By Cash Michaels
coordinator,
Wilmington Ten Pardons of Innocence Project
Editor’s
note - There is no
question that the false prosecution forty years of the nine young black men and
one white woman who would become widely known as the “Wilmington Ten,”
dramatically impacted their lives, as well as those of their families and loved
ones.
Most
of the defendants were young, some barely in their twenties, when they were
convicted in 1972 of crimes they didn’t commit.
Some were still in high school,
and living with their parents.
At least one, Anne Shepard, was
raising three young children at the time.
Most
of them had dreams of bright, hope-filled futures. Some wanted to practice law.
Some wanted to play professional sports.
And some were already musicians,
looking for their first really big break.
Their only collective
“crime,”they each individually say, was their willingness to openly, but
peacefully, challenge the New Hanover County Public School System in the early
1970s when it declined to provide an equal, quality education to black
students.
Because of their individual
courage, and commitment to equality, the Wilmington Ten suffered false
prosecution, years of imprisonment and great personal hardships for themselves
and their families. The collective impact for all of them has extended decades
beyond their release from prison, and well after a federal appellate court
overturned their convictions.
Three of the Wilmington Ten - Jerry Jacobs, William Joseph
Wright and Anne Shepard - have died, their dreams unfulfilled, according to
their bereaved families.
In all, the lives of the
Wilmington Ten have been marked by struggle, hardship and indignities they
otherwise would not have experienced if the state of North Carolina, forty
years ago, had not sought to punish them for their political activism, and
willingness to demand social change.
Today, forty years later, the
Wilmington Ten and their families seek individual pardons of innocence from the
State of North Carolina for crimes they didn’t commit. But even pardons cannot
erase the pain and struggle they’ve all endured.
In part 1 of this three-part
series, we look at the lives of Jerry Jacobs, William “Joe” Wright, Jr. and
Willie “Earl” Vereen.
JERRY JACOBS
According to his mother, Mrs.
Margaret Jacobs of Wilmington, Jerry, age 19 at the time of his arrest in the
Wilmington Ten case, was a happy, “real lovable” person who got along with
everyone, and never got into trouble.
He was a good student at Williston High - the all-black
school that was closed in 1968 amid protests - and had dreams of becoming a
professional tennis player, and a doctor. “My phone would ring off the hook
with doctors looking to play tennis with him,” Ms. Jacobs recalls.
When Williston was closed, Jerry
was, as were many other black students, “very upset,” his mother recalls. He
joined the protests.
Jerry never got into trouble (”I
was very strict on that”), and didn’t believe in violence. So when he was
arrested at home (“The police came and got him out of bed,” Ms. Jacobs recalls
when her son was arrested in front of her) and accused in the Wilmington Ten
case, Ms. Jacobs, knowing that he was innocent, was “very worried.”
So worried, in fact, that she
became ill (“It tore me apart), which became a heavy burden on Jerry.
Mrs. Jacobs was increasingly upset
when she attended the trial, saw the majority white jury, and heard the later
recanted testimony of Allen Hall and other state’s witnesses.
The whole experience was very
troubling, she said, not only for herself, but for Jerry’s siblings as well.
“It affected them real bad,” she said. “Jerry had never been in trouble.”
Jerry Jacobs was sentenced to 29
years in prison. The Wilmington Ten experience interrupted his education.
“It turned his world upside down
when he couldn’t graduate,” Mrs. Jacobs said. “I have seven children, and he’s
the only one who didn’t graduate from high school because of the Wilmington Ten
situation. Jerry’s love for tennis disappeared as well.”
“His whole world just came tumbling
down,” she says.
During his time in prison, Jerry
would write his mother letters, and when he could, call her on the telephone.
It was difficult for Mrs. Jacobs to
travel the many miles to see her son because with six other children to raise
on her own, she was working three jobs to survive. But when she did make it to
see Jerry, he was very happy.
“Oh, he would grab me and wouldn’t
let go,” she recalls. “And we both just cried and cried.”
After Jerry was early released from
prison and went back home to Wilmington, he couldn’t find a job, and was
shunned by the community, so much so that he felt his life was in danger. He left to live in New York City.
