Port City on Fire Protest and Rage Desegregation

Port City on Fire: Protest and Rage, Desegregation and Rage, and Defiance of Jim Crow in Wilmington, North Carolina 1968 & 1971 Elizabeth Hines, UNCW Geography

The seeds of Wilmington’s Civil Rights era turmoil were planted in 1898.

Black-owned Wilmington Record burned, followed by the massacre of at least 60 Blacks 11/10/1898

Black prisoners being led away, 11/10/1898

1898 to 1968 70 years of Jim Crow

Wilmington’s African American community looked forward to Dr. Martin Luther King’s visit to the city on April 5, 1968, where he was to speak at Williston High School. However, Dr. King cancelled to continue his work on the Garbage Workers strike in Memphis, and was assassinated there on April 4, 1968.

A peaceful march by the Williston students was met by armed police in riot gear.

The April 1968 riots ranged across the north and south sides of Wilmington’s CBD.

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l Williston Industrial High School prepared thousands of Black students for professions and vocations from the late 19 th century to 1968. l 1954 Brown v Board of Education mandated national school desegregation. l Student protests over the death of Dr. King, turned to riots in April of 1968. l In July of 1968, their high school was closed.

Williston Industrial High School The “heart of Wilmington’s Black Community” since 1874

And so, it came to pass, by federal order, in accordance with the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court ruling of 1954, that Wilmington’s schools were finally segregated in the Fall of 1968 and all-Black high school students of Williston High School were sent to the formerly all-white high schools: New Hanover and Hoggard.

Williston

l For nearly two years, Black students fought with white students l Police were a constant presence in both schools l Black students complained that they were denied access to sports teams and academic clubs l In the Fall of 1970, a school boycott was organized.

The white pastor of Black Gregory UCC opened his church to the boycotters in January 1971.

On February 1, 1971, at Reverend Templeton’s invitation, the UCC Council on Racial Justice sent the Reverend Benjamin Chavis, aged 23, to Wilmington to organize the protest and aid the boycott.

Boycott Committee in Gregory Church, February 1971

A few blocks away, activism developed at the Church of the Black Messiah

Hemenway Hall protest, 2/5/71

In late 1970 and early 1971, 22 buildings were firebombed, including the School Board’s building, the Hemingway, shown here.

Mike’s Grocery, was a white-owned business in the Black community near Gregory Church. Mike Poulos was reputed to have slapped a Black customer and refused to sell alcohol to minors earlier on the day of the firebombing. At the trial in 1972, Allen Hall, the prosecution’s main witness, admitted his own role as one of the arsonists at Mike’s, who then, with Chavis, sniped at emergency personnel. He later recanted.

Over a period of 9 days in February 1971, violence moved back and forth across town, southto north-side. Dr. Bellamy’s records listed 45 arsons, 36 shootings, & 33 bomb threats.

Much of it was near Mike’s and Gregory Church. Two people died.

200 National Guardsmen rolled into Wilmington on Feb. 12/1971, finding Gregory Church empty.

l The following spring, the “Wilmington Ten” were arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned on false charges. l They were finally released after witnesses recanted. l The surviving members have petitioned the outgoing governor for a full pardon.

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