The Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman (right) and Guilford County Commissioners Chairman Melvin “Skip” Alston stand behind Vice President Kamala Harris at the Woolworth lunch counter at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro in 2021.
WOODY MARSHALL, NEWS & RECORD
The Rev. T. Anthony Spearman (left) and the Rev. William Barber walk out of the Hiram H. Ward Federal Building in Winston-Salem in 2014 during a break on the first day of a hearing challenging a North Carolina voting law.
GREENSBORO — The Rev. T. Anthony Spearman, a former state NAACP president and longtime social justice advocate, has died and a friend and attorney is calling for an investigation into the circumstances.
The family confirmed Wednesday that Spearman, 71, died Tuesday. Spearman, a former substance abuse counselor and president of the N.C. Council of Churches, served on the Guilford County Board of Elections up until his death.
Spearman was found in his home after he did not show up for an elections board meeting Tuesday, but a cause of death has not been confirmed. Spearman’s wife has been away caring for an ill relative.
“The Spearman Family is utterly devastated by the transition of our patriarch, Reverend Dr. T. Anthony Spearman,” the family said in a statement. “He was a man of strong conviction who loved his family with every ounce of his being. We solicit your prayers as we grieve this insurmountable loss and request your consideration and privacy as we go through this season of bereavement.”
Investigators responded to Spearman’s home after a 911 call at 5:08 p.m. Tuesday with 14 officers responding, including Sheriff Danny Rogers. A handgun, knife and/or cutting instrument were listed on the incident report as a possible weapon.
“We’re going to call for a full and fair investigation,” attorney Mark Cummings, who considered Spearman a mentor, said early Wednesday. “We call on state and local authorities for a full investigation to determine just what happened to this very spry, energetic man who was leading for change in an organization that affects so many people’s lives. ... Part of his inspiration was that his work wasn’t done.”
Late Wednesday, Rogers said in a statement the death was an ongoing investigation and asked anyone with information to contact Detective S.M. Garlick at 336-641-5966 or Guilford County Crime Stoppers at 336-373-1000.
Those who over the years joined in protests alongside the man who once said he wanted to leave the world better than he found it, were remembering Spearman’s social justice work as word of his death spread.
A member of the NAACP since childhood, Spearman was elected in 2017 as the North Carolina president and served for one term. He lost last year to Deborah Dicks Maxwell but was contesting the election. He had recently filed a lawsuit against national NAACP leadership as well as Maxwell, alleging defamation and a conspiracy to have him removed from office, according to an exclusive report last month in the Carolina Peacemaker.
Before being elected to succeed the Rev. William Barber, the soft-spoken but direct Spearman had been a faithful lieutenant in the state NAACP.
“I have lost a true brother in the struggle,” Barber said Wednesday in a statement. “North Carolina and the nation have lost a champion of justice and a beloved public servant. We have all lost a freedom fighter, a man deeply committed to justice, and a man of true faith. We have lost a scholar, a preacher, a voting rights defender, an advocate for prison reform and for the wrongfully accused and a stalwart soldier in the cause of love and justice for all humankind. .... He fought the good fight and his course has been finished. But his legacy of service and works will follow him. We are certain of that. Let all people of conscience say, ‘Amen.’”
“He helped to make the footprint,” Barber told the News & Record in a 2019 interview. “If you look back, Dr. Spearman was right there.”
More introvert to Barber’s extreme extrovert, Spearman was one of the original 17 protesters at the “Moral Monday” demonstrations starting in 2013 against Republican-led legislative policies they felt were attacks on the poor, with both Barber and Spearman being arrested.
In 2012, Spearman was among the few Black pastors in the state to speak out against Amendment One, a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
That’s how the Rev. Julie Peeples got to know Spearman, who the pastor of Congregational United Church of Christ called a deep thinker. They stood arm in arm in protest many times, including during a “disruptive” 2016 Guilford County Board of Election meeting to eliminate early voting sites and dates.
“He had a depth of integrity, a depth of great love for his family, a depth of love for justice, for God,” Peeples said. “My heart aches for his family.”
Cummings said that Spearman had been working to establish in Greensboro a program that he began in Hickory called the Bridge Program, which was designed to take troubled youth and show them alternative routes to be successful.
“Dr. Spearman was … in the spirit of Dr. King, a true drum major for justice,” Cummings said. “His North Star was how do we protect the least of us? How do we ensure that we’re ever marching towards that more perfect union and he did that by taking an interest in and mentoring young men from every walk of life.”
Spearman, the former pastor of Phillips A.M.E. Zion Church in Greensboro, had also served as a third vice president of the NAACP over a heavily-minority district that had some of the worst poverty in North Carolina, which inspired him.
During his tenure, Spearman traveled the state rallying people against policies aimed at the poor, people of color and members of the gay community.
“Educating people,” Spearman said in 2019,” is empowering them.”
The Rev. T. Anthony Spearman with the N.C. NAACP speaks out about at voter identification requirement at a news conference at the state offices in Greensboro in 2019.
The Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman (right) and Guilford County Commissioners Chairman Melvin “Skip” Alston stand behind Vice President Kamala Harris at the Woolworth lunch counter at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro in 2021.
The Rev. T. Anthony Spearman (left) and the Rev. William Barber walk out of the Hiram H. Ward Federal Building in Winston-Salem in 2014 during a break on the first day of a hearing challenging a North Carolina voting law.