History and conversation with us. And to kind of create a space to put that history of conversation with the president and struggles today. Tonight we are going to be talking about black power and political refreshment. It feels a timely in the moment we are in. I think most of you who have been here before also know that every two months i like to talk about rosa parks. Many of you know i am professor Jeanne Theoharis and i wrote a biography of rosa parks and this would have been her 100 third birthday. In honor of that, colleagues have built a new web site called rosaparksbiography. Org to challenge the ways in much of our public conversation today theres a kind of dangerous distinction being made between what is being treated as the good old Civil Rights Movement and the movements for Racial Justice and black lives matter today and these are dangerous distinctions and i think really looking at the history of rosa parks and particularly looking at criminaljustice. Really challenges these distinctions some commentators are making today. I think a real look at rosa parks reminds us from scottsboro to jeremiah reeves, the campaign, more justice for black women to the criminalization of organizing that we see with highlander and the montgomerie both the bus boycott to all the prisoner Defense Committees she served on from the wilmington 10 to joanne little and the Anti Police Brutality she work sitting on the tribunal after the 1967 detroit uprising and on and on. Seeing that scope gives us a much different movement to sort of draw upon today and really reveals i think and challenges the way the fable of the Civil Rights Movement comes into our present. Tonight we are very lucky to have three scholars who have flown here today to be with us. The cristie kerr we have tonight is kenneth jenken talking about his new, very important book on the wilmington 10. Kenneth jenken has come from unc chapel hill. The second speaker will be Rhonda Williams from cleveland to talk about her new incredible book kind of looking at black power across the 20th century. Erik mcduffie has come from the university of illinois in urbana champagne, he will be signing after the program tonight. His first book sojourning for freedom, he is talking tonight from his new book project in the midwest, specifically he will be talking tonight about his new work on. These little. He is fresh from all sorts of Research Across the world. We are very lucky and please join me in welcoming kenneth jenken, Rhonda Williams and erik mcduffie. [applause] good evening. I have used the Schomburg Center for all of my work at one time or another. I find myself in here and it has always been a dream of mine to come here and talk so i can cross that off my list, thank you for inviting me. I am really thrilled to be here and thanks to all of you for coming out this evening. I will talk about the wilmington 10 tonight. I have generally found the wilmington 10 is something dimly remembered, lot more remembered in my state of North Carolina, but frequently gets confused with the 1898 race riot in wilmington which was a coup against a black elected, legally black elected government in 1898. It is not well remembered but the wilmington 10 in its time and for all time was a monumental case of political repression. Very similar to other examples of the 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 Framework of Evangeline Davis and the attica prison rebellion, with a little more thought i think i could talk to several other examples but that would take up more of my time and allowed me to get to the points i want to do. In the case of the wilmington 10, the full force of the legal system hamid nine young black men in their teens or early 20s and a white woman in her 30s for their part in protests in desegregation of Public Schools in wilmington, North Carolina. The actions of elected officials, police, prosecutorss, police, and prosecutors and judges throughout the the wilmington 10s ordeal was callous and corrupt even by todays standards of prosecutorial misconduct. Part of what i would like to do this evening is rehearse the events of the wilmington 10 and their frameup but it is also important to remember and understand that what happened in wilmington also helped to define a new phase in African American politics in which an increasingly varied movement coordinated its efforts to the leadership of a vital radical left and i will spend some time outlining that as well for you. As will become evident in a moment, the name the wilmington 10 is in many ways a misnomer. Not only did these ten persons not conspire to do anything they all said not know one another or hang out together or share common friendships or networked together. They were caught up on not repressive machinery operated by the authorities and expansive social movement, and in particular the place of one person on the sidelines. I will be talking about the wilmington 10 as a corporate entity as it were because that is how the events are remembered in history. It is important we understand they were also ten individuals and i want you to know their names. Bent davis, reginald, jerry jacobs, james mccoy, wayne more, martin patrick, and shepherd, connie kindle, willie earl marine and joy right. Ten individuals whose lives were ruined to forbid the aims of the state. The immediate event that led to the wilmington 10 with a boycott of wilmington and the segregated schools in the first week of february 1971 by black students who object to their mistreatment by school officials, by police who come on 2 campus and white adult frogs and came to the schools to harass black students. They also protested their exclusion from a variety of Extracurricular Activities such as cheating, the sports teams, student council, the Honor Society and so on. The High School Students issued a list of demands and established a boycott at Gregory Congregational Church which is affiliated 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 New Hanover County because it believed the plan was too moderate heard about the boycott and began 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 arent the control in the way they were. Excuse me. When no protection was forthcoming students and their supporters defended themselves, establishing a perimeter around the church and set up an armed sentry. Response to the attack and known supporters of the boycott committed arson and other Property Damage against whiteowned, near the previously all white New Hanover High School jim. Should be noted not all the arson was in retaliation for the attack. At least one business was burnt down by its owner who tried to take advantage of the unrest to profit from his fire insurance. Another fire at a business also had suspicious origin, schwartzs furniture, and several thought it was peculiar that the store burned down and the merchandize burned down, the owner conveniently had taken all his record books home with him the night before the fire and continued to bill all the patrons, all the customers for their installment payments. Among for businesses that burned was mikes groceries, located across from that, it plays an Important Role in the events of the wilmington 10. When mikes was burning saturday night at the end of the first week, february 1971, the police shot and killed an unarmed student protest leader named 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 help the fire had spread and he was going to rescue people from the adjacent buildings to move out their furniture and get out of the fire and when he poked his head out the police shot him, picked him up, put him in a police car and what should have been a 15 minute drive to the hospital took two hours and he arrived dead on arrival. The next morning a white