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NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW 
Volume 103 
Number 7 Forum Article 9 
7-1-2025 
Foreword 
Gene Nichol 
gnichol@email.unc.edu 
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr 
 Part of the Law Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Gene Nichol, Foreword, 103 N.C. L. REV. 197 (2025). 
Available at: https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol103/iss7/9 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been 
accepted for inclusion in North Carolina Law Review by an authorized editor of Carolina Law Scholarship 
Repository. For more information, please contact law_repository@unc.edu. 
103 N.C. L. REV. F. 197 (2025) 
FOREWORD: CONVERSATIONS WITH 
THE COALITION THAT PASSED 
THE RACIAL JUSTICE ACT* 
GENE NICHOL** 
For odd and unrelated reasons, over the past year, I have spent some 
substantial time with two of the most remarkable statutes enacted in American 
history. The first is the famed Civil Rights Act of 1964.1 Lots of folks did the 
same2—last year marking the sixtieth anniversary of the passage of what experts 
have reasonably deemed the “bill of the century.”3 No statutory enactment, by 
the United States Congress, or any other legislative assembly for that matter, 
has so profoundly altered the course of our national life as the Civil Rights Act 
signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964.4 
The other law is certainly less noted, less facially successful, less 
permanent and durable, and far more geographically confined than the 
marvelous public accommodations law. The North Carolina Racial Justice Act5 
was signed into law by Governor Beverly Perdue on August 11, 2009.6 It sought, 
breathtakingly, to end the ancient, seemingly invincible marriage between race 
and the death penalty in North Carolina.7 Its provisions and framework were 
 
 *  © 2025 Gene Nichol. 
 **  Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law. 
 1. Civil Rights Act of 1964, Pub. L. No. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. 
§§ 2000a–2000h). 
 2. See Chapel Hill History, Closing Remarks with Gene Nichol, YOUTUBE, at 00:22 (July 2, 2024), 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wD6i_AZuW4 [https://perma.cc/X9CF-VVJP] (on file with the 
North Carolina Law Review) (Symposium on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 
presented by the Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition and the Chapel Hill Public 
Library’s Community History Program). 
 3. CLAY RISEN, THE BILL OF THE CENTURY: THE EPIC BATTLE FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS 
ACT (2014). 
 4. President Lyndon Johnson Signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, U.S. SENATE, 
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/image/CivilRightsAct1964_signing.htm 
[https://perma.cc/C99E-TMCX]. 
 5. North Carolina Racial Justice Act, ch. 464, 2009 N.C. Sess. Laws 1213 (codified at N.C. GEN. 
STAT. §§ 15A-2010 to -2012), repealed by Act of June 13, 2013, ch. 154, sec. 5.(a), §§ 15A-2010 to -2012, 
2013 N.C. Sess. Laws 368, 372. 
 6. Press Release, State of N.C., Off. of the Governor, Gov. Purdue Signs North Carolina Racial 
Justice Act (Aug. 11, 2009), https://digital.ncdcr.gov/documents/detail/4574266 [https://perma.cc/ 
TCN7-78UB]. 
 7. § 1, 2009 N.C. Sess. Laws at 1214 (“No person shall be subject to or given a sentence of death 
or shall be executed pursuant to any judgment that was sought or obtained on the basis of race.”). 
103 N.C. L. REV. F. 197 (2025) 
198 NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW FORUM [Vol. 103 
beyond pathbreaking. Its enforcement subsequently demonstrated the 
grotesque, surely continuing, impact of racial bias in the implementation of the 
death penalty in this purportedly progressive southern state. And the Racial 
Justice Act’s ensuing history of attack, in both the North Carolina General 
Assembly and, now likely, its state supreme court, demonstrates an eventual 
fate less celebrated. 
Still, the two exceptional statues share much. Both seek, foundationally, 
to bring political communities into line with their long professed, and equally 
long transgressed, declared commitments and aspirations. Both demonstrate 
almost never before contemplated legislative ambition, as if lawmakers might—
for once—seek to combat their society’s greatest challenges. Both would require 
heroic steel and imagination from key legislators. Both efforts would be 
necessarily bolstered by massive, engaged activist communities outside the 
legislative halls. Both would be propelled by a widely shared sense that time for 
meaningful justice had arrived. Both could take solace in Dr. Martin Luther 
King’s repeated demand, “Be true to what you said on paper.”8 And, 
appropriately, both turn to shared legal mechanisms to make the promises of 
America real. 
So, when the resourceful and talented leaders of the North Carolina Law 
Review asked me to modestly participate in an oral history project exploring the 
passage of the North Carolina Racial Justice Act, I was happy to sign on. Much 
less is known, of course, about our state’s singular law of criminal justice racial 
reform than its nationally celebrated cousin. And the long-term impact of the 
Racial Justice Act in North Carolina decidedly remains in the balance. But these 
deficits argue only for greater exploration. So, I salute the project. I am 
immensely grateful for the efforts of Mia Thillet and Sam Scheipers, of the Law 
Review, for guiding me through the sessions. Most of all, I am honored to have 
been able to interview Ken Rose,9 Senator Floyd McKissick, Jr.,10 Charmaine 
Fuller Cooper,11 and Representative Pricey Harrison.12 Each one is a hero to 
me. Each was essential, absolutely requisite, to secure the Racial Justice Act’s 
eventual enactment—often, of course, after years of determined, exhausting, 
 
 8. Martin Luther King, Jr., I’ve Been to the Mountaintop at the Mason Temple, Memphis, 
Tennessee (Apr. 3, 1968), https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ 
mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm [https://perma.cc/GY5Z-DFPJ] (“All we say to America is, ‘Be true 
to what you said on paper.’”). 
 9. Ken Rose & Gene Nichol, Conversations with the Coalition that Passed the Racial Justice Act: Ken 
Rose Interview, 103 N.C. L. REV. F. 200 (2025). 
 10. Floyd B. McKissick, Jr. & Gene Nichol, Conversations with the Coalition that Passed the Racial 
Justice Act: Floyd B. McKissick, Jr. Interview, 103 N.C. L. REV. F. 239 (2025). 
 11. Charmaine Fuller Cooper & Gene Nichol, Conversations with the Coalition that Passed the Racial 
Justice Act: Charmaine Fuller Cooper Interview, 103 N.C. L. REV. F. 272 (2025). 
 12. Pricey Harrison & Gene Nichol, Conversations with the Coalition that Passed the Racial Justice 
Act: Pricey Harrison Interview, 103 N.C. L. REV. F. 318 (2025). 
103 N.C. L. REV. F. 197 (2025) 
2025] FOREWORD 199 
and demoralizing effort. The interviews demonstrate the complexities and steel 
required for the most important human rights work. They show, as well, that 
the hard labors of democracy must necessarily continue. 
 


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