February 24, 2013
Wilmington Ten’s Ben Chavis Aims to Mobilize 21st Century Youth
By Hazel Trice Edney
Dr. Chavis
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Civil rights leaders across the nation described it as one of the most significant moments in the modern day Civil Rights Movement. That is when then North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue issued a pardon to the members of the legendary Wilmington Ten on Dec. 31, 2012.
But, even bigger than that moment may be what’s to come. Former Wilmington Ten member Dr. Benjamin Chavis, co-chair of the Hip Hop Summit Action Network with Russell Simmons, says he will now use the pardon as a catalyst to involve young people in the continued struggle for equality and justice in America. Chavis and a panel of current Civil Rights activists were slated to appear at the Howard University School of Communications this week for a Black History Month forum at WHUT, the university's TV station.
“Because of my work with Russell Simmons and the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, I know there are millions of young people who want to know what the freedom movement is all about, what the civil rights movement is all about,” Chavis said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire. “I see the exoneration and the pardon of innocence of the Wilmington 10 as a blessing from God. And when you’re blessed, you have to utilize those blessings. We plan to use this status that we’ve been given by history to help inspire a new generation of people to be active and supportive in the civil rights movement.”
In her Dec. 31st statement, Perdue used words with equivalence to a rebuke to a criminal justice system that has long discriminated again African-Americans.
“I have decided to grant these pardons because the more facts I have learned about the Wilmington Ten, the more appalled I have become about the manner in which their convictions were obtained,” said Perdue. “Justice demands that this stain finally be removed. The process in which this case was tried was fundamentally flawed. Therefore, as Governor, I am issuing these pardons of innocence to right this longstanding wrong.”
In even stronger terms, Perdue condemned the blatantly racial activities that led to the convictions: “These convictions were tainted by naked racism and represent an ugly stain on North Carolina’s criminal justice system that cannot be allowed to stand any longer.”
In a nutshell, here is a description of the Wilmington Ten case according to reporter Cash Michaels of the Wilmington Journal:
“The Wilmington Ten - nine black males and one white female – were activists who, along with hundreds of black students in the New Hanover County Public School System, protested rampant racial discrimination there in 1971.
“In February 1971, after the arrival of Rev. Benjamin Chavis to help lead the protests, racial violence erupted, with white supremacist driving through Wilmington’s black community, fatally shooting people and committing arson.
“A white-owned grocery store in the black community was firebombed, and firemen came under sniper fire. It wasn’t until a year later that Rev. Chavis and the others were round up and charged with conspiracy in connection with the firebombing and shootings.
“The Ten were falsely convicted, and sentenced to 282 years in prison, some of which they all served.
“It wouldn’t be until 1977, after years of failed appeals in North Carolina courts, that the three state’s witnesses all recanted their testimonies, admitting that they perjured themselves,” the Wilmington Journal reports.
After much activism on their behalf, including Amnesty International which called the group “political prisoners of conscience;” and a CBS “60 Minutes” expose on the fabrication, they received a commutation of their sentences in 1978 and the U. S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately overturned all of the convictions citing prosecutorial misconduct violations of constitutional rights.
But, even after the appeals court directed the state to either retry the defendants or dismiss the charges, the state did nothing.
After nearly 32 years, Wilmington Journal Publisher Mary Alice Thatch, asked the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a federation of 200 Black-owned newspapers, to help pursue the pardons of innocence for the Wilmington Ten. After a series of NNPA stories, exposing court records that proved prosecutorial corruption, other media and civil rights organizations joined in the push for the declaration of absolute innocence, which was issued by Perdue.
The declaration of innocence finally cleared the names of Chavis, Connie Tindall, Jerry Jacobs, William Joe Wright, Anne Sheppard, Wayne Moore, Marvin Patrick, James McKoy, Willie Earl Vereen, and Reginald Epps.
Chavis, who served the longest sentence - five years and four months - says he never lost his faith in God throughout the ordeal. But he is now left with a haunting realization that many youths may never understand the hardships that were suffered for the freedoms they now cherish.
“This is the same dilemma that Nelson Mandela and the [African National Congress] had in South Africa. A whole generation of young people in South Africa, they’ve heard about the Apartheid regime, but don’t quite get the connection, similar to here in the United States,” he said. “So, to me I’m going to be a part of a global movement to not only build an awareness of the importance of the freedom movement, but stress that young people - while they’re young - should participate to transform their lives.”
Chavis, who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a teenager, is no novice at mobilization. He is a former executive director of the NAACP and served as national director of the 1995 Million Man March. He plans to help strengthen traditional civil rights organizations by inspiring young activists and leaders to join them and become active on 21st Century causes.
Chavis says he will now “write more and speak more and be very, very active. I’m going to use my status in the movement to help renew, rebuild and revitalize the civil rights movement.”