Livingstone College

  SALISBURY – Famed civil rights attorney and recent NAACP Image Award recipient Attorney Benjamin Crump is coming to the campus of Livingstone College for a panel discussion on national bail reform and over policing. Crump  is hosting the Equal Justice Now one-day event, the first of its kind to be held in the state of North Carolina, and only the third one in the country. Equal Justice Now (EJN) is a nonprofit social welfare organization that advocates against false arrest, unreasonable detention, and wrongful conviction and incarceration. Its mission is to eradicate suppression, to address over policing, police reform and criminal reform, and to end systemic racism. The panel discussion will be held from 1-5 p.m. on Thursday, March 23, in Varick Auditorium, located on the campus of Livingstone College at 701 W. Monroe Street, Salisbury. The first 90 minutes will be dedicated to bail reform and the second half to police reform. Moderators for the event will be Eric Kowalczyk, a veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, crisis communications specialist, author and minister; and Bakari Sellers, an attorney, former S.C. state representative and political commentator. Confirmed panelists to date include: Mecklenburg County Sheriff Gary McFadden; Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather; 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; Latarcia Barnes, chair, Livingstone College, Department of Criminal Justice and Sociology; JaPharil Jones, president of Black Lives Matter 757 (Virginia); Melanie Reid, …