By May Martin Bryan
Just when we thought Gene Nichol might take a breather, he brings us another book — “Now What: How North Carolina Can Blaze a Progressive Path Forward.”
It is his fourth in eight years. How can he be so prolific?
Nichol doesn’t take all the credit. In fact, he says he has plenty of help. He’ll tell you he ought to dedicate the book to those who continue to give him so much unsettling and ominous material.
He names the Republican leaders of our General Assembly, the Republican-dominated North Carolina Supreme Court, and the UNC Board of Governors.
The titles of Nichol’s previous books speak for themselves.
“The Faces of Poverty in North Carolina: Stories from Our Invisible Citizens” (2018) shines a light on our neighbors and families who are working hard and still falling behind.
“Indecent Assembly: The North Carolina Legislature’s Blueprint for the War on Democracy and Equality” (2020), provides a blistering account of how political power is twisted to silence the people it should serve.
“Lessons from North Carolina: Race, Religion, Tribe, and the Future of America” (2023), reflects on how our struggles here mirror the nation’s and takes a hard look at inequality, democracy, and faith in the public square.
Taken together, Nichol’s books read like chapters of a long, hard saga: the ongoing battle for the soul of North Carolina. “Now What” is the next installment: a slim, powerful volume published by Blair.
In spite of everything happening nationally, Nichol’s eyes are firmly on the alarming state of our own state. “Now What” isn’t a book about Trump or national politics, though the national chaos provides a troubling backdrop and some important context.
Nichol’s life has been dedicated to studying, teaching, and defending the Constitution. As a professor at the UNC School of Law — and before that, as the dean at UNC Law, dean at University of Colorado Law School — he knows a thing or two about constitutional law.
But he’s clear that you don’t have to be a constitutional scholar to know that something’s gone off the rails in North Carolina. You don’t need a law degree to feel it in your bones.
In “Now What,” Nichol lays it out plainly. The power grabs, the gerrymandering, the partisan court battles, and the disregard for checks and balances are unconstitutional, and are eroding our very democracy.
He looks us right in the eye and says we’re not heading toward a constitutional crisis. We’re smack dab in the middle of one.
He asks dense, hard questions that might show us how far we have fallen from the ideals of democracy. “Who would have thought that in North Carolina, one political party would illegitimately amass, and vest, such disproportionate political and judicial power that constitutional democracy could be effectively thwarted so that lawmakers could boldly rule without the consent of the governed?”
But the answers to these questions don’t have to be complex. Nichol reminds us that people before us have fought much harder for fundamental rights and democracy. They have stormed the beaches of Normandy, been beaten nearly to death like civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, or taken a “hate-filled bullet like Dr. King.”
Nichol invokes an unexpected constitutional scholar. He paraphrases Bruce Springsteen: When all the checks and balances have been stripped away, when the guardrails are gone, the only thing standing between us and chaos is the people themselves — ordinary citizens stepping up to be the guardians of democracy. In Nichol’s words, “it is the marching feet, the joined hands, the met minds, and the beating hearts of the much-moved people of North Carolina.”
If we don’t get up and fight, we don’t even have a chance. He quotes Hamer: If we fight and fall, at least we will fall forward toward freedom and justice. Nichol implores us to “make our mark now, or the cause of North Carolina will surely fail.”
D.G. Martin, a lawyer, retired as UNC system vice president for public affairs in 1997. He hosted PBC-NC’s “North Carolina Bookwatch,” for more than 20 years.
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