Statement From NCBA President LeAnn Nease Brown
Statement from LeAnn Nease Brown, 2019-20 President of the North Carolina Bar Association
We are lawyers. We cannot look away from injustice and we must call it by its name.
We embrace the rule of law, which requires that the authority and influence of the law constrain individual and institutional misconduct. We can accept no less.
It would be easier to look at the death of George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery or Breonna Taylor or Atatiana Jefferson as isolated incidents of racism by specific individuals. It would be easier to ignore the pandemic’s disproportionate harm upon people of color and lower-income workers. But we cannot look away. The systemic problems around race and class in America require us to take collective ownership of the work of change.
We must embrace one another and build our relationships on mutual respect, while acknowledging our history of institutionalized racism. We expect our law enforcement officers to respect people through their conduct. We expect black and brown people to be treated the same as all other people in our justice system. We expect protesters to exercise their constitutional rights in a peaceful and orderly manner. As lawyers and legal professionals, we must lead by demonstrating the courage and dedication to be our best selves. The work to advance justice and civil rights is ongoing and we all have a responsibility to oppose racism and to work toward change.
United States Representative John Lewis spoke eloquently this week about continuing the fight for equality and justice in a peaceful, orderly and non-violent fashion:
“Organize. Demonstrate. Sit-in. Stand-up. Vote. … Our work won’t be easy — nothing worth having ever is — but I strongly believe, as Dr. King once said, that while the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice.”
As we work to advance justice, I commend to you the programs and resources that are provided by organizations such as the Racial Equity Institute and Duke University’s Racial Equity Learning Arc. We will continue our efforts to underscore the importance of diversity and inclusion throughout the legal profession, and we will continue to speak out for justice and to seek positive, permanent change.
We have an obligation to push and to deliver a system of justice that works equally for all. We can accept no less. Together we must bend the arc toward justice.