36 replies to this topic

[gospodin shuttlesworth]

http://www.starnewso...961/0/FRONTPAGE

Gov. Beverly Perdue pardoned the Wilmington 10 Monday, ending one of the longest and most controversial civil rights cases in Wilmington history.

The move could lead to compensation for members of the group. Two of the surviving members said Monday they would seek compensation from the state.
In a news release, the outgoing governor stated that “justice demands that this stain finally be removed” from the state’s history.

On Oct. 17, 1972, nine young black men and a white woman were convicted in a Burgaw courtroom for the 1971 firebombing of a Wilmington grocery store. The Wilmington 10 were sentenced to 282 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to firebomb Mike’s Grocery and conspiracy to assault emergency personnel who responded to the fire.

Supporters saw them as political prisoners, framed by a racist and unjust judicial system. The three key witnesses in the case later recanted their testimony. Francine DeCoursey, a local filmmaker, is working on a documentary about the Wilmington 10. She said each member had an alibi for the day in question, if only they were checked out.

“These men were only guilty of being black, and taking a stand for justice at a time when that was not popular in the Deep South,” DeCoursey said.

One of the turning points in the fight for a pardon came during a November news conference in Raleigh. The NAACP displayed jury selection notes from the trial. In those notes, potential jurors are labeled with phrases such as “possibly KKK good” and “knows; sensible; Uncle Tom type.” Advocates for the Wilmington 10 argued that the notes show that the prosecution tried to seat a racially biased jury.

Perdue’s pardon means the state no longer thinks the 10 committed a crime.

now the surviving members are going to seek compensation from the state, which they probably should considering that they were railroaded in the 70s and finally declared innocent in 2012.

[Proudiddy]

Good to hear...

No offense to anyone that lives there, but this is part of why I never found Wilmington to be a place I could make a home at. Out of all the cities in our state, Wilmington has struck me as being drenched in covert, and sometimes blatant racism. There are a lot of underlying issues there still as far as race relations go.

[SZ James]

Good to hear...

No offense to anyone that lives there, but this is part of why I never found Wilmington to be a place I could make a home at. Out of all the cities in our state, Wilmington has struck me as being drenched in covert, and sometimes blatant racism. There are a lot of underlying issues there still as far as race relations go.

don't know about that but I go to the dub and it's a fuging cracker barrel here

[gospodin shuttlesworth]

Good to hear...

No offense to anyone that lives there, but this is part of why I never found Wilmington to be a place I could make a home at. Out of all the cities in our state, Wilmington has struck me as being drenched in covert, and sometimes blatant racism. There are a lot of underlying issues there still as far as race relations go.

it's a pretty segregated town to be sure but it gets worse as you venture out into brunswick and pender

basically either fly into and out of wilmington or just be vigilant when you drive because goddamn

[gospodin shuttlesworth]

wilmington does have a p interesting history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_Insurrection_of_1898

The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898, occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina on November 10, 1898 and following days; it is considered a turning point in North Carolina politics following Reconstruction. Originally labeled a race riot, it is now termed a coup d'etat, as white Democratic insurrectionists overthrew the legitimately elected local government, the only such event in United States history.^[1][2]

In the Wilmington Insurrection, two days after the election of a Fusionist white mayor and biracial city council, Democratic white supremacists illegally seized power from the elected government. More than 1500 white men participated in an attack on the black newspaper, burning down the building. They ran officials and community leaders out of the city, and killed many blacks in widespread attacks, but especially destroyed the Brooklyn neighborhood. They took photographs of each other during the events. The Wilmington Light Infantry (WLI) and federal Naval Reserves, told to quell the riot, used rapid-fire weapons and killed several black men in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Both black and white residents later appealed for help after the riot to President William McKinley, who did not respond. More than 2,000 blacks left the city permanently, turning it from a black-majority to a white-majority city.

[Darth Biscuit]

Good to hear...

No offense to anyone that lives there, but this is part of why I never found Wilmington to be a place I could make a home at. Out of all the cities in our state, Wilmington has struck me as being drenched in covert, and sometimes blatant racism. There are a lot of underlying issues there still as far as race relations go.

Curious as to why you feel this way.

it's a pretty segregated town to be sure but it gets worse as you venture out into brunswick and pender

basically either fly into and out of wilmington or just be vigilant when you drive because goddamn

I agree that in general the neighborhoods here are pretty segregated. I've never lived in another part of the US, so I have no real basis of comparison on that... but I would say its no better or worse than most of the other cities (Whiteville, Burgaw, etc.) in this general area.

I don't get your other comment, what do you mean?

[gospodin shuttlesworth]

i spent some time in burgaw and dated a girl in oak island, neither of which exude "progressiveness" when it comes to race (or well anything)

and then of course there's leland

that being said none of these places have quite the same volatile history as wilmington has

[gospodin shuttlesworth]

one time i stopped for gas on 40 leaving wilmington and some guy walks up to me and tells me that he stopped getting gas from that station once the A-RABS bought it

idk if he was just hanging out to warn everyone who stopped there or what

[Darth Biscuit]

Yes, Leland... you needn't say much more. No, I wouldn't call any of the places you mentioned progressive. I still don't think Wilmington is better or worse though.

The other doesn't surprise me either, the guy probably thought it was funny or he was doing you a favor, or both... there is still overt racism although I think it's slowly disapearing but it will never completely go away.

[CatofWar]

This is nice. Biscuit and Cantrell interacting with civility. A new year is upon us.

[Proudiddy]

Curious as to why you feel this way.

