PITTSBORO, NC – The North Carolina Green Party (NCGP) sees the August 1 certification of our party by the North Carolina State Board of Elections as vindication for our organization and for the over 22,000 residents who signed our petition for more voter choice in this state. The decision is a reversal of the June 30, 2022, decision by the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) in a party-line vote of 3-2 to reject the NCGP’s petition for “new party status” and with it the ballot access required to run Green candidates.

North Carolina Green Party
www.ncgreenparty.org

For Immediate Release
August 2, 2022

Contact:
Tony Ndege, Cochair, [email protected]
Michael Trudeau, Secretary, [email protected]

However, NCGP cochair Tony Ndege stated, "This ruling is only the first step toward justice, democracy, and transparency for the people of North Carolina." According to Ndege, "The decision by the NCSBE to certify our party two months after our application deadline and one month after our nominee deadline does not surprise us. The NCSBE’s behavior has been observed nationwide, and this has significantly tarnished the board's public standing. At this juncture, justice has not been fully served to the NCGP, which is why we are seeking to have our Green nominees rightfully placed on the North Carolina ballot for November 2022." Some of the damage NCGP believes the State Board has caused include the following:

• By refusing to certify the NCGP in a timely manner in accordance with state statute, the NCSBE has caused serious damage to our party as well as to all independent parties and future unaffiliated candidates.

• By refusing to certify the NCGP in a timely manner in accordance with state statute, the State Board of Elections has irreparably damaged current and future petitioning endeavors in North Carolina. 

• The actions of the NCSBE have left the door open for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, other dark-money super PACs, and other partisan operatives to engage in harassment, voter intimidation, and even fraud toward thousands of people who signed the NCGP petition, and this has caused lasting damage not only to the party but also to the entire electoral process.

• The actions of the State Board of Elections have defamed the NCGP, unconstitutionally casting “a cloud” – as the NCSBE director Karen herself has publicly stated – over the NCGP's petition signatures and with them the party, its candidates, and its volunteer supporters, all while the NCSBE has failed to officially produce a shred of evidence to the NCGP to support its false and, the NCGP believes, willfully misleading allegations against the party and specifically against the party's working-class volunteers.

• By forcing county boards of election staff to verify the handwriting of the signatures against voters’ signatures on voter registration forms, the State Board of Elections has engaged in what the NCGP believes is disingenuous, blatant partisan hypocrisy, in that on July 15 of 2022, two weeks after the NCSBE voted 3-2 along party lines to deny the NCGP’s petition, the NCSBE again voted 3-2 along partisan lines that county elections officials shall not crosscheck voter signatures on absentee ballots against the respective signature on voter registration forms.

Further, it is NCGP's belief that the actions of the State Board of Elections have appeared to be partisan in favor of the Democratic Party, and these actions have resulted in serious injury to the democratic process in our state: for one, the NCSBE has undermined and tarnished the reputation and standing of the NCSBE’s own county boards of election, casting "a cloud" over the directors and staff of the county boards and forcing these workers to engage in many hours of forensics signature-checking (for which they are not qualified), as well as tedious paperwork. 

If the NCSBE’s intentions to ensure democracy were sincere, then instead of the recommendations it has come up with to make petitioning even more difficult in the wake of the NCGP's petitioning effort, the board would be arguing for commonsense remedies to this state’s onerous petitioning requirements, such as passing an official rule allowing or recommending that the General Assembly allow electronic petition signatures and that the GA also reduce the number of required signatures from 13,865 to a more reasonable number (for example, the ballot access petition requirement in New Jersey is just 800 signatures).

The NCGP’s attempts to ask for Covid-19 emergency petition relief from the office of the governor also went unanswered. (Notably, the governor’s office's legal intern wrote a public records request to the NCSBE to obtain the NCGP's petition signatures, the language of which, in some places, matches verbatim the language that the Democratic Party’s Elias Law Group used in its subsequent requests for public records.) Collecting over 22,500 signatures during the height of a global pandemic put at risk not only NCGP's petitioner volunteers but also tens of thousands of North Carolinians – that is, the State Board of Elections and NC Democratic Party have put unprecedented time and resources into "verifying" NCGP's petition signatures while they spent no or negligible effort attempting to make petitioning safer, fairer, and more democratic to new parties and unaffiliated candidates during a global pandemic.

For these reasons and more, the NCGP is confident that in the near future it will legally prevail and that the party's 2022 candidates will be placed on the ballot. However, true vindication for the North Carolina Green Party will ultimately involve lasting remedies for the damages inflicted upon it and the democratic processes in our state.

