comparemela.com

20th century. Schooling becomes compulsory. The School System grows. In this region like many regions in the south, it grew in the era of legally sanctioned segregation. We wanted to explore what schooling was like for both blacks and whites who lived here. Oldsenior high school is an black school in town. There was a white school. We have materials in the gallery that helps you understand what it was like to go to school. Including a classroom vignette designed to show you the difference between black and white schools in that physical, material culture. The difference between chairs, heat systems. It helps you understand the consequences and ramifications of the events of 1898 and how they played themselves out in our public School System. Wilmington schools were segregated into the early 70s. The high schools were desegregated in when the school williston andsed sent the African American students to hanover high and the other white school. They were really desegregated by court order, by the order of a judge in 1971. Before that, there had been members of the community, including dr. Eaton, who sued the state and county coo school board. First the lawsuit was to try to improve the black schools so that they were as good as the white schools. This is a strategy that was used in the Civil Rights Movement to improve education and also show it was not possible. It was not possible for two schools to be equal. Groups of local African American parents began to sue for the rights of their children to go to integrated schools. They continued to push that case up until the ruling in 1971 and even afterwards. Between 1968 and 1971, there was a lot of tensions in the schools. There was a lot of debates about what was going to happen. The high school had already been integrated, but it was not clear where the African American schoolteachers would go. Would blacks and whites being clubs together . As the Civil Rights Movement had grown and changed, there was a rise of a more of black power attitude. There were studentled protests about racial issues in schools. One of the studentled protests, and there were many, came to end that led toviolence the wilmington 10 incident. 1971, there were riots on the streets. A white Police Officer killed an African American man. A white man was killed. Various buildings were set on fire. There were a number of arsons. One of those incidents was at mike posner s grocery store. Shots were fired at first responders. Folks, eight 10 teenagers, one woman, and one slightly older African American man, were arrested in conjunction with though shots and charged with all kinds of crimes and were sentenced to 280 years combined for those crimes. They were convicted. It quickly became clear that the main prosecution witness was unreliable, to say the least. Over the course of the next few years, there was a campaign that began to free the wilmington 10. Everybody who was a member of the washington 10 was out of jail by 1980. But they were not hardened officially hardened officially until 2012 when the outgoing governor officially pardoned the remaining members. I think it has changed, there is a more widespread recognition that an injustice was done. Cityity recently put up a Historical Marker about the wilmington 10 and held a ceremony where some of the surviving members came. If you look at the evidence, the trial testimony, which you can do online, it is pretty clear that the case was weak. Against these individuals

© 2025 Vimarsana

comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.