My first brush with the law took place when I was just 12 years old. I walked into the local library in Oxford, N.C., from which Black Americans were expressly forbidden, and tried to check out a book. The librarian responded by calling the police.
A dozen years later, at age 24, I and nine other men and women were wrongfully accused of arson during a spate of race-related civil unrest in Wilmington, N.C. We became known as the Wilmington Ten. We were unjustly sentenced to a combined total of 282 years in prison. It took more than 40 years for North Carolina to officially issue a “Pardon of Innocence” to the Wilmington Ten.
After a lifetime as a civil rights advocate fighting against a wide range of discriminatory practices and racial injustices, I know firsthand how the levers of justice can be pulled or manipulated by the powers that be to the detriment of vulnerable individuals and underserved communities.