Lessons from North Carolina

To “heal our culture,” we need to understand our culture.

A few weeks ago, I bought a paper copy of “Lessons from North Carolina: Race, Religion, Tribe, and the Future of America” by Gene Nichol. Nichol is a lawyer and academic by trade, he has written several books, and this is my first time to read his opinions and perspectives.

I rarely read paper books any more, my declining vision now makes eBooks (usually Kindle eBooks from Amazon) my preferred medium for long form reading. So… even though I now own and started reading the paper version, this evening I bought the Kindle version and read chapter 1.

Among many eye opening stories about politics in my “Tar Heel State” over the past decades, I also appreciated Nichol’s reference to this quotation from Fredrick Douglass in a famous speech he shared in 1894. Nichol details how the GOP / Republican Party has consistently sought to disenfranchise African-American voters in North Carolina in recent decades, through racial gerrymandering and other strategies, so these words from Douglass still ring true today in 2025:

Call to mind the sublime and glorious truths with which at its birth, it saluted a listening world. It announced the advent of a nation based upon human Brotherhood and the self evident truths of liberty and equality. Apply these sublime and glorious truth[es] to the situation now before you. put away your prejudice, banish the idea that one class must rule over another, recognize the fact that the rights of the humblest citizen are as worthy of protection as are those of the highest and your problem will be solved.

Waxman, O. B. (2022, February 22). Watch: The enduring timeliness of frederick douglass’s last major speech. TIME. https://time.com/6145012/frederick-douglass-speeches-hbo-video/

One significant benefit to reading a Kindle version of a book is being able to not only highlight and add notes or annotations, but also readily SHARE those quotations as images. I’ve started a Flickr album of these quotations, and will continue to add to it as I read more. Here are a few notable quotations from the end of chapter 1.

Just as we saw at the close of the 1800s when Frederick Douglass shared that speech, today there are LARGE numbers of voters in the United States who do NOT support universal suffrage / voting, and do not value Constitutional fundamentals like “checks and balances” and the freedom to publicly criticize the policies of our chief executive. Today’s breaking news that the GOP may “defund” courts who issue rulings contrary to the President’s wishes is a case in point.

Nichols wrote this book after the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol / insurrection by pro-Trump voters who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election. While the Constitutionally-contested actions of President Trump through DOGE / Elon Musk have been surprising to many people, Nichols paints a picture of politics in North Carolina in which the past is prologue.

Government officials and voters willing to overturn the results of a democratic election because their candidate lost, violate one of the most basic, foundational values of a representative democracy. See the English WikiPedia article, “Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election” for extensive detail on those efforts which failed in 2020, but whose spirit now animates the administration occupying the White House.

I appreciate Nichol’s closing to chapter 1 of his book, which reminds readers of the resiliency and persistence of civil rights leaders in the past who struggled for the right and opportunity to vote, equal rights and justice. As we each struggle to make sense of current events as well as the broader winds of domestic and international political changes, it is vital we maintain HOPE. Countless small deeds matter and make a difference.

As we strive together to heal our culture, we also need to courageously resist the rise of techno-facism. We need to resist and heal, together. These are long term, generational efforts.

This is the work to which we are called as “culture healers.” I appreciate the insights Gene Nichol offers in this book to help me better understand our past, so together we can strive to co-create a better future.