EDDIE GLAUDE SAYS WE
ARE THE LEADERS WE’VE
BEEN LOOKING FOR
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
“We are witnessing, I believe, the dismantling of the world that made our lives possible,” distinguished author, commentator and professor, Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., told the Black lawyers and Black doctors attending last weekend’s 2026 Annual Continuing Legal/Medical Educational Conference in Wilmington.
“Everything that was put in place to allow you to be in this room today, they are destroying,” Glaude continued, giving veiled reference to the Trump Administration’s elimination of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies , and destruction of established civil rights laws in the public and private sectors across the country.
“Of course there’s the attack on American history itself. They want to tell themselves a story [that] this nation has absolved them of responsibility and accountability.”
“They want to be white …without judgement!” Dr. Glaude declared, to applause.
The popular MS NOW political television analyst continued to rattle off the various ways the Trump Administration has allegedly violated the rule of law, sought to deprive American citizens of their constitution rights, and monetize governance into extraordinary wealth while a nation suffers from higher prices and few cogent public policies.
“W.E.B. Dubois once said if you really want to know what white supremacy really means, in our day, all you need to know is who is more susceptible to early death,” Dr. Glaude, author of the current bestseller, “America, U.S.A.:How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries” [Penguin Random House], said to even more applause.
“In short, our democracy is in deep trouble, and I say this not as a partisan, but to offer a description of a hard reality we all must confront in the 250th year of this fragile experiment. We find ourselves standing on the precipice. In the 250th year of this country, we have to deal with this sh-t again!”
“I’m wondering if this democracy can survive. And the present question , at least to me, is, ‘What will we do about it?”
Dr. Glaude reminded attendees of what happened after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, and how there was a deep “racial reckoning” throughout the nation, so much so that leading corporations began pushing DEI policies within their ranks as a sort of “apology” for the racist act.
Many in the Black Lives Matter movement didn’t by it, Glaude said, demanding accountability for past acts of discrimination.
But that so-called “apology” didn’t last very long, because it was followed by a swift backlash to any establishing of equal opportunity, Dr. Glaude recalls, exposing what the true feeling of the American hierarchy was.
“The only thing one can conclude given the swiftness of the backlash, is that folk were lying!” Dr. Glaude said. “They weren’t telling the truth.”
The current “storybook” celebration of the nation’s 250th year “requires a banishment of Black people from view, or a reduction of our role in the country’s history to affirm America’s quest to be a more perfect union,” he continued.
“But what might it mean to confront honestly that [America is] not a beacon of freedom?” Glaude rhetorically asked, noting that the nation continues to grasps the legacy of slavery without honestly acknowledging the evil that it caused.
“[To them], our story has to affirm the “innocence” of the nation,” allowing people like those in the Trump Administration to be “comfortable” in their hatred,” Dr. Glaude maintained.
“History calls us in this moment, and we will answer with courage and conviction. Did folks struggle for us to be in this room?,” Gaude rhetorically asked, “…so you can claim that you you put your feet under white folks’ tables?” “ Did folk die for that?”
“Ours is the moment of reckoning. You must rise to the occasion. We hold the responsibility of getting our babies to the other side.”
Glaude called for a reinvigoration of Black civil society and Black institutions in order to help save the Black community against the current onslaught by the Trump Administration and others to destroy any vestige of Black progress.
“Are we going to betray the tradition that made us who we are?” Dr. Glaude asked? “We cannot wait for these people to come to their senses!”
“What are you going to do?”
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EXCLUSIVE
BLACK LAWYERS, DOCTORS
TOLD “WE’VE GOT TO DO MORE”
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
It was a weekend of tribute, commemorating history, and preparing for a future of continued struggle and needed unity.
Last weekend, the 2026 Joint Annual Conference of the North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers (NCABL) and the Old North State Medical Society convened at the Hotel Ballast in Wilmington under the theme “Bridging Justice and Health: Collaborative Leadership in an Era of Uncertainty.”
“There is perhaps no better place to explore this theme than Wilmington, a city whose history reminds both of the extraordinary progress we have made and the work that still remains,” said NCABL President Kimberly Moore in a welcome letter to conference attendees.