But Jerry didn’t stay long, his
mother says. Jerry got mixed up with the wrong crowd, began taking drugs. He
came back to Wilmington in bad shape, arm swollen and strung out. Mrs. Jacobs
said Jerry later had a stroke. At the hospital, doctors told his mother he had
also contracted the AIDS virus because of bad needlesUNI.
“That’s what killed him,” she says
sadly of Jerry’s death in 1989. “That’s what destroyed him.”
If Margaret Jacobs could speak to
Gov. Beverly Perdue face-to-face, and tell her why her son, Jerry Jacobs,
deserves a pardon of innocence posthumously from the state of North Carolina,
she would say, “I don’t think he was guilty.” Mrs. Jacobs would tell the
governor of the hardships Jerry went through, and that when he died, he was a
“hurt man, never the same,” and the false prosecution by the state changed
Jerry’s life forever.
“Yes it did,” Mrs. Jacobs laments.
“Yes it did. He probably would have been living today.”
WILLIAM “JOE” WRIGHT, JR.
William Gibbs remembers his late brother, Joe Wright, as a “very, very congenial fellow who
brought people to common understanding, and very much a young leader.”
Gibbs says the conspiracy charges
leveled against Joe and the other members of the Wilmington Ten were “totally
out of character” for them. “Joe and a lot of those guys wouldn’t hurt a fly,”
Gibbs says. The 17 year-old Wright wanted to grow up to become a lawyer, and
was willing to put in the hard work to make that happen.
Gregory Congregational United
Church of Christ was right in the neighborhood, so it was nothing for Joe, his
friends and family to frequent there from time to time. And when it became the
center of black student activism against the heavy-handed ways of the New
Hanover Board of Education and the city of Wilmington, Joe was right there,
learning how to protest and demonstrate forcefully, but peacefully. And he
looked up to Rev. Ben Chavis when he arrived.
Joe had nothing to do with the
events of Feb. 6, 1971, William Gibb maintains, but a year later, when
authorities began arresting people and charging them with the firebombing of
Mike’s Grocery, Joe was not surprised, because of his activism, that he was
among them.
But his family was surprised, and
worried. They knew Joe didn’t even know how to fire a gun, Gibbs said, let
alone burn down a building.
Joe was arrested “because he was
listed as a leader,” his brother says.
When the case went to trial, Gibbs
says it was very clear that all of the Wilmington Ten were being set up. “We
knew what was coming down the pike,” Gibbs said, having attended the trial. The
family was distraught, knowing that it wouldn’t end well, and Joe would be sent
to prison. He was sentenced to 29 years.
And when Joe got to prison in
Northhampton County, Gibbs is amazed how he was able to survive, but Joe did so
by “keeping his head up, knowing that one day, the truth will be shown, and one
day, they would all get out.”
The family made the long trek from
Wilmington to Northhampton County as much as they could. Joe was always pleased
to see them, and assured them that they would be all together again back home.
The ordeal took a toll on their
mother, Gibbs said. Even though she was a strong woman raising five children,
the worry about Joe was heavy.
Joe’s time in prison “definitely
cost him,” Gibbs says. But Joe also used that time to be productive, taking
classes to prepare for the day when he would leave, and work towards getting
his law degree.
“You never heard him cry,” Gibbs
says.
When Joe Wright was finally
released early in 1978, unlike several other members of the Wilmington Ten, he
was relatively accepted back. He was able to return to school, find work, and
even get a job with a United States congressman in Washington, D.C..
Joe was working diligently towards
his goal of going to law school, when suddenly, he became ill.
He had contracted a debilitating
disease that attached itself to his lungs while he was in prison. As Joe got
older, the disease got worse.
William “Joe” Wright died in 1991.
A week before his death, Joe was accepted to Campbell Law
School. There is no question in William Gibbs’ mind that his brother would have
lived to see his dream of practicing law into fruition, had it not been for the
Wilmington Ten case.
The death was a tremendous shock to
the family, Gibbs agrees.
After all he had been through, Joe
Wright still had promise, and was still willing to make a positive contribution.
If William Gibbs could speak to
Gov. Perdue about why his late brother deserves a pardon of innocence from the
state of North Carolina, beyond the fact that Joe Wright was innocent, Gibbs
would say, “ I believe you [Gov. Perdue] to be a fair and just citizen of this
state. And if this had happened to a member of your family, especially a close
member, a brother…and he was wrongly accused and had gone through what [Joe]
had gone through, to the point of something that led to his death, you would
want this for [him].”
