Julian Pierce

At 42 years old, Julian Pierce physical status not available right now. We will update Julian Pierce's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

After graduating from Pembroke State College, Pierce became a chemist for the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia. There he worked on chemical instruments, quality control testing, and decontaminating nuclear reactors. In 1969, he became a chemist in the U.S. Navy Shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, where he performed similar work. In 1973, Pierce moved back to North Carolina and enrolled at the North Carolina Central University School of Law. After graduating from law school in 1976, he became an attorney for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's office of general counsel in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, he mostly compiled briefs on the commission's behalf, though he also occasionally represented it in court. While working there, Pierce attended Georgetown School of Law to earn his Master of Laws in Taxation.

In 1978, Pierce moved to Robeson County to become the first director of Lumbee River Legal Services, a new legal aid organization headquartered in Pembroke and designed to serve the poor in Robeson and four surrounding counties. He worked in that capacity for ten years. In 1981, he served as counsel for residents suing the Lumberton City School Board, arguing that the system's annexations of mostly-white jurisdictions in the county in the 1960s violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina ultimately ruled that the city board had to seek clearance of its action from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Pierce also heavily studied laws concerning federal recognition of Native American tribes. The Lumbee were the largest group of resident Native Americans in the United States east of the Mississippi River. While they had been recognized by North Carolina's state government as tribal community since the 1880s, they never achieved complete federal recognition. In 1987 Pierce and three others co-authored a petition on behalf of Lumbee River Legal Services and the Lumbee Regional Development Association to request that the United States Department of the Interior grant federal recognition of the Lumbee people as a tribe. The petition was denied due to language in the Lumbee Act of 1956. The petitioners then proposed a recognition bill for Congress to adopt, but it failed due to opposition from the Department of the Interior and from other recognized tribes.

In 1987, the North Carolina General Assembly created nine new Superior Court judgeships, including one covering Robeson County with the goal of allowing minority candidates better odds of winning judicial office. Joe Freeman Britt, the county's white district attorney, declared himself a candidate for the office in the 1988 Democratic primary. Britt was known for pushing for death sentences in criminal trials. No Republicans entered the contest. Pierce announced in January 1988 that he would run against Britt in the primary, making him the first person to ever challenge the district attorney in an electoral contest. He resigned from his position at Lumber River Legal Services and organized a campaign, pledging to be a "hard but fair judge". He also indicated that he would investigate allegations that Sheriff Hubert Stone was engaged in a protection racket with drug dealers and that Britt had engaged in prosecutorial abuses. Stone tried to convince Pierce to drop out of the contest. He said in a 1989 interview, "I approached him and asked him not to run for Superior Court Judge, and asked him to run for [a lesser office]. I said, 'Joe Freeman Britt is going to run, and I'd rather not have a fight in an election over it.'" Pierce refused, and over the course of February and March, it was alleged that Stone attempted to employ bribery and blackmail against Pierce.

Pierce's campaign workers feared for his safety. At a political dinner on March 24, 1988, Stone took Pierce aside to discuss the campaign. According to Stone, "[Pierce] said, 'I know you and Joe [Freeman Britt] are working on me.' And I said, 'I'm not going to hurt you.'" Pierce was reportedly angered by the encounter and stated that from then on he would focus on mobilizing black and Indian voters. The following day, a campaign worker told him that sheriff's deputies were spying on him and his campaign manager urged him to retain a bodyguard. Pierce declined to do so, explaining, "If it happens then it happens—they can kill me but they can't eat me."

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