For a Green, ecosocialist future,

Tony Ndege, cochair
Michael Trudeau, secretary
North Carolina Green Party

About the North Carolina Green Party

The NCGP is the only left-wing dues-paying political party in North Carolina that has achieved ballot access in the past 40 years. We are an anti-racist, feminist, and pro-labor organization that supports gender equality and gender diversity and rejects capitalism in favor of a democratically run economy that responds to the needs of community and planet. We believe positive social and political change will come when progressive, socialist, and other radical people determine that movement activism must also include this critical element: building our own political power outside the confines of the capitalist two-party system. For this reason, the NCGP is membership-based, our members pay dues, and the party is fundamentally and structurally different from the two major parties—we’re funded by and accountable to individual working-class members, not corporate interests and the ruling elite. Let's build independent power together.

The North Carolina Green Party is proud to announce our first-ever candidate for nomination for the US Senate, Matthew Hoh. A Wake Forest, NC, resident, Matthew is a dues-paying member of the NCGP and has been enthusiastically endorsed by the party membership by consensus.

Matthew shares his reasons for running on his campaign site:

For much of my life, North Carolina has been my home. It is a place that has welcomed and supported me, where my family lives, and a place where I was able to rebuild my life after the wars.

I spent ten years in the Marine Corps and went to war three times before realizing the courage to stand against those unjust, immoral, and counterproductive wars. Since 2009, I have fought not only against the war machine but also against the systemic political and financial rot that underlies and connects our problems in North Carolina, the United States, and beyond. It’s not just the overseas wars that have stolen futures from our country and others – it’s also the wars against the working class, the continued racial injustices, the War on Drugs, the criminal for-profit healthcare system, our unsustainable housing crisis, and so many other inequalities, injustices, and inequities that not only stifle individuals and families, but diminish and hold back entire neighborhoods, communities, municipalities, and our entire country.

Our petitioning drive to run Green candidates in North Carolina is in full swing. The state is making us collect about 15,000 signatures, on paper, from registered voters by May 2022 if we hope to run candidates next year, and we need your help.

Petition with Us

This is the #1 way you can help: Please collect as many signatures on our petition as you can from registered NC voters and mail them to us. (Download the petition here.) Even just 10, 20, or 30 signatures from your friends and family would be a big help. But even so, we do need a number of volunteers to commit to collecting a few hundred signatures. We're offering stipends to those who can commit to collecting 150 or more. Email [email protected] if you're interested. Any registered NC voter can sign the petition, regardless of political affiliation. Please print petition sheets one-sided, and use a different sheet for each county—so if one person is registered in Wake County and another person is registered in Mecklenburg, you must write "Wake" on the top of one sheet and "Mecklenburg" on the top of the other, and the person must sign the sheet for their corresponding county.

To get started, download our ballot access petition and tips/guidelines at our Petitioning Page. At that page you can also sign up to volunteer and to meet other petitioners in our Slack workspace, where we plan petitioning actions. This fall we've petitioned at several high-traffic events, including voting precincts around the state on Election Day, the NC State Fair (Raleigh), Triangle Vegfest (Raleigh), NCSU campus, Davidson College campus, African American Cultural Festival (Raleigh), Shakori Hills music festival (Pittsboro), Carrboro Really Really Free Market, Carolina Classic Fair (Winston-Salem), NC Folk Festival (Greensboro), and more. Do you know of a high-traffic location, event, or festival you'd like to petition at with us? Let us know by signing up to volunteer at the Petitioning Page, and then follow the steps to join our Slack workspace and coordinate with us there. We try to pair new volunteers with an experienced petitioner or party officer. Can you petition at a college campus with us? Let us know.

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We have several updates for you this month:

• A Green, anticapitalist take on Derek Chauvin's conviction and the abolition of the police state
• Biden's plan for Afghanistan must be full withdrawal
• Our petition drive to get back on the ballot has begun—how you can help
• The Young Ecosocialist Caucus of NC officially forms

Photo supplied by Melissa Hassard; used with permission.

Police Violence, Class Struggle, and the Chauvin Conviction—the Struggle Continues

“Abolishing” the police state and ending mass incarceration is not enough—well, it cannot exist independently of protracted class struggle. The class that rules the state is unbelievably ruthless. Think about what the Southern plantation aristocracy was willing to do to keep their system. This global ruling class is willing to go farther. We need a clear vision for social organization that we will replace all of this with. This is what will guide people to a new system that is levels above the one we have today. The rulers rule via the class relations of production. States come and go—as long as the dominant force of production is exploitative, the exploiters will chip and charge relentlessly to reconfigure those relations and appropriate and undermine every single victory for the masses. —Tony Ndege, NCGP cochair

The conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd was a rare instance in which a police officer was held accountable for their actions. But during the course of the trial, police nationwide continued to shoot and kill. As of April 22, 72 people have been shot by police since the trial began on March 29. Six of those shootings happened in the 24 hours after the conviction of Chauvin on murder and manslaughter charges. One of them was in North Carolina’s Elizabeth City, where Pasquotank County sheriff's deputies killed Andrew Brown Jr.