Gibbs added, “It would be the right
thing to do.”
WILLIE
EARL VEREEN
Willie Vereen was a young
17-year-old musician, playing in a rhythm & blues band. He told his family
he wanted to be lawyer or a doctor. His older sister was the political one, not
him. He grew up in Jervay Projects in Wilmington, which meant Willie hung out
with his friends late, “drank a little wine,” and basically just had fun.
So how did Willie Vereen not only
get involved with the black student movement, but ultimately fingered as a
co-conspirator in a serious crime that he did not commit?
A student of Hoggard High - one of
the integrated schools where African-American students wer being mistreated
after all-black Williston High was closed - Vereen found himself in the midst of a black student boycott
one day. That boycott led to him joining other students who met and strategized
at Gregory Church. Willie understood what the boycott was about, but he was
mainly there “because of the girls,” testament that the farthest thing on his
young mind was shooting or firebombing.
Indeed, when the authorities came
looking for a “W. Vereen,” Willie believes they were looking for his activist
sister, Wanda, instead of him. Thus, the shock upon shock when authorities
arrested him a year after the Mike’s Grocery fire, and charged him as a
conspirator.
In fact, Vereen was so far removed
from the student activists, that when police arrested him and asked about Ben
Chavis, Vereen couldn’t tell them much.
He didn’t know Chavis well at all.
Vereen’s father was stunned by the
arrest. His mother couldn’t understand what was going on. Both were very hurt,
but believed Willie when he told them he was innocent of the charges.
And when the trial began, his
sister Wanda “cried real hard,” because she knew he wasn’t politically active.
Vereen was tried and convicted,
partly because tainted witness Allen Hall fingered him, and partly because
Vereen refused to lie about Ben Chavis as the police wanted him too.
Watching the trial, while Vereen
could see the deck was being stacked against him by the prosecutors,
Willie still held out hope that
all he had been taught about trusting authority figures, and trusting
government, would save him and fellow Wilmington Ten defendant James McKoy in
the end.
Why McKoy? Because on the night
that Mike’s Grocery had been firebombed, both teens were at the same club, at
the same time, outside of Wilmington, performing in a band.
When they were all convicted,
Vereen says he immediately lost that faith in government, because authorities,
he saw, didn’t even bother to seek the truth.
Vereen was sentenced to a total of
29 years.
“ I felt like something was taken
out of me,” Vereen remembers now. “I felt like I was lost. Like a man without a
country.”
His family screamed in the
courtroom. “They were infuriated,” Vereen recalls.
The ordeal changed the course of
history for young Willie. Dreams of his grandmother paying his way through
college so he could become a doctor or lawyer were now dust. He had to figure
out how to survive incarceration for the next thirty years.
In prison, Vereen joined the Nation
of Islam after converting to Islam. “It took a lot of anger away from me,” he
recalls.
Thanks to mounting pressure on then
Gov. Jim Hunt to reduce the sentences of the Wilmington Ten, Vereen spent a
total of five years in prison before he was released early, but he was not
received very well when he went back home.
When it came to applying for jobs,
Vereen would get the work, only to have someone recognize him as a member of
the Ten, and get him fired. Old friends wanted nothing to do with him. The
church he attended felt that Vereen was guilty, he says.
Vereen did go to school for
journalism, and was able to do well in that environment, but it was a rare
oasis amid everything else he faced.
There is no question that the
Wilmington Ten case turned his life around for the bad, Vereen says. He’s
“mostly paranoid now, and mostly stays at home.” His fiancée’, Gail, watches out for him now.
Willie Earl Vereen says if given
the opportunity to speak with Gov. Perdue face-to-face, and tell her why he
deserves a pardon of innocence from the state of North Carolina, he would tell
her, “ I deserve a pardon because my life was conspired against. I was charged,
tried, convicted for crimes that I did not commit. Read the transcript, and you
will see.”
“Out of all love, and respect, I
feel that we deserve a pardon, and compensation,” says Vereen.
CONNIE TINDALL
Young Connie Tindall was an
all-star high school football champion in Wilmington who dreamed of growing up
to play Sunday afternoons in the NFL one day. At age 20, Tindall had the skill,
the talent and the ambition. All he needed was the chance to prove himself.
