Daryl Atkinson

Durham, North Carolina

Co-Director & Co-Founder
Forward Justice

In North Carolina, a state where Black folks are 22% of its residents but 55% of its incarcerated population, Daryl Atkinson, 52, applies constant legal pressure to support an equitable quality of life for people inside the criminal justice matrix. He’s co-founder and co-director of Forward Justice, an advocacy-focused law, policy and strategy center, to synergize community activism with the litigation, public policy and scholarship necessary to secure rights for currently and formerly incarcerated people.

The attorney-activist advocates for people with criminal records because he himself personally embodies the importance of a second chance. In 1996, Atkinson served a staggering 40-month prison term and was assessed a $50,000 fine after pleading guilty to a non-violent drug crime — his first-time offense. The collateral fallout from his conviction was a sentence of its own. He was denied federal financial aid to go to college. He lost his voting rights in his home state of Alabama. His driver’s license was even suspended, all complicating his efforts to rebuild and live out his freedom.

Now a founding member of the North Carolina Second Chance Alliance, a collaborative of people who support the reintegration of adults and juveniles after incarceration, Atkinson successfully pressed state legislature to pass the Second Chance Act, a landmark legislation that makes the expungement process easier to give formerly incarcerated people equal access to opportunities for housing, education and employment.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when abysmal conditions made social distancing in N.C. state jails and prisons impossible, endangering the health of thousands of incarcerated people, Atkinson was part of the legal team that sued the governor and Department of Public Safety for violations of constitutional rights. The historic settlement resulted in the early release of more than 3,500 elderly, pregnant or chronically ill people most vulnerable to the virus. — Janelle Harris Dixon