The Chauvin conviction, while proper, must not provide police and politicians a space in which to regroup and deflect attention away from the serious, fundamental problems with policing. Without ongoing concerted public pressure exerted on them, politicians and police will not act, and the culturally-conditioned militarized police will continue to prey on communities of color, low-income communities, and the homeless. The United States will remain on its present path of abuse, incarceration, and death. But society cannot allow that to continue, and the pressing question in front of us is how to change the nature and scope of policing in the US. 

Municipalities across the country are grappling with this question, with mixed results. In North Carolina, NCGP member Joshua Bradley, in his campaign for Raleigh City Council at-large, has laid out a plan to eliminate the existing police structure and replace it with community-controlled public-safety units that are trained in the tactics of negotiation and de-escalation, and in responding to people with mental trauma and autism or who are under the influence of drugs. 

“More than that,” says Bradley, “we need to change two important things about police responses. Often the deaths that happen are in response to police trying to pursue people for low-level offenses, like possession of marijuana or small amounts of controlled substances, or even a minor motor vehicle violation like a broken tail light. We should stop trying to enforce compliance with presumed violations that hurt no one and can lead to an unintended death sentence. Second, we need to change the way we equip and train officers for use of force.

Bradley and his campaign collective propose that the majority of officers in community-controlled police units must not carry lethal weapons. If a situation is deemed to need the use of lethal weapons, only specialists who are vetted, trained, and highly monitored will respond. All of these ideas are worthy of public examination of policing today. 

Tommie James, NCGP cochair, adds that “in addition to making essential reforms like removing lethal weapons from the majority of police, overturning Qualified Immunity restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court will allow civil rights lawsuits against abusive policing.” Earlier this month, New Mexico approved House Bill 4 that will allow citizens and citizen groups to sue government agencies for violation of rights protected by their state constitution. Colorado and Connecticut are the other two states to pass similar remedies. 

But there are social questions surrounding policing and incarceration in the US that require a deeper analysis to promote societal responses that eliminate both the police and the carceral state as we know it. History shows that police are a tool in the long-running class war that is the defining feature of capitalism. “The police today are a linear descendant of the structures put in place by the Southern plantation aristocracy to track and return runaway slaves, who were considered property,” says NCGP cochair Tony Ndege. “And today’s ruling classes in the US are linear descendants of people who considered slavery a path to profit. That mentality prevails today in the form of wage slavery and the commodification of labor. Policing and mass incarceration will continue until we develop a new and clear vision for social organization that will replace the capitalist tendencies that see the carceral police state as a weapon in the ongoing class war.” 

Haz clic aquí para leerlo en español.

We have several updates for you this month: an Election Day roundup, what's next for Green Party ballot access, how to build the party we need for the future, and a call to resist the new expansion of Raytheon into Buncombe County.

NCGP Thanks H20 and Volunteers!

The North Carolina Green Party (NCGP) wishes to thank Howie Hawkins, Angela Walker, and the entire H20 campaign team for all their hard work over the last two years. Standing up against imperialism in all its forms is no easy task, especially in a year of such unprecedented coordinated assault on our party and independent politics in general. 

We also thank each and every NCGP volunteer that gave their heart and time to getting out the vote for our candidates. Without the support, dedication, and labor of our members and volunteers, we can achieve nothing. This year was a very difficult year for campaigning, due to Covid, an anybody-but-Trump mentality, and other hurdles, but with your help, we still managed to earn slightly more votes for Hawkins/Walker than we did four years ago for Stein/Baraka.

Across the state, our volunteers placed 10,000 door hangers in low-income neighborhoods, put up 1,500 signs at busy intersections and polling stations, and handed out X amount of flyers. And this was all financed in small donations by our members and supporters. If you retrieved signs after Election Day and still have them, please contact the NCGP secretary at [email protected].

Each of the 12,000+ Green votes we earned for Hawkins/Walker represents a potential dues-paying NCGP member. Let's build from here! 

Haz clic aquí para leerlo en español.

This month's news from the North Carolina Green Party: Organize with us to get out the vote for the Hawkins/Walker presidential campaign in NC, and please donate to our presidential campaign fundraiser. Read the NCGP's open letter calling on Gov. Cooper to put farmworker safety before profits during Covid, as well as our most recent activism in solidarity with BLM.