But the Wilmington Ten episode
changed all of that.
Tindall, whose father was a
longshoreman, was looking for work while still attending school. The unjust way
he saw black students being treated in the New Hanover county Public School
System after it closed all-black Williston High in 1968, compelled Tindall to
get involved with the movement for educational equality 1971.
It wasn’t long before Connie became
a fiery spokesman for the black student cause headquartered at Gregory
Congregational United Church of Christ, located in Wilmington’s black
community.
Tindall shaped the black student
message, and became their face in the media. Even after UCC Rev. Benjamin
Chavis took over leadership in February 1971, Tindall continued to help lead
and speak out amid the building racial tensions that saw violence in the
streets, and police reluctance to do anything about it.
Apparently the authorities made
note of Tindall, however, because a year after the firebombing of Mike’s
Grocery near Gregory Church, Tindall was yanked out of bed late at night in his
parents’ home, arrested and charged with conspiracy in connection with the grocery
store incident.
“We have a warrant for your son’s
arrest,” Tindall recalls the police telling his shocked parents, remembering
how they had the house surrounded.
The young man was taken from the
house to the street, and handcuffed, as his bewildered parents watch.
Tindall knew the arrest and charges
were bogus, because on the night of the fire, he was across town in a club
called the Ponderosa, celebrating his birthday with several friends.
Tindall admits that before the
Wilmington Ten episode, he had a “few scraps” with the law - things that
teenagers normally got in trouble for. But nothing of the magnitude of what he
was being charged with now - conspiracy in connection with the firebombing and
the sniper fire aimed at firefighters.
When the first trial in June 1972
was cut short and declared a mistrial, Tindall says there was no question in
his mind that he and the other members of the Wilmington Ten would be hung out
to dry. There were ten blacks and two whites on the first jury. When the case
began again on Sept. 11, 1972, the new jury was now ten whites and two blacks.
Tindall said the prosecutor, Jay
Stroud, was “deranged,” especially in how he “wined and dined” witnesses like
Allen Hall to lie on the stand.
Tindall’s family attended the
trial, distraught at what they were seeing. But they also supportive of their
son, telling him, “We believe in you.”
Tindall was convicted and sentenced
to 31 years in prison.
It hit him and his family hard, he
says, but they remained supportive during his incarceration.
“Prison was just another way of
life,” he recalls. “Same things went on in the streets, went on there.”
Tindall kept the faith that even if
it took ten or twenty years, the truth would come out. He said that the whole
ordeal was meant to destroy him, but he refused to allow that to happen, and
held his head up high.
His family came to see him often in
prison, and encouraged Tindall to stay strong.
When Tindall finally left prison on
early release after almost five years, his return to Wilmington was met with no
job (or least no job he could keep past one week).
Fortunately, because Tindall’s
father is a longshoreman, he’s able to work with him.
But beyond that, some people in the
community continued to shun Tindall, black people, and he admits that it hurt.
It took several years before living in Wilmington became “bearable,” primarily
because many believed that he was guilty.
Tindall’s future prospects for
personal success were dim as long as he stayed in Wilmington. He says had the
Wilmington Ten never happened, he “would have been a beast” as an NFL defensive
back.
Tindall refused to leave
Wilmington, despite the difficulty and heartache, because the port city was his
home.
In recent years, Tindall has faced
health challenges, but he continues to strive toward the day that Gov. Perdue
declares he and the other nine members of the Wilmington Ten receive pardons of
actual innocence.
Tindall still harbors some anger
for how his life was ruined, how his dreams were destroyed, all because of a
false persecution, and prosecution by the state of North Carolina.
“If you want to do something for
me, then pay me for those 4 ½ to five years I sat up in that penitentiary for
nothing,” he demands. “Vindicate me.”
Tindall concluded by asking, “Why
us?”
On August 3, 2012, Connie Tindall,
62, died unexpectedly. He did not live to see vindication.
MARVIN
PATRICK
At 60 years of age, Marvin Patrick
has suffered a stroke and struggles to get around on a cane.
Looking back over the past 40
years, Patrick says being arrested as part of the Wilmington Ten lost him the
opportunity of being unionized with the longshoremen, like his father. At the age of 20, Patrick had already
worked on the docks, and even served a short stint in the US Army.
