To kind of challenge the ways thathat in much of our public conversation today there is a kind of dangerous i think distinction being made between whats being treated as the good old Civil Rights Movement and the sort of movements for Racial Justice and black lives matter today. These are very dangerous distinctions and i think really looking at the history of rosa parks and particularly look at the history of rosa parks through criminal justice, really challenges these distinctions that some commentators are making today. And so i think a real look at rosa parks remind us from scottsboro to emmett till and jeremiah reeds distorted campaigns for justice for black women who were raped to the kind of criminalization of organizing that we see with Highlander Folk School and the bus buck offs to all of the Defense Committees she served on to all the antiPolice Brutality work she did sitting on the peoples tribunal after the 1967 detroit uprising and on and on. I think seeing that scope gives us a much different movement to sort of draw upon today and really revealed i think and challenges sort of the way this fable of the Civil Rights Movement comes into our present. So tonight we are very lucky to have three scholars who have flown here today to be with us. The first speaker were going out tonight is Kenneth Janken talk about his new very important book on the wilmington. Yes come from uncchapel hill. The second speaker is going to be professor Rhonda Williams from cleveland to talk about her new incredible book and looking at what our across the 20th century at a then Erik Mcduffie has come from university of illinois at urbanachampaign. Cable b signing after the program tonight. His first book concrete demands but its going to be talking tonight from his new book project which is but specifically we talking tonight about his new work by malcolm x his mother, louise little. And he is fresh from sort of all sorts of Research Across the world. So we are very, very lucky and please join me in welcoming Kenneth Janken, Rhonda Williams and Erik Mcduffie. [applause] good evening. Ive used the Schomburg Center for all of my work at one time or another. I find myself here, and i was thinking about come its always been a dream of mine to come here and talk. So i can cross that off my list tonight. Thank you for inviting me, and im really, really thrilled to be here. And thanks to all of you for coming out this evening. Im going to talk about the wilmington 10 tonight, and ive generally found that the wilmington ten is something that is dimly remembered. Its more remembered in my state of North Carolina, my adopted state of North Carolina, but frequently it gets confused with the 1898 race riot in wilmington which was a coup against a black elected legally black elected government in 1898. So its not that well remembered by the wilmington ten in its time, and for our time, was a monumental case of political repression. Very similar to other examples of egregious injustices such as the murder of Chicago Black panther leader fred hampton by the Chicago Police with the assistance of the federal bureau of investigation. The legal frame up of angela davis and the attica prison rebellion, with just a bit more thought i think i could offer several other examples but that would take up more of my time and not allow me to get to the point of want to do. In the case of the wilmington ten the full force of the legal system hammered nine young black men in their teens or early 20s and a white woman in her 30s for the part in protests over desegregation of Public Schools in wilmington, North Carolina. The actions of elected officials, police, prosecutors and judges throughout the wilmington tens or deals was callous and corrupt even by todays standards of prosecutorial misconduct. Part of what i would like to do this evening is too harsh for you the events of the wilmington ten and their frame a. But its also important to remember and to understand that what happened in wilmington also helped to define a new phase in africanamerican politics in which an increasingly varied movement coordinated its efforts under the leadership of a vital radical left, and ill spend some time outlined that as well for you. As will become evident in a moment, the name will make intent is in many ways a misnomer. Not only did these 10 persons not inspired to do anything, they also did not know one another or hang out together or share common friendships or networks together. They were caught up on the repressive machinery operated by the authorities to suppress an expansive social movement, and in particular one person on the sideline, benjamin. While ill be taught by the wilmington ten as a corporate entity as it were, because that is how the events are remembered in history, its important we understand they were also 10 individuals, and i want you to know the names. Binchy this, reginald apps, jerry jacobs, james mccoy, wayne moore, morton patrick, and shepard, connie kendall, willie, and jill right. 