Race, Law, and the Struggle for Racial Equality in the U.S., First Edition

Geeta Nadia Kapur has devoted her entire legal career of over twenty years to representing indigent and racial minorities in North Carolina in the areas of civil rights and criminal defense law. Kapur was recognized as one of the top 100 criminal defense trial lawyers in North Carolina. She has argued several landmark constitutional law cases before the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the North Carolina Supreme Court. In addition, Kapur was the lead lawyer for the NC NAACP Moral Monday protests led by the Reverend William Barber, II. Her high-profile trial of two protestors—a nationally known capital defense lawyer and a world-renowned AIDS doctor—led to a court ruling that the General Assembly’s building rules violated the first amendment. As a result, the Speaker of the House convened the Building Rules Committee for the first time since the 1980s to revise the rules, and the district attorney of dismissed hundreds of charges against protestors. For her efforts, she was awarded the NC NAACP Humanitarian of the Year Award. In addition, Kapur has provided written and oral testimony before the United States Congress on mass incarceration and the School-to-Prison Pipeline. She has served on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations.

In 2010, Kapur set out to train a new generation of civil rights lawyers and designed a course on the role the American legal system has played in founding, legitimizing, and institutionalizing racism during the time periods of slavery, segregation, and modern-day mass incarceration. Race, Law, and the Struggle for Racial Equality in the U.S. is based upon the curriculum and materials of the acclaimed course that Kapur taught as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina and Campbell School of Law. Year after year, students have raved about the course in evaluations, saying it was the most relevant class they took in law school and that it changed their views and the trajectory of their legal careers; most demanded that the course become a mandatory course instead of an elective usually taken in the third and final year of law school.

Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of UC Berkeley Law School and renowned legal educator and legal scholar, said this in his review of Kapur’s book:

“This is a terrific book on race and American law that can be used in both undergraduate and law school classes. Professor Kapur has done a magnificent job of presenting the material in a thorough and engaging manner. Both professors and students will love using this book.”

Kapur’s other writing on race and law includes To Drink from the Well: The Struggle for Racial Equality at the Nation’s Oldest Public University, a narrative historical nonfiction book and a gold medal winner from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Kapur, a proud native of Kenya, attended the Kenan-Flagler Business School and the School of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kapur clerked at the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.