In 1971, Patrick got involved in
the black student movement at Gregory Church because he deeply believed in a
quality education, and that included African-Americans learning about their
history and culture. That was being taken away from them, and Rev. Ben Chavis,
who Patrick was close with, was leading them in a constructive, yet defiant
manner, to get the gains that they lost, back in the aftermath of the closing
of Williston High School.
In an ironic twist a year after the
firebombing of Mike’s Grocery, word gets out that the authorities are arresting
various students who were at Gregory Church. Rev. Ben Chavis, the movement leader,
has also been arrested, and is being held. When Patrick goes down to see his
friend, he is arrested too, and charged with conspiracy.
When the trials came, Patrick
didn’t want his mother to attend. He knew how heavy a burden the whole ordeal
had been for her and his father, and he wanted to spare them as much as
possible. “I didn’t want to put no pressure on her,” he says. “She knew in her
heart that her son was innocent.
Patrick was convicted along with
the rest of the Wilmington Ten at age 21, and sentenced to prison for 29 years.
He credits the Lord with helping him to survive Odom Farms Prison in
Northhampton County. The fact that several of the ten were sent to prison
together meant they were able to be supportive of one another.
Because of the distance from
Wilmington, the visits from family were fewer than Patrick had hoped for, but
when they did come, they lifted his spirits.
Thanks to the case beginning to
fall apart in the mid-1970’s, Patrick leaves prison early, and comes back to
Wilmington. But when he did, “even black folks acted funny.”
Patrick’s association with the
Wilmington Ten makes keeping a job difficult. After a while, he’s forced to lie to get, and keep a job.
He’s treated badly even in church,
where members believe that the Wilmington Ten were guilty.
Through the years, Patrick worked
as long as he could, until he had a stroke over a year ago.
As for what he would say to the
governor regarding why he feels that he is deserving of a pardon of innocence,”
Patrick said, “Ma’am, my name is Marvin Patrick, and I plead innocent to these
charges.”
JAMES
“BUN” MCKOY
What has happened to his life
because of the Wilmington Ten episode brings tears to the eyes of James “Bun”
McKoy, age 59.
At 18, McKoy played bass guitar in
bands, particularly on Carolina Beach, where he played with whites at supper
clubs. He wanted to play professionally. “I just wanted to be the entertainer.”
The youngest of four, McKoy graduated from Hoggard High School in 1971, amid
the strife and black student protests.
McKoy joined the protests, but
says, unlike many of the others, he “didn’t think much” of their new leader,
Rev. Ben Chavis, primarily because music, not activism, was his preoccupation.
So in 1972 when young McKoy was
arrested and charged with conspiracy in connection with the Mike’s Grocery
bombing, McKoy can’t fathom why, or how.
Police arrested McKoy at home at
2:30 in the morning, while his stunned mother watched helplessly. McKoy figured
the only reason why he was being arrested is because he lived in the
neighborhood of Gregory Church.
As the case headed to trial,
McKoy’s parents urged him to “Hang in there,” telling the young man to stay
strong despite what was very much looking like a stacked deck by prosecutors.
“Why they picked us out is the
question,” McKoy says.
He knew the trial would be a farce
given what happened during the preliminary hearing when the state’s star
witness, Allen Hall, angrily jump off the stand at defense attorney James
Ferguson.
McKoy’s family attended the trial,
praying and hoping that the jury will see through the prosecutor’s tricks. But
in the end, McKoy and the others are convicted.
McKoy was sentenced to 29 years.
He was sent to Odom prison, but
knowing that his parents and siblings were praying for him, and with him in
spirit, helped McKoy cope.
“One thing [my mother] would say
is, “We’re still with you,” he recalls.
McKoy also copes by playing his
music, and cutting up. Since several of the other W-Ten defendants were sent to
the same prison, they all stick together.
The family comes the long way to
visit when they can.
McKoy says though he held out hope
that the truth would eventually come out, he is angered by the North Carolina
Appellate Courts, which voted to uphold the Wilmington Ten’s convictions.
He feels that the rulings by the NC
courts were to, “satisfy some people.” McKoy has more appreciation for the US
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ultimately overturned the Ten’s
convictions.
