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The Wilmington Ten: “An 1898 Mentality Prevailed”. Elizabeth Hines University of North Carolina Wilmington. I. The 1898 Mentality. 1898: 1898 Riot 1971: 1898 Insurrection 1998: 1898 Coup d’etat 2006: 1898 Massacre 2008: 1898 Terrorism.
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The Wilmington Ten:“An 1898 Mentality Prevailed” Elizabeth Hines University of North Carolina Wilmington
1898: 1898 Riot • 1971: 1898 Insurrection • 1998: 1898 Coup d’etat • 2006: 1898 Massacre • 2008: 1898 Terrorism
Wilmington’s Thalian Hall, where the Declaration of White Supremacy was read on November 10, 1898
Williston Industrial High School prepared thousands of black students for professions and vocations from the late 19th century to 1968. • 1954 Brown v Board of Education mandated national school desegregation. • 1968: Wilmington’s Public Schools were integrated by closing Williston and sending its students and teachers to one of two white high schools, New Hanover or Hoggard.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was scheduled to speak in Wilmington on April 4, 1968. • However, he canceled to remain in Memphis with the Garbage Worker’s Strike and was killed on that day. • Williston students’ protests turned to rioting, lasting for 5 days. 27 buildings were burned.
200 Williston students marched to Thalian Hall on 4/5/68 to protest the King assassination.
A Voice of Reason:Mrs. Bertha Todd, Librarian at Williston in ‘52-68 (Hoggard in 68-69), explained in 2006 that in 1971 “an 1898 mentality prevailed.”(The Real Help)
Williston was not integrated, but New Hanover and Hoggard received the Black students and teachers in Fall of 1968. • Two uneasy years of protests and inter-racial fights ensued. Tim Tyson described his 5 years in Wilmington’s Jr. & Sr. Highs as a “protracted prison movie.” • Black students missed the opportunities in extracurricular activities that were denied them in the white schools. White students resented the Blacks’ presence. Although, many have commented that the real problem was the parents and a group known as the ROWP.
In late 1970 and early 1971, 22 buildings were firebombed, including the School Board’s building, the Hemingway, shown here.
When New Hanover High chose no black cheerleaders 1970, black students boycotted the schools and 100s became truant. New Hanover, 1969 Hoggard, 1970
Pastor Eugene Templeton, his wife and students in Gregory UCC Church, 1971
Reverend Templeton asked the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice to send a facilitator to organize and lead the student boycott. • On 2/1/71, the UCCCRJ sent 23 year old Benjamin Chavis, an ordained minister. • Chavis had been an organizer in Oxford, N.C., his home town, where a racial murder had sparked riots, and in Charlotte, N.C., where he had been a student organizer during desegregation of the schools there.
Benjamin Chavis (Muhammad) 1971; at the Ten’s Appeal Press Conference in 1973; & at the 35th anniversary in 2006
Chavis went to work for the UCC after he got out of jail. • Later he became the National Chairman of the NAACP. • After resigning amid a scandal, he joined the Nation of Islam and took the name Muhammad. • He now works for Russell • Simmons’ Hip Hop Network.
Chavis led a protest against the injustices to the high schoolers on the steps of Thalian Hall, February 1971
Lum’s Restaurant, a popular hangout in a white suburb, burned on 2/5/71. The owners claimed that a sophisticated timed incendiary device had been placed in the men’s room and that Chavis and several other blacks had lingered there all night. Others claimed that it was torched for an insurance claim.
Mike’s Grocery burned on February 6, 1971. Police and firemen received sniper fire, said to be coming from Gregory Church.
Kojo Nantambu (Roderick Kirby in 1971(R)) counted 33 cars with white passengers “bristling with guns” circling Gregory on 2/6/71; In 2006 (L) is president of the Charlotte NAACP, an ordained minister and a Mecklenburg County Schools Administrator.
Mike’s Grocery was a white-owned business in the Black community near Gregory Church. Mike Poulos was reputed to have slapped a Black customer and refused to sell alcohol to minors earlier on the day of the fire-bombing.At the trial in 1972, Allen Hall, the prosecution’s main witness, admitted his own role as one of the arsonists at Mike’s, who then, with Chavis, sniped at emergency personnel.
Two people died. Steve Mitchell, a black 16 year old was killed on the night of the Mike’s Grocery arson in a nearby alley. An unfired shotgun was found by his body. Harvey Cumber, white, was found shot to death in his truck near Gregory Church the next day. He had a loaded 38. His body was driven through town by his relatives on the back of a flatbed truck.
200 National Guardsmen arrived in Wilmington on 2/8/71 to restore order.
The Reverend Leon White and Kojo at the Church of the Black Messiah, Castle Street
IV. The Wilmington Ten (originally the Wilmington 30)
In 2012, Ferguson is the lead attorney in the first court case to test the Racial Justice Act.
A Good Defense Faced An Uphill Battle: • Attorney James Ferguson’s initial motion to quash the indictments argued that the Ten were denied their state and federal Constitutional rights to a jury of their peers was denied. • Ferguson discovered the D.A.’s witness tampering, when Allen Hall, the state’s main witness, waived at him from the Holiday Inn at Wrightsville Beach, where the DA had him and the other witnesses sequestered. • Ferguson’s 5 attempts to force disclosure were denied. • Ultimately, his appeal was heard and the Ten were released.
The Wilmington Ten received a combined total of 232 years in 1972. Chavis’s sentence was the longest. Wayne Moore Willie Vereen Reginald Epps Marvin Patrick James McKoy Anne Sheppard Jerry Jacobs Ben Chavis Connie Tindall Joe Wright
The Pender County Courthouse in Burgaw, N.C.30 miles from Wilmington, where both trials were held.
Two trials in 1972: • The first jury was composed of 10 blacks and 2 whites. Assistant DA Stroud developed a stomach ache, was taken to a hospital, and a mistrial was declared. • When he recovered, a new jury was selected after 40 dismissals by Stroud. The new jury consisted of 10 whites and two blacks.
State’s Witnesses Damned the Ten • Allen Hall, 17, committed to Cherry Mental Hospital for 5 weeks in October 1971 • Jerome Mitchell, 16, later imprisoned • Eric Junius, aged 12 at the time, was given a mini-bike after the trial by Stroud • All 3 eventually recanted their testimony.
