Two NC arson attacks against one Black family brings scrutiny from civil rights groups
Two arson cases involving the eastern North Carolina homes of a Black family have put some local residents on edge, but for now those responsible and their motives are unknown.
On Jan. 26 long-time community advocate Rebecca Judge and her daughter Beverly Judge watched their home and four vehicles burn after being set afire at night. They escaped unharmed, but the home was badly damaged. Rebecca Judge, who owns the home on 20 acres in Beulaville in Duplin County, was honored in 2018 with the state’s community service award, the Order of the Longleaf Pine.
On May 4, a home in Jacksonville in Onslow County occupied by Ayisha Bullock, Beverly Judge’s daughter, and her two young children, was set afire, as were two vehicles. The family members got out without injury.
Beverly Judge said she had no idea who is behind the fires. There has been no communication connected with them. She thinks it could be related to her family’s prominence and activism.
“We’ve been harassed for some time so I guess it has just escalated,” she said. “Maybe I didn’t take it seriously enough. I’m not sure what would draw anybody to go to that extreme.”
Judge said the Jacksonville police have been helpful in her daughter’s case, but the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office has told her little about their investigation. Law enforcement officials in the city of Jacksonville and Duplin County could not be reached for comment.
The attacks have prompted the NAACP and the Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice to investigate what is happening not only to the Judge family, but possibly other Black Duplin County residents. The county of about 50,000 residents is 51 percent white, 23 percent Black and 15 percent Hispanic. Hog farming is the dominant industry.
Aimee Durant, an attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which is representing the Judge family, said her group is exploring whether there is a problem with race relations in the county that could lead to a lawsuit over civil rights violations.
Durant’s group and the state chapter of the NAACP are sponsoring a virtual town hall meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday in which residents will be invited to share information about instances of racial harassment or discrimination. There is an email and a phone number for residents who want to report their experiences anonymously: duplinstories@scsj.org, 919-323-3380, ext. 172
“We’re trying to get others to come forward and talk about anything they have experienced and help us understand what our clients have experienced,” Durant said.
The civil rights groups are dissatisfied with the response from the Duplin County sheriff.
“Frankly, I think what happened is the Judge family is being targeted for whatever reason and they’re not getting as quick an investigation that we think they deserve,” Durant said.
For now, the people and the reasons behind the attacks are a mystery. There have been tensions in the county since a group of mostly Black residents joined lawsuits seeking compensation for how the odor and pollution from neighboring hog farms have hurt their quality of life. The lawsuits resulted in multi-million dollar awards.
The Judge family was not involved in the legal actions
“We didn’t even file for that whole lawsuit thing,” Beverly Judge said. “People were being harassed over it. I just didn’t need the headache. We’ve always been pretty peaceful people.”
Now, the Judge family is unnerved and frustrated that those behind the fires have not been caught.
“It just seems like it has been thrown by the wayside,” Judge said of her case. “The person doing it obviously has no fear. It has disrupted my family all the way down to my grandchildren.”
Judge plans to rebuild her burned-out home. Meanwhile, she said, “I’d rather not say where I’m living.”
This story was originally published June 7, 2022 at 4:30 AM with the headline "Two NC arson attacks against one Black family brings scrutiny from civil rights groups."