former state representative and NC attorney general as being a tool of the ultra-liberal left, but Cooper’s “down-home" ability to effectively communicate with different constituencies across the state has always been his magic touch.
Cooper has never lost a race for public office in over 30 years of being in North Carolina politics, including his two terms as governor that ended in 2024.
Supporters hope that Cooper, 68, will be able to successfully do what he did last Saturday night at the NCDP Unity dinner - blast the Trump Administration for running up the national debt, cutting food stamp aid and health care for the poor, and giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.
And do it against a Republican opponent handpicked and endorsed by the powerful MAGA president.
Michael Whatley, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, and former chair of the NC Republican Party, is expected to formally announce for the seat as well.
Whatley, 57, reportedly stepped in, with Pres. Trump’s blessing, after the president’s daughter-in-law, Wilmington native Lara Trump, decided she wanted to pursue a career in television and music instead.
Still, Trump’s endorsement of Whatley will love to be formidable for NC Democrats, and particularly Roy Cooper, to overcome. The MAGA president has shown exceptional electoral strength in North Carolina in both endorsing local candidates for office, and during his two runs for the White House.
Whatley is expected to have at least two lesser known primary opponents for the Republican Senate nomination, but he’s expected to dispatch with them with little problem.
As if to clear an easy path to being the NC Democratic Party’s U.S. Senate candidate, former North Carolina Congressman Wiley Nickel has dropped his bid for the seat, and endorsed Cooper, announcing that he’ll run for Wake County district attorney instead.
Given the fact that North Carolina is one of a handful of states having senatorial elections in 2026, that raises its national profile in the midterm elections. North Carolina Democrats are also hoping to put one of their own in the Tillis Senate seat in order to close the current 53-47 seat gap with Republicans
Those two priority items could make the Cooper - Whatley U.S. Senate race one of the most expensive in U.S. history, perhaps topping 2024’s brutal U.S. Senate contest in Texas between Republican incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Colin Allred.
As of October 31st, according to Federal Election Commission records, that Texas Senate race raised an estimated combined total of $165 million.
Given the national prominence of next year’s Cooper-Whatley contest, observers expect at least that much to be raised.
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