The Wilmington Ten: A Struggle In History
In 1978, then-governor Jim Hunt reduced the sentences of the group but offered no pardon. In 1980, formal charges against the group were overturned but still on record. It was later reported that prosecutors had manufactured evidence and coerced witnesses. Three of the state’s key witnesses recanted their testimonies in 1980, admitting they had committed perjury. Most of the members of the 10 spent several years in jail. Before Perdue’s pardon, the state chapter of the NAACP revealed newly discovered documentation that prosecutors intentionally sabotaged the first trial to manipulate jury selection.
1898 – A Reign Of Racist Terror
New York Herald headline covering the Wilmington Race Riot of Nov. 11, 1898.
The experiences of The Wilmington Ten actually date back to the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot, to a time of overt racial oppression and forced inequality. These race riots marked a new era of racist reign just two years after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Jim Crow segregation through Plessy v. Ferguson. This gave the green light to many Black and progressive whites being forcibly evicted from their homes by white supremacists and southern elitists.
The first order of business for local Klansmen was to break the backs of Wilmington’s black working-class, to disenfranchise their economic stronghold, which by 1895 had just begun to thrive. At this time, Wilmington was the national symbol of Black hope. It was in Wilmington where Blacks owned land and openly participated in local politics.
In this small budding city on the outer banks of North Carolina, Blacks were crafts workers, tailors, and furniture makers. They were brick masons, teachers, and architects. They were plumbers, plasterers, and even owned a newspaper, The Daily Record. Blacks in Wilmington owned 20 of the city’s 22 barbershops and one of the city’s three real estate firms. As then the largest and most prominent city in NC, it also had a Black-majority population. At the close of the 19th century, Wilmington was one of the few cities in the U.S. were both Black and white people employed each other.
The second order of business was the white working class who had allied with local Blacks. The Klan was looking to intimidate anyone who supported an interracial new America. In 1898, armed white militia terrorized such social unity and achievements. Hatemongers burned down businesses and the headquarters of the Black-owned newspaper. Well-organized mobs targeted successful Black citizens and local leaders with direct violence, gunfire, and permanent banishment. The offices of Black politicians and city officials were raided and taken over. The riot in Wilmington that year was a critical turning point in the the South’s history, a crucial blow to the pursuit of freedom and equality for all.
Needless to say, Chavis and his group and the racial outburst of 1971 was merely a reflection of deep-rooted oppression from decades earlier–political and social conditions that restricted progress in Wilmington, forcing Black youth to take a stand in response to being fed up with the city’s 70-year status quo.
The Wilmington Ten are a testament to the spirit of true resistance, the epitome of people power, and the potential of interracial solidarity. As high school youth, they lived what we must embody today–the will of struggle in the face of hate. Their recent pardon was a big step forward in the struggle for justice, but the people must never forget. As the next wave of revolutionaries, we must borrow from their spirit. We must take their batons and continue to march on.
Lamont Lilly is a contributing editor with the Triangle Free Press, Human Rights Delegate with Witness for Peace, and organizer with Workers World Socialist Party. He resides in Durham, NC, as a freelance journalist. Follow him on Twitter.
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