Photo: Norma Garcia-Lopez

NCGP to Governor Cooper: Farmworker Safety During the Pandemic Is More Important Than Profits 

Governor Cooper: 

In April of 2020, a letter was sent to you from the North Carolina Farmworker Advocacy Network (NCFAN), which is a coalition of organizations working to improve the living and working conditions of agricultural workers. In this letter, you were asked to use the power of your office to issue an executive order that would help to protect agricultural workers during the pandemic. In particular, NCFAN requested that you instruct agribusinesses to:

• Provide migrant farmworkers with access to healthcare services and other resources.
• Ensure migrant agricultural workers are not put at risk in their employer-provided housing.
• Ensure agricultural workers are able to protect themselves from exposure while working.
• Protect workers from retaliation who get sick.
• Ensure H-2A farmworkers are able to enroll in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), ensure Spanish interpretation for health information, and provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers serving agricultural workers.

These are not onerous requirements. As NCFAN has pointed out, you previously publicly committed to issuing this order, as reported in the News and Observer on August 14, 2020. Comparable orders have been issued in Michigan and Wisconsin. In fact, in 2016, long before the pandemic, both Attorney General Josh Stein and yourself told the NC Latino Congress that, once in office, you would work toward “improving the state’s ability to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate health and human services to North Carolina’s growing Spanish-speaking community.”

However, upon signs of resistance from the NC Department of Labor and Department of Agriculture, you quickly rescinded the commitment to the executive order. Both of the heads of these offices are Republicans, and both are themselves committed to protecting business (including large farmers and agribusiness) from any legal responsibility to protect workers beyond the bare minimum dictated by law. Since Republican legislators have spent the last decade reducing that responsibility, your office had an opportunity to begin to reverse the damage of laws created to benefit employers over employees. It should have been an easy decision to inform commissioners Berry and Troxler that their resistance to your order was not in line with the needs of the farmworkers in North Carolina, and that your administration, and the attorney general’s office, was quite prepared to enforce this order. As has been pointed out by NC Justice Center, in an article in the Greensboro News and Record on September 10, 2020, many businesses would have complied with your order regardless of the positions of the commissioners.  

The failure to issue the order is a betrayal of North Carolina farmworkers, and it calls into question your intent to govern on behalf of all inhabitants of the state. Farmworkers, with or without visas or other documentation, are used by agribusiness to make profits. COVID-19 disproportionately affects people in black and Hispanic communities. For Berry and Troxler, despite the high-sounding rhetoric, these people are disposable, whereas the profits of agribusiness are indispensable. We must ask, which position will you take Governor? Will it be people or profit? Health or illness? Empathy or indifference? The people expect better.

North Carolina Green Party Coordinating Committee

North Carolina Green Party Supports and Participates in the Black Lives Matter Movement

Several North Carolina Green Party members, including cochair Tony Ndege, Charlotte Area Greens cochair Jacob Samuels, past candidates Keenen Altic, Joshua Bradley, and Robert Corriher, assistant secretary Ade Mowry, Troy Winfree of Triad Greens, and others have been heavily involved in statewide protest movements against state violence and systemic inequity.

These actions have included:

• A week-long occupation of the Governor’s Mansion in Raleigh, which helped to win the successful veto of the onerous SB 168.
• Dozens of protests in the wake of the murder George Floyd, including several events in the Triad where Ndege is a lead organizer in the Black Lives Matter movement.
• Demands for truth and transparency over the death of John Neville and other jail inmates.
• Demanding that Forsyth County and all NC counties sever their contracts with Wellpath, a for-profit corporation which is the largest healthcare provider for incarceration institutions in the country.
• Recent actions in solidarity with the #KenoshaUprising in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake, who grew up in Winston-Salem.

Volunteer to Get Out the Vote for Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker

Let's get out the vote for Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker! We can ensure automatic ballot access through 2024 for the NC Green Party by winning at least 2% of the votes for president in 2020 in North Carolina!

VOLUNTEER! There are many ways to help get out the vote for Howie and Angela. We need volunteers:

• to serve as coordinators across the state
• for door hanger canvassing (no face-to-face required during this Covid-19 crisis) 
• social-media content posters
• content writers 
• phonebanking and textbanking
• early-voting canvassing
• campaign yard sign placement and pickup 

Even volunteering an hour or two will make a tremendous difference. Join us for our statewide campaign meetings on Wednesday nights on Zoom to learn how you can help. Please register in advance for these meetings and sign up to volunteer! 