supremacist drove through police lines, got out of his vehicle and as he prepared to shoot him at church he was shot and killed by somebody still unknown. It was with this mans death that the mayor and the police chief took action. The curfew was now established and the City Authority at surging, the governor called in the national guard, the state highway patrol, the guard rated the boycott headquarters and with its superior firepower it was imposed on the city. The boycott was suppressed but student demands were not met. One year later, in march of 1972, state and local officials still smarting from the rebellion, determined to make someone pay for it, arrested 17 persons on charges related to the burning of mikes. Ten of the more put on trial in september of 1972 for conspiracy, arson, and shooting at the police who responded to the fire alarm. The prosecutor based his case on further testimony that he himself solicited the ilLegal Process of jury selection in which he excluded practically all blacks in the jury pool based on their race and successfully strived to attack the jury with whites to express racist views or plated they made up their minds and some were guilty. Aarhus said in order to find them not guilty, they would need to hear the testimony of those people rather than assuming they were not guilty, they would assume they were guilty until proven otherwise. In this ilLegal Process the prosecution was ably assisted by at trial judge, robert mark cohen, hamstrung the attorneys, after a week of testimony the jury took only hours to convict and a judge sentenced the wilmington 10 to total of 282 years in prison and i can talk more about this process in the question and answer, i can talk about this bill Legal Process that the prosecutor used. In october of 1970 to the wilmington ten were sent off to prison to serve out terms of 34 years, but 282 years in total and that made have been an end of the story. Throughout the 60s and 70s there were people who were arrested, framed, convicted, and sent to jail and nobody ever hears from them again. This was true for a group of High School Students in aden, n. C. Aid and was near greenville, and there was also a struggle over School Desegregation and also students who pushed and shoved in the hallways and at one point in time there was a fire set in the boys laboratory in the trash can. Been did a minimal amount of damage, a little smoke, a little fire, it this morphed into a firebomb in a press and in the courts, the authorities arrested the lesson of High School Students and put them on trial, but told them that if they fled guilty, and for rent any appeal and serve their time that they would get sentences of 11 years and not being able to afford attorneys and being young and scared they capitulated, they gave in and did their time. I only found out about them, high only found out about them going through the archives of the shopping center. This might have been the end of the story of the wilmington 10 but immediately upon their conviction, they are still on trial, what occurred was a vigorous multilevel and multi dimensional movement to freedom. It was built statewide, at first principally through a network of the United Church of christ congregations that denominations commission for Racial Justice. Gained strength through the efforts of a huge 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 headed in the direction of marxism and a good part of the leadership of the Youth Organization for black unity would end up in the communist Workers Party five of whose members were murdered in greensboro in november of 1979. Came to National Attention, gained National Attention through the efforts of a National Alliance against racist and political oppression which was aligned with the communist party and had ties with labor unions and forwardlooking Public Officials across the United States. There was the National Wilmington 10 Defense Committee in washington d. C. That was able to draw in a variety of congressional staffers and interested Amnesty International and labeled the wilmington ten prisoners of conscience. What i want to emphasize here, there was a Massive Movement to international in scope. The Youth Organization for black unity the commission for Racial Justice, National Alliance against racist and political oppression, all at welldeveloped critiques and capitalist society and the damage they did to africanamericans, and rick national minorities. They looked at the case of the wilmington ten not as a miscarriage of justice but as a typical, though perhaps extreme way 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 connection between this particular instance of injustice and an educational system that failed africanamericans, Police Forces that regularly traded in brutality, criminaljustice system and on mass incarceration, employer class bent on exploiting workers by denying them protection of labor union, and u. S. Foreign policy that supported apartheid and colonialism in southern africa. And they were effect of drawing in thousands of people to demonstrations, engaging in political education, what used to the conscience of reason. And community centers, work places and houses of worship around the country and bringing into the fold all manner of people including politicians and aspiring politicians and prominent public opinionmakers. They compel the president to become involved and theres pressure eventually forced the Fourth Circuit of the u. S. Court of appeals to overturn their convictions. Not on technicalities as many people claim that the time and continue to claim today but because of substantial prosecutorial and judicial misconduct that resulted in a frame up. This was a moment in history when the left in africanamerican politics was Strong Enough to lead a united front. Insider politicians like joel johnson, state representatives in North Carolina, made lots of movement because they recognized the power and might have been swept aside had a not. This new type of politics was descendant until the year 1980s went for a variety of reasons it would suppress to be replaced by Political Class more in tune with rules and regulations of two party systems, so thank you. [applause] how is everybody . And comfortable up here. Wrong way. I want to talk about black power and expression. In 1969 during a speech in west london, author and novelist James Baldwin talked about freedom. And allegedly waging war in the name of freedom. He says in a slow delivery clip for sure, a war is being waged, but he said no matter what the profession in my part of the country may be, we are not bombing people out of existence in the name of freedom. If it were freedom we were concerned about them long ago we would have done something about johannesburg, south africa. If we were concerned with freedom, as i stand here, would not be perishing in the streets of harlem. We are concerned with power. Nothing more than that. Most unlikely for the western world, it has consolidated power on the backs of people who are now willing to die rather than be used any longer. Fin in the question and answer portion, a question about integration and black power. I will play you a clip. The clip and this because the lady in the audience just said do you drink water after someone named dick, but anyway, you know what is going on. Okay. Something to say. [inaudible conversations] integration or black power. Just explain. I dont see there is necessarily a division between them. Let me take black power first. Black power, i dont know why we would get upset about black power. White power all over the worlds. No one even questions the white power, many women and children, that power is sacred. No one, no one questions it. The term black power strikes terror in many peoples min