After McKoy left prison on early
release, he didn‘t have too many problems fining work when it came to music. In
the interceding years, McKoy has sustained two strokes.
So why does James McKoy believe
that he deserves a pardon of innocence from Gov. Perdue? “Because I’m
innocent,” he says. “Now read the record!”
ANNE SHEPARD
Ms. Judy Mack remembers those days
when her mother, Anne Shepard, stood strong against discrimination of any kind.
Whether it be race, gender or size, Shepard believed that all were equal in
GOD’s sight, and she raised her three children to believe the same.
That belief made life harder for
Shepard, a 34-year-old white woman who, in 1971, stood foursquare with black
students in Wilmington against what Shepard believed to be the racial treatment
of them by the powers that be. A community worker who helped poor families in
the projects, Shepard was well-known and well-respected. So working with
students at Gregory Church was a natural part of what she did best.
So when the arrests began in 1972
in connection with the Mike’s Grocery Store destruction a year earlier,
Shepard, a single parent, was swept up. Even though she knew that she was being
targeted, Shepard refused to leave despite being warned to do so.
The authorities had hoped to turn
Shepard against Rev. Ben Chavis and the other activists, but Shepard, knowing
that none of them had committed any crime in association with Mike’s, refused.
She explained to her three
children, Ms. Mack recalls, that she was standing on principle for the black
students, and was willing to deal with whatever authorities threw at her. Thus,
Shepard would stand strong against the false allegations. Mack was eleven at
the time, and didn’t understand fully what was going on. But she knew that her
mother needed support, so she and one of Shepard’s two other children were in
court constantly (an older sister ran away), hoping that it would be all over,
and that she could come back home.
“She truly believed in what she was
doing,” Ms. Mack said. “And she raised us, as young women, and we, too were
young women and could make a difference.”
After she was convicted, Shepard
received the lowest sentence of all of the Wilmington Ten. But being sent away
for a total of 15 years was a blow to Shepard’s children.
“It was hard being separated from
my mother, “ Ms. Mack says. She recalls a relative having to make the daylong
travel to the prison to see their mother, and then staying over in a motel to
make it back home safely. The visits were very emotionally.
Shepard was “never a complainer,
never a whiner. She was string for us, for other people,” says Mack.
In order to partially survive
prison, Shepard learned how to crochet to keep her mind and hands busy.
“My mother wasn’t a knitting kind
of person, but she wanted to make sure that we had Christmas presents from
her,” Mack recalls. She made hats, sweaters and scarves.
Shepard also spent plenty of tine
in the prison law library, loving to read and write. At one point, she helped
organize a boycott in women’s prison, protesting what she felt were violations
of inmates’ right.
Though her freedom was restricted,
Shepard lived to help people, and that’s what kept her going.
When she was released early while
the case was on appeal, Anne Shepard was eventually reunited with her
daughters, moved to Raleigh, and continued improving herself. After a few years when the appeals to
the North Carolina courts failed, she had to turn herself in, this separating
from her daughters again.
Shepard was finally released from
prison again, and eventually moved to Durham regaining custody of her daughters
after a few months. She continued to improve herself through courses and other
work, graduated from Durham Tech in the end.
Mack said Shepard was always being
questioned by other white people about why she would sacrifice herself for
blacks, which she didn’t appreciate.
And on one fateful evening, while
walking home, Shepard walked over to a car when she heard the occupant call out
to her, and ended up being seriously beaten.
In 2011, Anne Shepard, residing in
Durham, died.
If Judy Mack could asked Gov.
Perdue to issue a pardon of innocence for her mother, Anne Shepard, what would
she say?
“The evidence should show that
there was misconduct, and that [the Wilmington Ten] are innocent,” Mack says.
“To be in prison is one thing, but to be in prison away from your children,
your family…I can’t imagine…’
REGINALD
EPPS
If there’s one Wilmington Ten
member who insists on leaving the whole sordid way he was treated behind, it is
Reginald Epps. He does not attend anniversary programs, nor do interviews. Epps
works very hard not to think about how, at a very young age, the Wilmington Ten
experience forced him to struggle to survive.
