Racist Roots Screening: University of North Carolina Asheville

In August, North Carolina will mark sixteen years since its last execution, yet the death penalty remains on the books. To honor this anniversary, the NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty is presenting the Asheville premiere of RACIST ROOTS, a powerful 25-minute film that exposes the death penalty’s deep entanglement with slavery, lynching and racism. The film features several stories of Black men, including an Asheville man, who were unjustly convicted and sentenced to death. The film and a panel discussion to follow will highlight the diverse voices that are central to the movement to end North Carolina’s death penalty. The panel will include activist and capital defense attorney Henderson Hill, psychologist Jean Parks, who lost her sister to murder, and NCCADP executive director Noel Nickle.

The presentation at the Reuter Center on the campus of UNC Asheville is free and open to the public.