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North Carolina

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for North Carolina.

200Documented
5In custody
147Released
1Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in North Carolina

Where North Carolina’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1930s 48 1970s 37 1920s 32 2010s 15 2020s 14 1800s 10

Documented cases

200 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

Jorge P. Cornell
In Custody
Jorge Peter Cornell, known as King J and King Jay, led the Greensboro chapter of the Almighty Latin King and Q...
Richard Rubalcava
In Custody
Set fires to Raleigh businesses during May 30 2020 riot; federal arson. Sentence: ~84 months federal prison. V...
Joseph Shine White Stewart
In Custody
Joseph Shine White Stewart, North Carolina Department of Public Safety inmate number 0802041, has been incarce...
Alexander Justin White
In Custody
Alexander Justin White was arrested on December 4, 2024 after federal agents alleged that he tried to travel a...
Robert Allen
Released
Robert Allen was a defendant in the 1929 Gastonia textile-strike prosecution. The December10 Charlotte dispatc...
John L. Anderson
Released
John L. "Slim" Anderson was president of the Piedmont Textile Council in Burlington, North Carolina. Born in V...
Fred Beal
Released
Fred Beal was a National Textile Workers Union organizer convicted on October 21, 1929 of conspiracy in the de...
Rayquan Borum
Rayquan Borum was held in Mecklenburg County Jail in the Charlotte Black Lives Matter prosecution, as document...
Faye Brown
Released
22-year-old Black woman on North Carolina's death row for the alleged killing of a state trooper, condemned al...
Vera Buch
Released
Vera Buch was a National Textile Workers Union organizer and one of the three women charged with murder. Vera...
K. O. Byers
Released
K. O. Byers was a Loray mill striker arrested with Fred Beal at Spartanburg. K. O. Byers was one of the sixtee...
Tom Canipe
Released
Tom Canipe was a North Carolina textile worker prosecuted after the September 1934 general textile strike in B...
George Carter
Released
George Carter was a National Textile Workers Union defendant in the Gastonia case. Police seized him at gunpoi...
James Cato
James Cato was a Black Army veteran and part-time community worker with the Winston-Salem Black Panther Party....
Ben Chavis
Released
Civil-rights organizer (United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice) and leader of the Wilmington Te...
Ricky Clousing
Released
Ricky Clousing was an Army interrogator who spoke publicly against the Iraq War after returning from deploymen...
Jabari Devon Davis
Released
Jabari Devon Davis was arrested by federal agents on June 4, 2020 after attempting to burn a marked Raleigh Po...
George DeWitt
Released
George DeWitt was one of the High Point Four, jailed after the February 10, 1971 confrontation at the Panther...
Reginald Epps
Released
Reginald Epps was one of the Black student participants in Wilmington’s 1971 boycott and protest movement, whi...
Woodrow Wilson Gillis
Released
Woodrow Wilson Gillis was a Black man who, after being attacked by a white man and woman in Kinston, North Car...
James Earl Grant
Released
Black civil rights organizer and one of the 'Charlotte Three,' convicted in 1972 in Charlotte, North Carolina...
Otis L. Hairston Jr.
Released
Otis L. Hairston Jr. was a Greensboro civil-rights activist and later the city’s first Black council member. H...
J. F. Harraway
Released
J. F. Harraway, spelled Haraway in the court record, was one of seven Burlington, North Carolina textile worke...
Joseph Harrison
Released
Joseph Harrison was a National Textile Workers Union organizer convicted on October 21, 1929 of conspiracy in...

Institutions in North Carolina

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in North Carolina that appear in the census’s case files.

North Carolina state courtsWilmington, North Carolina
10 cases
Gaston County JailGastonia, North Carolina
9 cases
North Carolina State Penitentiary (Central Prison)Raleigh, North Carolina
7 cases
Buncombe County Superior Court
5 cases
Union County JailMonroe, North Carolina
3 cases
Camp Lejeune brigCamp Lejeune, North Carolina
2 cases
North Carolina State Prison System
2 cases
FMC ButnerButner, North Carolina
2 cases