10 individuals whose lives were ruined to further the aims of the state. The media event that led to the wilmington ten with a boycott of wilmingtons recently desegregated schools in the first week of february 1971 by black students who object to the mistreatment by school officials, by police who came onto campus to stop fights and by white adult frogs look into the schools to harass black students. They also protested their exclusion from a variety of Extracurricular Activities such as cheerleading, the sports teams, student council, the Honor Society and so on. High School Students issued a list of demands and established the boycott headquarters at Gregory Congregational Church which is fully with the United Church of christ. A local paramilitary White Supremacist Organization called the rights of white people which had broken away from the klan in the county because it believed the klan was to moderate. They heard about the boycott and begin to harass the students including driveby shootings at the church. In response students and their supporters appealed for City Protection including a curfew but neither the mayor nor the police chief was willing to oblige. They said things were under control the way they were. Window protection was forthcoming students and their supporters defend themselves, established a perimeter around the church and set up an armed sentry. Also in response to the attack im not supporters of the boycott committed arson and other Property Damage against white owned businesses. And again against nearly previous all white New Hanover High School gym. It to be noted, however, that not all of the arson was in retaliation for the attacks. At least one business was burned down by its owner who try to take advantage of the unrest in town to profit from his fire insurance. And another fire at a business also had suspicious origins. This was Schwartz Furniture store and several residents thought it was peculiar that while the store burned down and all the merchandise burned down, the owner had conveniently taken all of his record books home with him the night before the fire and continued to go all the patrons come all the customers for their installment payments. Among the businesses that byrd was mikes grocery which is located a couple of blocks from the church and mikes grocery plays an Important Role in the events of the wilmington ten. We mikes was burning on a saturday night at the end of the first week in february 1971, the police shot and killed an unarmed student protest leader by the name of steve mitchell. He had gone out when he heard the fire alarms going. He had gone out to check and see what was happening, and to help, the fire had spread and hes going to help rescue people from the adjacent buildings, help people move up the furniture, you get out of the fire. When he poked his head out the police shot him. They picked him up, put him in a police car ambush of a 15 minute drive to the hospital to more than two hours, and he arrived dead on arrival. The next morning a white supremacist named harvey drove through police lines, got out of his vehicle, as he prepared to shoot at the church who shot and killed by somebody who is still unknown. It was with this mans death, with harveys death, but the mayor and the police chief took action. A curfew was no established and at the citys urging the governor called in the National Guard and state highway patrol. The guard raided the boycott headquarters, and with its superior firepower, calm was imposed on the city. The boycott was suppressed by the students demands were not met. One year later in march of 1972 state and local officials still smarting from the rebellion and determined to make someone pay for it arrested 17 persons on charges related to the burning of mikes and the murder of harvey. 10 of them were put on trial in september 1972 for conspiracy, arson and shooting of firefighters and Police Responded to a fire alarm. The prosecutor, jay stroud, based his case on perjured testimony that he himself had solicited and on an illegal process of jury selection in which excluded practically all blacks from the jury pool based on the race and successfully strived to a stack the jury with whites who openly expose racist views were plenty stated they had made up their minds that at least some of the 10 were guilty, or who said that in order to find them not guilty, they would need to the testimony of those people. Rather than assuming that they were not guilty, they would assume theyre guilty until proven otherwise. It is illegal process, the prosecution was ably assisted by the trial judge, robert martin, who also hamstrung the defendants attorneys. After week of testimony the jury took only hours to convict and the judge sends the wilmington ten to a total of 282 years in prison. I can talk more about this process into question and answer. I can talk more about this illegal process that the prosecutor used. So in october of 1972 the wilmington ten were sent off to prison to serve out terms of sometimes up to 34 years, but 282 years in total. And that mightve been the end of the story, because we know that throughout the 60s and 70s that are people who were arrested, who were framed, who were convicted and sent to jail and nobody ever hears from them again. This was true for a group of high School Students in eight North Carolina, and there was also a struggle over School Desegregation and they were also students who pushed and shoved and always. At one point in time there was a fire set in the boys lavatory in the trashcan, did minimal amount of damage coupled with smoke, although