For the last forty years, I seldom
lost sight of my connection to all those
who never once expressed any desire to either forget their past or to bury
it……. Harriet Tubman…..Sojourner Truth…..Nat Turner…..Toussaint L’ouverture……Malcom
X…..Martin Luther King…… Although I am
over joyed to have received a pardon of Innocence after forty years of immense
pain My deepest desire was never so much
that I be vindicated from any culpability in the case of The Wilmington 10 but
that I courageously draw strength through struggle from
all those Triumphant Warriors who came before me.
The trial and conviction of the Wilmington Ten disrupted our lives
in ways which are unimaginable. I wish I
could say that the cruelty that the state of N.C. allowed to be perpetrated on
a group of mostly high school students is unprecedented. It is not. Certainly I
need not list the many instances in
which the justice system has betrayed the hopes and dreams of young black men.
My deepest desire is that these kinds of injustices continue to be exposed, so
that what happened to the Wilmington Ten won't continue to destroy the lives of
young black men. This Pardon of Innocence can't give me my life back. It does
however officially bestow on me the title of Triumphant Warrior.
triumphantwarrriors.ning.com
