True Colors: NC House Bill 805 and the criminalization of protest

Protests in Elizabeth City, NC — taken by author

A man in Salisbury, North Carolina shot into the crowd at a Black Lives Matter protest in the weeks after George Floyd’s murder. A man in Elkin, NC, drove his car into protestors; a judge in Fayetteville was arrested for doing the same. In Wilmington, a man repeatedly drove by racial justice protestors waving a gun out his window. For months, neo-Confederates harassed, intimidated, and tried to start physical confrontations with protestors marching in Graham.

When a line of armed men dressed in fatigues and ammunition belts marched down the streets of Sylva to “defend” the town’s Confederate monument; when the Ku Klux Klan rallied on courthouse property open carrying in Hillsborough; and when known white supremacists — including one later arrested as part of an unrelated terrorism plot — carried firearms and wore tactical gear in downtown Raleigh — North Carolina police and prosecutors claimed they could do nothing.

The threat on the streets of North Carolina cities and towns became clear in 2020: White, far-right counter protestors intentionally threatened both people and democracy through their actions. Instead of acknowledging and recognizing this threat, the NCGA however has pushed through House Bill 805, an anti-protest bill that severely increase penalties for certain charges associated with protesting…