NC Supreme Court Removing Portrait Of Slave Owner Ex-Justice

The North Carolina Supreme Court says it will remove portrait from its courtroom of a former slave-owning chief justice who once defended slavery through his court rulings. The ex-justice Thomas Ruffin argued in one case that a slaveholder should not be guilty of assault or battery of an enslaved person — and that an owner's power over his slave was absolute. An advisory commission recently recommended Ruffin's portrait be taken down. Outgoing state Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley says it will be replaced with the seal of the court. Beasley is the second Black chief justice in the court's history.