Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump will a host panel discussion at Livingstone College on Thursday.
The panel discussion focuses on national bail reform and over-policing. It starts at 1 p.m. in Livingstone’s Varick Auditorium.
The free one-day event is the first to be held in North Carolina and only the third in the country.
Moderators for the event include Eric Kowalczyk, a former Baltimore Police Department captain and crisis communications specialist, and political commentator Bakari Sellers.
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Mecklenburg County Sheriff Gary McFadden and District Attorney Spencer Merriweather are two of several panelist speakers with ties to the criminal justice system.
The full list of speakers are:
- James Buie, retired Gaston County police chief and author of “From the Ground Up: How to Refine American Policing Now”
- Gemale Black, Salisbury-Rowan NAACP president
- Dr. Latarcia Barnes, chair, Livingstone College, Department of Criminal Justice and Sociology
- JaPharil Jones, president of Black Lives Matter 757 (Virginia);
- Melanie Reid, associate dean of faculty and professor of law at Lincoln Memorial University in Knoxville, Tenn
- Rep. Joe Towns of Nashville, Tenn
- Attorney Dominique Calhoun of Houston, Texas
- Carleena Deonanan, a defense attorney of Raleigh.