More and more voters are realizing that the two corporate parties have failed us. The Hawkins/Walker ticket represents real change in this country. While every candidate says that, the Green Party’s platform proves our commitment to broad sweeping system change to improve the lives of the working class, especially oppressed groups, as well as our environment. Our votes come from people who want something different and have no faith in continuing the same failed strategies; they're people who are fed up with our undemocratic electoral system and the corporate parties’ failure to protect and serve its citizens. 

None of our most urgent problems will be significantly addressed by either a President Biden or a President Trump. Voters overwhelmingly support Green Party positions like:

• Medicare for All
• An end to wars for profit / bring our troops home
• Slashing of the military budget
• End to the militarization of police
• End of the War on Drugs - legalize cannabis and expunge records of non-violent “offenders”
• A Real Green New Deal
• Equity and protection of marginalized peoples

This tells us what we already know: that we need to stand even stronger for what we want, and that's real change! 

It is critical that we take a stand and not only vote for our future and the future of new generations but also, most importantly—organize for a new mass party, not vote for our fears and hope for the best. The tactic of Lesser Evilism has not worked in over a century of attempts to reform either big-business party, and it certainly won’t work for us in 2020 or for the future of people or our planet.

REGISTER GREEN TODAY! 

Donate to Our NCGP Campaign Drive!

We're raising $7,500 to get out the vote for the Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker presidential ticket in North Carolina and to increase NC Green Party registration! Our goal: win at least 2% of the vote for Hawkins/Walker in our state. Two percent means the NCGP automatically retains its ballot line for 4 more years to run Green candidates. Otherwise we may lose ballot access for several months or longer, and we will be required to collect several thousand petition signatures.

DONATE NOW to help us organize for H20—and to build the North Carolina Green Party. The two major parties have utterly failed the people and the planet. Help us build our own political power independent of the two capitalist parties!

Your donation will be used for:

• Increasing voter registration and candidate interest for 2020–2024.
• Sending out mailers to statewide registered Greens.
• More signage and getting signs to volunteers in every town—rural as well as larger cities! 
• Door hangers and other important materials for Get Out the Vote and membership-building efforts.
• Training volunteers and having limited volunteer stipends. 
• Putting materials on campuses and other areas with a large percentage of likely voters.
• Other critical volunteer materials including PPE, hats, and badges.
• Phone banking and text banking for getting out the vote and membership drives.

Become a Member!

The North Carolina Green Party refuses all corporate contributions, so dues-paying members play a vital role ensuring our state and local organizations have the resources needed to build an independent party for people and planet free from the influence of the 1 percent.       

Who can Become a Member of the North Carolina Green Party? North Carolina residents who are registered to vote as “Green” are eligible to become members of the NCGP after they have affirmed Green Party principles (see our 10 Key Values and platform), set their own dues rate using a budget-friendly sliding scale, and initiated payment of those dues. You choose your own dues level on the honor system, based on what you can pay. Note: Residents who are ineligible to vote due to state disenfranchisement (including but not limited to reasons such as age, criminal record, or noncitizen/undocumented status) may also become members. Email the NCGP secretary at [email protected] if you feel you are ineligible to vote due to state disenfranchisement. All NCGP members, with the exception of noncitizens, shall pay modest annual dues.

Find out more: www.ncgreenparty.org/membership.

Find Us on Social Media

Like and follow our NCGP Facebook Page.
Follow us on NCGP Twitter.

Join our statewide and regional NCGP Facebook groups to connect with Greens:

North Carolina Green Party
Charlotte Area Green Party
Triangle Area Green Party
Triad Area Green Party
Eastern NC Green Party
Western NC Green Party

In solidarity with people and planet against profits,

The North Carolina Green Party

Haz clic aquí para leerlo en español.

Photo: Norma Garcia-Lopez

Governor Cooper: 

In April of 2020, a letter was sent to you from the North Carolina Farmworker Advocacy Network (NCFAN), which is a coalition of organizations working to improve the living and working conditions of agricultural workers. In this letter, you were asked to use the power of your office to issue an executive order that would help to protect agricultural workers during the pandemic. In particular, NCFAN requested that you instruct agribusinesses to:

• Provide migrant farmworkers with access to healthcare services and other resources.

• Ensure migrant agricultural workers are not put at risk in their employer-provided housing.

• Ensure agricultural workers are able to protect themselves from exposure while working.

• Protect workers from retaliation who get sick.

• Ensure H-2A farmworkers are able to enroll in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), ensure Spanish interpretation for health information, and provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers serving agricultural workers.