“This conference is not simply about reflecting on history,” she continued.” It is about learning from history so that we can shape the future.”
And learn attendees did, with a weekend of CLE (continuing legal education) instruction; awards honoring outstanding legal practitioners throughout the state; presentations and panel discussions about important community challenges; and speakers giving their perspectives about access to healthcare, legal and legislative priorities.
On legislative priorities, two of North Carolina’s top Black judicial and legislative leaders warned of decisions and policies from both the Republican-led NC Supreme Court and the NC General Assembly that negatively impact Black North Carolinians.
“We have to be real about what we’re facing,”admonished NC Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls, one of two Democrats currently serving of the state’s high court and the Supreme Court’s only African-American. Justice Earls is currently running for re-election.
During her “View from the Bench,” Justice Earls reminded attendees about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling effectively crippling the 1965 Voting Rights Act and doing away with so-called majority-minority voting districts. Justice Earls added that she’s traveling the state during her campaign to make sure African-Americans understand why that ruling was important to them, and why they need to ”recognize and understand” what is happening at the state level.
“And how the state Supreme Court has contributed to the challenges [that we face],” she said.
` Justice Earls recounted how the state’s Republican-led high court reversed the Leandro decision, which a previous Democratic-led state Supreme Court upheld to ensure that public schools in North Carolina’s poorest counties receive the same funding as the state’s richest counties to uphold the North Carolina Constitutional guarantee that every child the right to receive “a sound basic education.”
“People need to understand that while it’s the legislature’s role to enforce education policy, it’s the court’s role to enforce educational rights,” Justice Earls said.
Earls also talked about how the court has allowed utility companies in the East charge exorbitant rates to the point where people with no air conditioning and no fans can’t afford their electric bills in 100 degree heat, and are having their power cut off until they pay their outstanding bills off in full.
One Black family in Rocky Mount who was behind in the electric bill, died in their home from the fumes of a gas-powered generator that was inside their trailer house.
Earls said state law requires that energy rates should be set at the lowest for consumers, and the state high court is not enforcing the state law. to protect.
Justice Earls said things in North Carolina are “so extreme right now,” that it is “easier to vote in Mississippi than in North Carolina.” She added that funding for legal aid, which helps those who need legal assistance to address evictions and domestic violence but can’t afford it, has been been cut by the legislature.
Earls also cited HB 377, a bill that allows Chief Justice Paul Newby to suspend without pay any trial judge under investigation in the state, a power that Justice Earls says no other chief justice in the country has.
When Justice Earls was under investigation for alleged comments she made about how the Republican-led state Supreme Court operated, if HB 377 had been in place, she would have been suspended by Newby without pay.
On Monday, Gov. Stein vetoed HB 377, saying that it would have a “chilling effect” on the state’s judicial independence.” He did vetoed House Bill 958, which made several changes to early primary voting.
Finally, Justice Earls shared more data that she said was “distressing” that Black attorneys would understand.
“From January 2023 when Republicans took charge of our [Supreme Court] until December 2025, during those three years] our court issued opinions in 66 criminal cases, and we ruled for the state in 63. We never ruled for a retrial in any one of them.”
“We are really [seeing] a concentration of power in the hands of a few in a way that is really hard for the public to understand,” Earls said. “We really are facing a challenge.”
NC Democratic Leader Robert Reives (D - Chatham) delivered the view from the NC House, and his message to his colleagues was simple - “We’ve got to do more.”
Reives recounted how the Republican majority in the NC House has done damage eliminating DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) from state government agencies, schools and universities. Leader Reives said yes, the community must vote come November, but in order to bring about the real change that is needed, more must be done beyond voting.
“We’re only one generation in for having rights,” Rep. Reives told his Black legal and medical colleagues, warning them that government is being weaponized against their community. “We have got to get involved. You say it’s time to vote? It’s way past that time! You are leaders in your community. You are a professional in your community. Your community is good to you. Let’s be good to our community. Let’s do more than vote. Let’s get active!
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