“As you go through life, you’ve got
this thing over you…this cloud over your mind,” he says. You realize that you
don’t have access to things that you ordinarily think you would be able to get
access to - jobs…being able to fill out a resume and present myself at an
interview. I knew those things were probably closed off to me, or at least I
felt that way. I had to backdoor my way into a normalcy or a life [after
leaving prison], as opposed to the more traditional graduate high school, then
go to college and get a job.”
Epps didn’t pass his high school
courses, nor get a diploma, until he was serving time in prison.
And yet, Epps, one of nine
children, credits the experience for, in a sense, changing his life. He readily
admits being a young man who stayed in trouble, heading down a path in life
that assured worst things to come. He was a hustler, with no dreams
Epps was 17, and a student at
Hoggard High when he found himself caught in the Wilmington Ten web. He visited
the Gregory Church often because it was the only experience he had of being
with other black students who were engaged in positive pursuits to build
self-esteem, pride and knowledge of self.
It was 1972 when two school
resource officers walked up to Reggie Epps in the school hallway and said,
“Come with us.” Epps had no idea why, but when he found out that he was being
charged as a conspirator in the firebombing of Mike’s Grocery, neither he nor his
parents could believe it.
“I had no clue,” Epps says. He was
also puzzled when he saw other friends of his who ultimately comprised the
Wilmington Ten. He knew them all, and knew that the police had the wrong
people.
Epps says the families that had
resources were able to get their children out of the trouble. The teens who
were left behind, like himself, were the most vulnerable because their parents
couldn’t fight back.
His mother scolded Epps for even
being involved with the black student movement at Gregory Church, feeling that
because it was radical, it would only lead to trouble, no matter what the
cause.
Epps goes on trial with Ben Chavis
and nine others, and he knew that convictions were certain from watching the
prosecutor challenge black jurors in the second trial, while ‘redneckish” white
jurors were getting on with little problem.
When the trial was over, Epps is
sentenced to a combined 28 years in prison. The relevance of it didn’t hit Epps
right away, he says. His family did not attend the trial, and were not there
during the sentencing.
Odom Farms was the prison Epps was
assigned to. Because of the distance, his parent can’t visit. Epps writes
letters, particularly with his sister.
Epps survived prison by sticking
close to Willie Vereen and other Ten members.
“You had those up days and down
days,” he recalls.
While he was in prison, Epps
stepfather was killed.
When Epps was finally early
released in the late 1970’s, he was glad, especially since the case against the
Wilmington Ten was unraveling before the world.
Epps knew not to come back to
Wilmington. He moved to Raleigh to start his life fresh. Epps knows that his
Wilmington Ten background will sink opportunities, so he takes the lowest level
jobs possible so that he can work his way up without detection.
The strategy worked for a number of
years, allowing Epps to work his way up the corporate ladder. He had to leave
in order to take care of his mother, who later passed.
After that trauma in his life, Epps
started all over again, finding low level work to “back door” his way up the
ladder again.
So why does Reginald Epps feel that
he deserves a pardon of innocence from the state of North Carolina? Epps said
the pardon should have been rendered years ago when Gov. Jim Hunt was still in
office.
“Second, it’s the right thing to
do. I had nothing to do with that [Mike’s Grocery] mess. Your system screwed
up,” Epps said. “You can fix it.”
WAYNE
MOORE
After Wayne Moore was finally
released from prison in 1979 after spending several years as a member of the
Wilmington Ten, he went back to Wilmington, hoping not only to be reaccepted
into the community, but to get his young life on track after being falsely
convicted of crimes he did not do.
Moore was originally sentenced to
29 years in prison at age 19.
But it soon became clear, after
losing job after job, and being shunned by many in the community, that there
was no future for Moore in his hometown anymore.
So he had to move to Michigan,
where he learned a trade as an electrician, and is gainfully employed.
But Moore had to leave his home,
friends and family in North Carolina to have any positive future at all. It is
a sacrifice and indignity Moore had to suffer, on top of being tried,
convicted, and serving in prison.
All because as a student in
Wilmington in 1971, he stood up and demanded equal education for black students
in New Hanover County schools.
Moore wrote the following, a while
back, about how he saw his struggles:
Although I can only imagine what it was like to be
a slave chained to the bowels of a slave ship, my experience with the
Wilmington 10 allowed me to somewhat sample physical bondage with no ability
for self-reliance, or self-determination.