These are not onerous requirements. As NCFAN has pointed out, you previously publicly committed to issuing this order, as reported in the News and Observer on August 14, 2020.   Comparable orders have been issued in Michigan and Wisconsin. In fact, in 2016, long before the pandemic, both Attorney General Josh Stein and yourself told the NC Latino Congress that, once in office, you would work toward “improving the state’s ability to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate health and human services to North Carolina’s growing Spanish-speaking community.” 

However, upon signs of resistance from the NC Department of Labor and Department of Agriculture, you quickly rescinded the commitment to the executive order. Both of the heads of these offices are Republicans, and both are themselves committed to protecting business (including large farmers and agribusiness) from any legal responsibility to protect workers beyond the bare minimum dictated by law. Since Republican legislators have spent the last decade reducing that responsibility, your office had an opportunity to begin to reverse the damage of laws created to benefit employers over employees. It should have been an easy decision to inform commissioners Berry and Troxler that their resistance to your order was not in line with the needs of the farmworkers in North Carolina, and that your administration, and the attorney general’s office, was quite prepared to enforce this order. As has been pointed out by NC Justice Center, in an article in the Greensboro News and Record on September 10, 2020, many businesses would have complied with your order regardless of the positions of the commissioners.  

The failure to issue the order is a betrayal of North Carolina farmworkers, and it calls into question your intent to govern on behalf of all inhabitants of the state. Farmworkers, with or without visas or other documentation, are used by agribusiness to make profits. COVID-19 disproportionately affects people in black and Hispanic communities. For Berry and Troxler, despite the high-sounding rhetoric, these people are disposable, whereas the profits of agribusiness are indispensable. We must ask, which position will you take Governor? Will it be people or profit? Health or illness?  Empathy or indifference? The people expect better. 

North Carolina Green Party Coordinating Committee

Haz clic aquí para leerlo en español.

We have lots of news this month from the North Carolina Green Party. Check out our events coming up soon, how to volunteer for the Hawkins/Walker presidential campaign, and some of our recent activism!

“Why the Democrats Are a Dead End for People of Color” Event with Angela Walker

Register for the Zoom event: Wednesday, September 2, 8:00–9:30 p.m.

Join Green Party / Socialist Party 2020 candidate for vice president, Angela Walker, and a panel of other organizers as we discuss how both parties of Wall Street have proven time and time again over the last century that they’re a dead-end trap for People of Color and for any substantial change toward our collective survival.

For decades the Democrats have faked left and moved right. They talk about inclusion to get our votes and then they consistently betray us. This is because the Democrats and Republicans are owned by big business nationally and corporate developer money locally and have no intention on changing that. They rule us by buying our political misleadership class, by scaring us away from alternative options, and by keeping us afraid of our own power. But they will never include us in decision-making and certainly never give us power. This is slavery by another means: we need freedom! 

This two-party capitalist system is destroying our planet and our communities. We need truly revolutionary change to stop it! In order to fight for real revolutionary change we must organize independently of Wall Street corporate bosses and big-money grants and donors. Register for the Zoom event: Wednesday, September 2, 8:00–9:30 p.m.

View and share this event on Facebook.

Left Unity Study Group: Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth

Register for the Zoom event: Thursday, September 3, 8:30–10:00 p.m.

The North Carolina Green Party and the Northern Piedmont Chapter of the Socialist Party-USA invite you to join our study group on the writings of revolutionary authors and their contributions to the practice of freeing ourselves from the forces of ecocide, genocide, poverty, war, and imperialism.

Our goal is to develop a better understanding of how we should act in response to these forces, building on the work of those who have trod these paths before us. Collectively, we face both problems that have been charted historically and new problems that arise from the ravages and crises of capitalism and its effects in our time.

Our first work will be Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. Please register for the Zoom meeting at this link. In this work, Fanon addresses the psychological and physical effects of colonization on the indigenous inhabitants of colonized areas and the response of the colonized peoples to these effects.

Using Fanon’s description of struggle for self-determination in French-controlled Algeria, we’ll explore what the indigenous of Algeria felt during this struggle and if Fanon's insights can be extended to the struggles of humanity today to achieve a better life for all. Specifically, what practices were engaged in to achieve independence for the people of Algeria? Are those practices relevant to current struggles? What new practices might be deduced from the history of African colonial struggles? Register for the Zoom event: Thursday, September 3, 8:30–10:00 p.m.

Join our Left Unity Study Group to view this and more political education events on Facebook.

Volunteer with NC Greens for the Hawkins/Walker 2020 Presidential Campaign

NC Greens we are ramping up our get out the vote effort for the Green Party nominees for president and vice president: Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker! Can you help? We need volunteers to phonebank, textbank, design graphics, write letters to the editors in support of our candidates, canvass, flyer, and place signs. Most important, we need volunteer coordinators across the state. Please visit www.ncgreenparty.org/h20 to sign up as a volunteer!