fire, nothing particularly big and has morphed into a fire bomb in the press. It in the courts. The authorities arrested 11 high School Students, and put them on trial but told them that if they pled guilty and forego any appeal and to serve the time that they would get sentences of 11 years. Not being able to afford attorneys and being young and scared, they did in and did their time. I only found out about them, actually i only found out about them going to the archives of the Schomburg Center. This mightve been the end of the story for the wilmington ten, but almost immediately upon their conviction, and really i think while they were still on trial what occurred was a vigorous multilevel and Multidimensional Movement to free them. It was built statewide, first principle is the network of the United Church of christ congregations that dominate, by the denominations commission for Racial Justice to it gain strength through the efforts of the Youth Organization for black unity, a radical black nationalist organization and its newspaper the African World which had a national circulation, a circulation of more than 10,000. Many members of this organization were had and the direction of marxism and the good part of the leadership of the Youth Organization for black dirty would end up in the communist Workers Party, five of whose members were murdered in greensboro in november 1979. It gained National Attention through, it gained National Attention to the efforts of the National Alliance against race and political oppression which was close to align with the communist party. And finally it was National Wilmington ten Defense Committee headquartered in washington, d. C. That was able to draw in a variety of congressional staffers and ultimately interested Amnesty International to take up the issue and label the wilmington ten prisoners of conscience. Now, what i want to emphasize here is that this was a massive left led movement that was international in scope. The Youth Organization for black unity, the commission for Racial Justice, the National Alliance against racist and political oppression all had welldeveloped critiques of American Society and capitalist society, the damage they did foo africanamericans and other racial and national minorities. Looked upon the case of the wilmington ten not as an average miscarriage of justice, but as a typical though perhaps extremely the system worked and was designed to work. They worked hard to link the issue of the wilmington ten with all manner of local issues facing communities in North Carolina and around the nation. Showing the connections between this particular instance of injustice and an educational system that failed africanamericans, Police Forces that triggered the brutality, criminal Justice System bent on mass incarceration, and a poor class set on exploiting workers more intensely by denying them the protection of a labor union, and a u. S. Foreign policy that support apartheid and colonialism in southern africa. And they were effective at drawing thousands of people to demonstrations coming caging and political education, which is to be called consciousness raising, in committee centers, houses of worship around the country. And bringing into the fold all manner of people including politicians, inspiring politicians and prominent Public Opinion makers. They finally compelled the president to become involved and the pressure eventually forced the fourt Fourth Circuit of the. Court of appeals to overturn the conviction. Not on technicalities as many people claimed at the time and continued to climb today, but because of substantial prosecutorial and judicial misconduct resulted in a frame up. This was a moment in history when th the left and africanamerican politics was Strong Enough to lead a united front. Insider politicians like jill johnson and mickey mr. Schock two state represents is in North Carolina flock to the movement because they recognize its power and because they might have been swept aside if they had been swept aside it did not. This new type of politics was to send it until the early 1980s when for a variety of reasons that wasnt suppressed to place by Political Class was more in tune with rules and regulations of the twoparty solution. So thank you. Those are my remarks tonight. [applause] hows everybody . All right. Let me get comfortable up here. Today im going to talk about black power roots and expressions. In 1969 doing a speech in west london opera novels James Baldwin talked about freedom and the United States stance of allegedly waging war in the name of freedom. And he said in a slow deliberate clip for sure, a war is being waged. But he said, no matter what the professions in my happy country may be, we are not bombing people out of existence in the name of freedom. If it were freedom we were concerned about, then long, long ago we wouldve done something about johannesburg, south africa. If we been so concerned with freedom, boys and girls, as i stand here we are concerned with power, nothing more than that and most unlikely for the western world it has consolidated its power on the backs of people who are now willing to die rather than be used any longer. Then during the question and answer portion, he was asked a question about integration and black power. Im going to play you a cl