Arrowood Receives The Advocate’s Award
Catharine Arrowood
Catharine Biggs Arrowood of Raleigh is the 12th recipient of The Advocate’s Award. Presented as merited by the Litigation Section of the North Carolina Bar Association, the award recognizes “superstars” of the section and the legal profession. (Read the initial press release on the Litigation Section blog.)
Arrowood served as president of the North Carolina Bar Association and North Carolina Bar Foundation in 2014-15. She is also a past president of the Wake County Bar Association and 10th Judicial District Bar.
She has spent the vast majority of her career with Parker Poe, joining the firm in 1977 when it was known as Sanford Cannon Adams and McCullough. She was a partner in the firm from 1982 until assuming Retired of Counsel status last year. Prior to joining Parker Poe, Arrowood served as an associate attorney general for the N.C. Department of Justice.
Arrowood is a 1973 graduate of Wake Forest University and a 1976 graduate of the Wake Forest University School of Law, where she was associate editor of the law review. She is a native of Robeson County and a 1969 graduate of Lumberton High School.
Arrowood was recognized by the NCBA in 2011 as the recipient of the H. Brent McKnight Renaissance Lawyer Award. She is the second woman to receive The Advocate’s Award, preceded in that regard by Janet Ward Black who is also a past president of the NCBA/NCBF.
The complete listing of previous recipients reads as follows: (2006) Charles L. Becton, (2007) J. Donald Cowan Jr., (2009) H. Grady Barnhill Jr., (2010) James T. Williams Jr., (2011) Alan W. Duncan, (2012) Charlie Blanchard, (2013) A. Ward McKeithen, (2015) James E. Ferguson II, (2016) Bill Womble Jr., (2017) Janet Ward Black and (2018) Ted Fillette.
Due to restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the award was presented via web conference by Alan Parry, section chair, on Friday, June 19. The presentation, Arrowood noted, coincided with the Juneteenth celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. The full text of her remarks, with historical commentary presented in the vernacular of the times, follows:
I am truly honored to receive this award. Today is Juneteenth. and I would like to use this opportunity to speak about a North Carolina trial lawyer who would have received this award if he had been born in this century. His name is George Henry White.
Mr. White, a teacher from New Bern, was admitted to the North Carolina Bar in 1879. By all accounts, he was a formidable trial lawyer. In 1887, he was elected to serve as the prosecutor for Craven County. He was the first Black prosecutor in the country.
In 1897, Mr. White was elected to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives where he introduced anti-lynching legislation and bills to obtain parity for Black Americans serving in the U.S. military.
One year after his election, in 1898, the Wilmington massacre occurred, and the next year the first Jim Crow laws were passed in North Carolina. White’s service in the House ended with the election of 1900. In his last speech to Congress, he said, using the vernacular of the time:
“This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the negroes’ temporary farewell to the American Congress; but let me say, Phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again. These parting words are in behalf of an outraged, heart broken, bruised; and bleeding but God-fearing people, faithful, industrious, loyal people – rising people, full of force.”
The ugly world he stepped into is reflected in the equally ugly words of a Rep. Watts of Iredell County to the NC General Assembly and reported in the Raleigh News & Observer on March 5, 1901. Mr. Watts celebrated Mr. White’s defeat. He said:
“George H. White, the insolent negro… has retired from office forever….
We have a white man’s government in every part of the old State, and
from this hour no negro will again disgrace the old State
in the council chambers of the nation. For these mercies, we thank God!”
These remarks reflect the attempt by many to justify Jim Crow laws and the horrors that those laws encouraged by invoking divine authority which they preached from the pulpit and opined in the press.
While faith is to be respected, it is doubt that educates us and moves us forward. Blind faith leads to a dangerous path of acceptance and too easily provides a false justification for cruel and unjust laws and actions.
Mr. White choose not to return to North Carolina but turned his doubt into a force for change by becoming involved in numerous lawsuits challenging the disenfranchisement laws across the South. As trial lawyers you are well equipped to challenge and change unfair and unjust laws and to speak out against those who use law or faith as a shield for unjust actions. It is your duty to keep fighting.
I am most proud to be a trial lawyer and most humbled to receive this honor. Thank you.
Russell Rawlings is director of communications and external affairs for the North Carolina Bar Association.
This article is part of the August 2020 issue of North Carolina Lawyer. Access a curated view of NC Lawyer or view the table of contents.