Better Ballot NC Ranked-Choice Voting Effort

A new group, Better Ballot North Carolina, has formed in North Carolina to pursue the implementation of Ranked-Choice Voting in our state. You are invited to the statewide launch September 12. Ranked-Choice Voting, which has different counting methods for different types of elections (e.g. multi-candidate single-winner or multi-candidate multi-winner races) allows voters to rank their candidates in order of preference. The value of RCV is that it eliminates the argument that a voter’s true preference must be  sacrificed in favor of an undesirable but "lesser-evil" candidate.  With RCV, if the voter’s first choice does not win in the first round of vote tabulation, or even if the choice is eliminated in the first round, the voter’s second choice then transfers to that candidate, who has lost nothing by being a second choice. 

Better Ballot North Carolina is composed of members from a number of different organizations and political proclivities, including North Carolina Greens. Registered in NC as a nonprofit, the group’s goal is to educate North Carolinians about the value of Ranked-Choice Voting in offering more candidates with diverse views and ideas. Visit the group at www.betterballotnc.org, and sign up to attend the statewide launch meeting on September 12.

NCGP in NC Black Lives Matter Movement, Justice for #JohnNeville 

Several NC Green Party members, including Co-chair Tony Ndege, recently-elected Charlotte Area Greens Co-chair Jacob Samuels, past candidates Keenen Altic, Joshua Bradley, Robert Corriher, assistant Sec. Ade Mowry, Troy Winfree of Triad Greens and others have been heavily involved in statewide protest movements against state violence and systemic inequity. These actions have included:

Newly-elected Charlotte Greens co-chair Jacob Samuels holds a sign for Jacob Blake

Photo credit: Allison Isley, Winston-Salem Journal

NCGP members Keenen Altic, Matthew Skolar, and Tony Ndege protesting at Resist RNC

Resist RNC: Rally & Protest in Charlotte Aug. 24

Several NCGP members including Cochairs Tommie James and Tony Ndege and 2018 Green candidate Keenen Altic were present at the recent RNC protests. We heard several strong speakers and advertised upcoming NCGP events. Many protesters were very receptive to our call for independent power from both parties of Wall Street. One member was arrested and is out on bail, marking the second arrest of an NCGP member in the past month for protesting.

Become a Member!

The North Carolina Green Party refuses all corporate contributions, so dues-paying members play a vital role ensuring our state and local organizations have the resources needed to build an independent party for people and planet free from the influence of the 1 percent.       

Who can Become a Member of the North Carolina Green Party? North Carolina residents who are registered to vote as “Green” are eligible to become members of the NCGP after they have affirmed Green Party principles (see our 10 Key Values and platform), set their own dues rate using a budget-friendly sliding scale, and initiated payment of those dues. You choose your own dues level on the honor system, based on what you can pay. Note: Residents who are ineligible to vote due to state disenfranchisement (including but not limited to reasons such as age, criminal record, or noncitizen/undocumented status) may also become members. Email the NCGP secretary at [email protected] if you feel you are ineligible to vote due to state disenfranchisement. All NCGP members, with the exception of noncitizens, shall pay modest annual dues.

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Check out the following news and updates from the North Carolina Green Party (NCGP):

North Carolina Green Party Cosponsors Protests Against Police Violence and Racism and Calls for Immediate End to Police Immunity

The NCGP continues to emphatically support the protests and actions in North Carolina, across the US, and around the world that have arisen in response to decades of systemic police violence and institutionalized racism that culminated in the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

NCGP has been busy supporting the push for racial and economic justice in North Carolina, standing alongside Black Lives Matter activists in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Charlotte, Raleigh, and all over North Carolina. NCGP cochair Tony Ndege is a founding organizer of Black Lives Matter Winston-Salem and has co-organized several protests in his city, and many other Greens including recent candidates Joshua Bradley, Robert Corriher, and Keenen Altic have been involved in dozens of actions throughout the state. We support these protests and the burgeoning movement to end the US policing and carceral system, which is designed to suppress opposition to the economic supremacy and white supremacy of the capitalist class.

The system that murdered George Floyd is showing the world not only its contempt for the lives of people of color but also its inability to address the economic, ecological, and social problems that beset the US. As we call for justice and reparations for people of color that have suffered for generations under the heel of systemic racism, we also call for an end to the underlying economic system that has created the conditions for police violence and murders in the first place: capitalism.

