TRESPASSING ON WHITE SUPREMACY: THE LEGACY OF ESTABLISHMENT WHITE SUPREMACY IN NORTH CAROLINA

White supremacy offers a unifying framework for understanding the legal history of North Carolina, the current legal regime of the state, and the actions of the state in responding to protests demanding redress from that insidious history. We provide a history of the First Reconstruction in the state, the leading role of white lawyers in the subsequent reaction resulting in the codification laws advantaging white citizens over nonwhite citizens, and the continuities between the early Jim Crow legal regime and the legal reactions to current protests in the state. We explore three waves of recent protests in North Carolina in the context of this legal history: Moral Monday, Confederate monument removal, and Black Lives Matter. We argue these protests point to the reforms necessary to root out persisting institutionalized white supremacy in North Carolina. We describe the legal theories we used in defending protestors and our attempts to reconcile the promise of equal protection under the law with racially disparate treatment in the state’s institutions. In doing so, we add a universal constitutional lens to the criminal charges brought against protesters and attempt to name what has become an invisible force in interpretation of North Carolina’s history.