1. Elizabeth Hines, UNCW Geography
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

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

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

6. Black prisoners being led away, 11/10/1898

7. 1898 to 1968
70 years of Jim Crow

8. Wilmington’s African American community looked forward to Dr
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.

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

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

12. 4/7/68

13. 4/9/68

15. 4/9/68

16. 4/5/58

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

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

19. 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.

21. Williston

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

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

24. 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.

26. Boycott Committee in Gregory Church, February 1971

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

29. Hemenway Hall protest, 2/5/71

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

31. 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 fire-bombing. 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.

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

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

34. 200 National Guardsmen rolled into Wilmington on Feb
200 National Guardsmen rolled into Wilmington on Feb. 12/1971, finding Gregory Church empty.

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

37. 2/3/1971

38. 2/4/1971

39. 2/5/1971

40. 2/6/1971

41. 2/7/1971

42. 2/8/1971

43. 2/9/1971

44. 2/10/1971

45. 2/11/1971