Above, NCGP cochair and BLM Winston-Salem cofounder Tony Ndege leads chants at a Solidarity with Minneapolis march in Winston-Salem, NC. Photo: Andrew Dye, Winston-Salem Journal

“To understand police violence, one has to acknowledge the historical role of capitalism and racist exploitation in dictating the priorities of policing,” said Wayne Turner of the North Carolina Green Party. “That priority, despite slogans and police mottoes, has always been the protection of private property and the suppression of working-class organizing and extending the brutal legacy of slavery and cheap labor under Jim Crow to generations of black and brown communities.”

“By shifting funding away from social programs that promote the health and well-being of the general public and address economic inequality and instead shifting toward more policing, the US has allowed militarized police forces to become the face that governments present to the public,” said North Carolina Green Party cochair Tommie James. “We shouldn’t send swat teams to deal with mental-health issues or use deadly force when responding to a supposed traffic violation.”

NCGP supports a radical reconfiguration of the role of policing in the US. A first step should be to end qualified immunity of police, which shields police officers and other government officials from legal actions by victims and families, even if their civil rights were violated. It is necessary that we redefine the role of police and sheriff’s departments, who are seen by much of the public as the protectors of wealth and property, as suppressors of dissent, and as actively funneling the poor and people of color into our bloated prison system that reduces individuals to a life of legalized slavery.

Marcus Smith was killed in Greensboro in 2018, illegally hogtied and left to die after he asked for help. There are ongoing legal efforts to hold the police department accountable.

Governor Cooper Vetoes NC Senate Bill 168

NCGP members participated with other activists for more than a week in a sidewalk occupation in front of the governor’s mansion to urge Governor Cooper to veto NC Senate Bill 168. The NC Senate and House passed the bill at 2:30 a.m. June 27, establishing that all death records are confidential and not available for public review without family authorization. The bill sat on Governor Cooper’s desk for days until the deadline of July 6, when he finally signed the veto. If the bill had become law, it would have made it more difficult to get justice for victims of police violence.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline Abandoned by Duke Energy and Dominion

Environmental activists have won a hard-fought victory this month: Duke Energy Corporation and Dominion Energy announced July 5 they have abandoned the proposed $8 billion pipeline, citing continued regulatory delays and uncertainty. The pipeline would have carried natural gas 600 miles through West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina and underneath the Appalachian Trail. The NCGP has spoken out about this issue since 2015, and we have consistently called for the socialization of all utilities, including energy.

Despite the utility companies’ claims, the NCGP has noted that the natural gas was largely meant for overseas sales and not for consumption in North Carolina. Meaning, the operation to transport fracked natural gas to the coast served mainly to increase profits for Duke and Dominion shareholders and not for the public good. The real win will come when we replace privatized energy utilities with public ownership and operation. 

Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker Win Green Party of the United States Nomination!

For the first time ever, a Green presidential ticket will appear on the North Carolina ballot! We are thrilled to report that on July 11, retired Teamster and lifelong Green activist Howie Hawkins was nominated by the Green Party of the United States as its 2020 candidate for president. Hawkins was nominated after receiving a majority of votes in the first round of voting at the party’s national convention, where he received 210 out of 355 total votes (59.15%) cast by Green delegates from across the US. A call to approve Angela Walker, a truck driver from South Carolina, as the vice-presidential nominee was approved by a majority vote of 221. In their acceptance speeches, the nominees highlighted the connection between climate change and social justice and the importance of enacting a real Green New Deal.

Become a Member!

The Green Party refuses all corporate contributions, so dues-paying members play a vital role ensuring our state and local organizations have the resources needed to build an independent party for people and planet free from the influence of the 1 percent.       

Who can Become a Member of the North Carolina Green Party? North Carolina residents who are registered to vote as “Green” are eligible to become members of the NCGP after they have affirmed Green Party principles (see our 10 Key Values and platform), set their own dues rate using a budget-friendly sliding scale, and initiated payment of those dues. You choose your own dues level on the honor system, based on what you can pay. Note: Residents who are ineligible to vote due to state disenfranchisement (including but not limited to reasons such as age, criminal record, or noncitizen/undocumented status) may also become members. Email the NCGP secretary at [email protected] if you feel you are ineligible to vote due to state disenfranchisement. All NCGP members, with the exception of noncitizens, shall pay modest annual dues.

Find out more: www.ncgreenparty.org/membership.

Find Us on Social Media

Like and follow our NCGP Facebook Page.

Join our statewide and regional NCGP Facebook groups to connect with Greens:

North Carolina Green Party • Charlotte Area Green Party • Triangle Area Green Party • Triad Area Green Party • Eastern NC Green Party • Western NC Green Party

In solidarity with people and planet against profits,

The North Carolina Green Party