Well, my dad's side of the family settled there after they left the military life. So, they've been there my entire life and I spent many summers and holidays going down there. Just visiting, you don't get a real feel for it. Plus, my g'ma lived off Carolina Beach Rd. a few blocks down from Dove Meadows housing project, so that's not an area I would expect to see a lot of racism. The neighborhood was fairly diverse, I guess.

But, the beauty of the beach and the life that comes with it lured my wife and I into trying it out after my daughter was born when I was like 20. So, I went down to work for a few months by myself and get us a place setup. I got a job with a contractor... I know, not the ideal representation of an area... And it was horrible. I felt like I was in the 1950s. I was called a "w***er" because I wasn't your typical redneck kicking back brews on the job and listening to country music. They gave me the crappiest tasks you can imagine, as a form of punishment I guess.

I knew that type of work would be full of less than savory characters, so I gritted my teeth and stuck with it, trying to ignore it. The final straw came after they moved me to a different division for like the 4th time in 3 months because all the other places didn't want me working there. I worked on a construction site at 3rd and Grace and the foreman had white supremacist tattoos and there probably wasn't a day that went by that he didn't use the n-word.

There was a guy that cleaned up the site as we were working who happened to be black and one day he came into the bathroom on the floor we were working on. The foreman went crazy, of course not to the guys face, and says "What the f*** is that n***** doing up here? The n***** is supposed to be down stairs cleaning!"

I couldn't take it anymore, and I couldn't really confront him because I probably would've been drug behind their work truck with all of them cheering.

I ended up setting up a meaningless meeting with the owner of the company and told her why I couldn't do it anymore and she acted as though she didn't know these guys were like that. I told her it bothered me more because my wife is a woman of color...

Aside from all that, I got lectured another day in a work truck when I was working in their in-home service division, from this fat, stinky, sweaty guy originally from KY who told me how Wilmington was so much more different because he came from a town where "there wasn't no black people out walking around."

LOL.

Additionally, I brought up Michael Jordan several times just as conversation to get through the long days... You know, it was MJ's hometown, we worked down the street from the house he grew up in, etc. I was told by this individual that MJ "ain't nobody but a tall black guy who can put a ball through a hoop." When I said I had heard before that MJ's dad (James) was a preacher, he also told me that James Jordan was a supervisor at the GE plant who stole all the time, lol.

Overall, I'd say these were some really intelligent, open-minded individuals.

One of my best friend's moved down there at the behest of his wife with their 3 kids and he's ran into it daily. He works pest control and I can't count how many times he's ran into people that ask where he's from because he's different (which they did to me as well) and when he says Fayetteville, they say something along the lines of, "FAYETTEVILLE? I bet your glad to be outta there, ain't nothing but a bunch of n******!" Which I also got when I lived there.

There's numerous other stories but those were the ones that stood out ATM.

[gospodin shuttlesworth]

well idk about those experiences since i would expect those jobs to attract some unsavory characters and it's p anecdotal, but again it can be supported by the makeup of the city (for example hillcrest is like a half a mile from a country club) and wilmington's really bad history

[Proudiddy]

well idk about those experiences since i would expect those jobs to attract some unsavory characters and it's p anecdotal, but again it can be supported by the makeup of the city (for example hillcrest is like a half a mile from a country club) and wilmington's really bad history

Yeah, as I said, those types of jobs generally attract those type of people anyway, but it was their lack of care or concern to even try to hide it that put it over the top.

And then as you said, combined with everything else that I observed when I went out places, it was unlike any other city I've ever been to or lived in. And I knew about the Insurrection of 1898, not in detail, but I knew of it as a "race war" and I always suspected that had something to do with the way blacks and whites interacted in the city thereafter. It was just a very weary feeling I would get in observing race relations there.

[SZ James]

lived here for like two years and I'm at school for a majority of the time. it's alright and people are nice in my experience.

[gospodin shuttlesworth]

And I knew about the Insurrection of 1898, not in detail, but I knew of it as a "race war" and I always suspected that had something to do with the way blacks and whites interacted in the city thereafter. It was just a very weary feeling I would get in observing race relations there.

well keep in mind as well, many people in wilmington were either alive or had parents present when this happened:

In the 1960s and 1970s, black residents of Wilmington, North Carolina were unhappy with the lack of progress in implementing integration and other civil rights reforms legally achieved by the American Civil Rights Movement. Many struggled with poverty and lack of opportunity. The 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. increased racial tensions, with a rise in violence, including the arson of several white-owned businesses.
Racial tension increased after the 1969 integration of Wilmington high schools, as the city closed the black Williston High School, a source of community pride. It laid off black teachers, principals, and coaches, transferring students to other schools.^[3] There was little preparation of whites or blacks for the changes. The school administration resisted meeting with the students to hear their grievances, including separation from friends and the lack of opportunity to play sports in new schools.^[4] Several clashes between white and black students had resulted in a number of arrests and expulsions.
In response to tensions, members of a Ku Klux Klan chapter and other white supremacist groups began patrolling the streets. They hung an effigy of the white superintendent of the schools and cut his phone lines. Street violence broke out between them and black men.^{[3] [2]}
Students decided to boycott the high schools in January 1971. In February, the United Church of Christ sent Reverend Benjamin Chavis, Jr., from their Commission for Racial Justice, to Wilmington to try to calm the situation and work with the students. He preached non-violence to them and met with students regularly at Gregory Congregational Church to discuss black history, as well as to organize the boycott.

and the subsequent wilmington 10 fiasco

lived here for like two years and I'm at school for a majority of the time. it's alright and people are nice in my experience.

this is purely anecdotal but i've heard some serious kkk sounding poo following the murder of that delivery driver last summer and that student a few weeks ago

but wilmington isn't mississippi and idk if it's actually much more racist than any other city. i think racist ppl might even be a little less likely to act on that poo considering what went down there decades ago