Once
freed from physical bondage one may either become careless and carefree, mean
and desensitized, or fragile and unable to cope. Or one may become courageous
warrior triumphant in many of their endeavors. Seldom does one exit unaffected.
Although I am determined to
somehow triumph, I have struggled tremendously over the years to overcome the
psychological and social effects of being imprisoned for crimes I never
committed. My self-confidence and self-esteem were shattered. After long
separations from my family and friends, I found it difficult to deal
effectively with the responsibilities of everyday life, including
fatherhood. My young children
resented the time I spent away from them and our relationships have never been
quite the same. Repairing those wounded relationships has been my most
difficult challenged to date. The
State of North Carolina has never been held accountable for this tragic
disruption in my life after allowing one of the most blatant miscarriages of
justice in the history of America to take place. The city of Wilmington has
already apologized for this injustice. It is now time for the state of North
Carolina to do the same by granting The Wilmington Ten a full pardon of
innocence.
BENJAMIN CHAVIS
Without a doubt, the most famous
member of the Wilmington Ten its leader, Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis. He was the
convener of the 1995 Million Man March. He led the NAACP as its president/CEO,
and today, Chavis heads the Hip-Hop Action Network, and is a respected
businessman who travels the world.
But whatever success Ben Chavis has
had since his experience with the Wilmington Ten, has come at a personal price
that still haunts him today.
Almost as soon as then-Rev. Ben
Chavis, a civil rights organizer sent by the United Church of Christ, arrived
in Wilmington to help lead the black student protest in February 1971, he was
branded an outsider by public officials, warned to leave town, and his life was
immediately is threatened.
Indeed, white supremacists are
allowed by local police to open fire at Gregory Church, where Rev. Chavis, 24,
is working with black students, training them how to peacefully, but
forcefully, demonstrate for justice in the public schools.
Chavis tells of having a bullet
fired at him, piercing his leather jacket.
“I was shot at a number of times,”
he recalls, adding that people were wounded as a result. But police refused
repeatedly to investigate, or call a curfew to prevent further violence, in
hopes that Rev. Chavis or some of his “radical” followers would get hurt, or
even killed.
“We were building a growing
movement, and that was threatening to the power structure of Wilmington,”
Chavis says.
On February 6, 1971, Mike’s
Grocery, a block down from Gregory Church, was firebombed. Chavis is
immediately blamed. A warrant is eventually issued for his arrest. He has to
negotiate the terms of turning himself in safely.
Chavis is tried and convicted of
conspiracy to commit murder, and conspiracy to firebomb Mike’s Grocery. Rev.
Chavis was sentenced to 34 years in prison.
In his own words, Rev. Chavis
talked about his experience in incarceration.
Life
in the five different North Carolina maximum, medium and later minimum
security prisons where I was imprisoned in 1972, 1976, 1977,1978, and
throughout 1979 were the years that I personally experienced what millions
on prisoners in the United States are made to endure. I was not a
“celebrity” inmate. I got the same dehumanizing and
degrading treatment that the average prisoner received.
I
learned to stay focus on not just my individual rights or to focus only on
the Wilmington Ten case, but just as importantly, I spent most of my
prison time advocating for the rights of prisoners in US and in particular
the rights of all US political prisoners.
I
have several motivations. First, the members of the Wilmington Ten were
innocent of the unjust charges. Secondly, my faith in God, family and the
freedom struggle kept me going in a positive state of mind even though I
was in the midst of death threats and plots while in prison. Thirdly, I
was motivated by the courage and determination of my young co-defendants
who also stayed strong, even though at times the prison officials kept us
in separate state prisons.
Finally I kept my “spirit” strong. One
of the objects of political incarceration is to break the spirit of the
political prisoner. I came out of prison stronger and more committed
to the struggle for freedom, justice and equality.
The
Wilmington Ten case, struggle and eventual victory had a tremendous impact
in helping to shape who I am today. I was 23 years-old when the incident
in Wilmington happened, but by that age, I was already an eleven-year
veteran of the Civil Rights Movement. We were imprisoned when I
was 24 years-old. What I later accomplished in my 30’s, 40’s and
50’s was certainly impacted and shaped by the Wilmington Ten chapter of
my life.
Today, I am still a “freedom fighter.”
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