Documentary screening puts spotlight on 'Wilmington Ten'

Instead of spending their sunny Saturday afternoons outside, community members gathered at the United Church of Chapel Hill for a screening of the 2014 documentary “Pardons of Innocence: The Wilmington Ten.” 

Co-sponsored by the Town of Chapel Hill’s Justice in Action committee, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP and the Orange Organizing Against Racism Alliance, the event featured a showing of the film and a discussion panel with filmmaker Cash Michaels and Irving Joyner, a professor of law at North Carolina Central University. 

The story of the "Wilmington Ten" follows 10 civil rights activists – eight African-American high school students, an African-American minister and a white social worker – who were wrongfully convicted of arson and conspiracy in 1971 following school boycotts to protest unfair treatment in integrated schools. 

Together, the Wilmington Ten were sentenced to a total of 282 years in prison. Following their incarceration, the case gained international legal attention as key witnesses in the case recanted their testimonies.

The cases were ultimately overturned on a legal technicality in 1980 by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2012, North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue officially pardoned the Wilmington Ten. 

Director Cash Michaels said the film became an unexpected passion.

“Let’s face it, this is a story that folks in North Carolina really don’t want told,” Michaels said. “'That's okay, they got a pardon, let’s forget about it and just go on with life,' — and so when people see it for the first time, they are in shock. I just watch people learn and eat it all up.”

In response to a question asked by an audience member after the screening, Michaels said showing the film to younger students is the way the story will carry on.

“(The Wilmington Ten) were kids when all of this happened and this injustice maintained for the better part of their lives, that because of this their lives were literally ruined,” Michaels said. “I think when young people sit there and watch this they can relate to the militancy, they can relate to the injustice, they can relate to the oppression and the fact that you can say something about this and get this message out.”

Joyner, who worked as a member of the legal defense team for the case, said they never doubted the truth.

“The problem that we had was we were dealing with a stacked deck,” Joyner said. “We always knew; the issue was convincing other people.”

Michaels said the documentary premiered right as the cases of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were gaining attention. Now, people see the film in a different light.

“Every time you read a book or watch a movie, you always see it through the prism of modern times and what’s happening,” Michaels said. “And I think there is something here for people if they are looking at it through the prism of activism that we have now.”

Michaels said he has shown the film to schools across the state, including N.C. State University and East Carolina University. He talked with UNC about a screening on campus over a year ago, but never heard back.

Emily Owens, a sophomore from Elon University who attended the event, said she had not learned anything about the Wilmington Ten through her public school education. 

“It’s important to remember that oppressions like this still exist today," Owens said. "It’s so important not just to sit here and shake our heads and think about where we’ve come from, but to share it, to join in marches, to demand that these things change."

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