Feb. 11, 2025

Fergie danced. There were many light moments. There were wonderful stories illuminating the work of a Charlotte law firm pursuing civil rights for all citizens.

Dangerous work. Julius Chambers’ law office was firebombed.

Methodical work. As federal laws were passed, the lawyers Chambers gathered around him held skull sessions to map out where to find clients so that the promises of the new laws could take hold, improving the lives of struggling North Carolinians.

Collaborative work. Detailed work. Constant work.

Tuesday’s session was nominally about a 1970s building already torn down. First named East Independence Plaza and later Walton Plaza, the seven-story building for lawyers, doctors and other professionals rose on five acres of Brooklyn urban renewal land. But it was more than a building, as the stories in the video below will clarify. Lawyer and former U.S. Congressman Mel Watt called the building a “monument for resistance” and an effort to retain a small portion of Black Brooklyn in the ownership of some of the African-Americans forced out of their homes, businesses and churches by eminent domain.

But among the many threads that can be followed through the lengthy meeting is the thread of what Chambers created, what the law practice stood for, and its impact on its time and place.

Some viewers may become uneasy at the candor – that racism is the problem, and that racism remains infused in Charlotte’s institutions and daily life. One member of the audience, a high school student, seemed not uneasy but energized when reassured that the student would confront racism every day, and that the student’s job was to call it out.