FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 4, 2013
For More Information: Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, President, 919-394-8137
Mrs. Amina J. Turner, Executive Director, 919-682-4700
For Media Assistance: Rob Stephens, Field Secretary, 336-577-9335
NC Senate Votes to Restart Racially Biased Death Penalty
Forty-five years ago today, the world lost one of its greatest prophetic leaders of the modern age. On April 4, 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, in the middle of his most ambitious vision to date: the Poor People's Campaign. Two years ago, on the 43rd anniversary of Dr. King's brutal murder, the NC General Assembly chose to "honor" his legacy by introducing a bill that gutted the Racial Justice Act of its strongest provisions that attempted to rid racial bias from the application of capital punishment in NC.
This General Assembly seems to have a disposition to introducing its most radical and blatantly racist legislation around Dr. King's last day on earth. The NC Senate's decision to pass an extreme piece of legislation yesterday is disturbing. They want to simultaneously cut current protections against discrimination under RJA while speeding up and making it easier to kill people.
