This will probably be the longest, yet most significant post I've ever made. Ever since the Tea Party movement the right wing has been winning elections by screaming about leftist cancel culture. Today. those same folk are attempting to erase, not only speech coming from the left, but also any speech that's contrary to their MAGA 2025 agenda (many people are calling it a fascist agenda), However. let me digress. Make no mistake, it is my profound belief that Charlie Kirk was the poster child for white supremacy. He could have very well be the face of a billboard in my home state town of Smithfield, NC that read, "Welcome to Smithfield" This is Klan Country: Help us fight integration & communism. It was put up in the late 1960's and remained until the mid-1970's. The speech of Charlie, though disguised in the cloak of freedom of speech, it was the kind of speech that throughout American history has led to my people being tarred and feathered, hanged, and all kinds of misery being visited upon us And the Charlie Kirks of the world had the audacity to disparage us and admonish to stop referring to ourselves as victims. I've never referred to myself as a victim. I've been victimized. There's a difference. I consider myself to be a revolutionary

We’ve heard all the voices on the right and all the capitulation of mainstream media Addressing Charlie Kirk's Statements and Affirming the Value of Black a Response to Harmful his harmful Rhetoric:  now it's time to hear an African American Perspective

In a media landscape saturated with noise, opinion, and the ever-present undercurrents of racism and Addressing Charlie Kirk's Statements and Affirming the Value of Black a Response to Harmful Rhetoric: An African VoicesAn African American division, the words that public figures choose to carry immense weight. When someone like Charlie Kirk, a well-known political commentator, chooses to use his platform to spread misinformation, harmful stereotypes, or hateful rhetoric about Black people, it is not just an affront to the individuals targeted, but a blow to the fabric of American society itself. As an African American, the need to respond is not only a matter of self-respect but a call to stand in solidarity with all those who value justice, truth, and the principles on which this nation claims to stand.

Throughout history, the Black community in America has been subjected to a barrage of hostile, dehumanizing narratives. Whether through pseudoscience, debunked stereotypes, or outright lies, words have been used as weapons to justify everything from segregation to voter suppression. The echoes of the past are never far away when a figure like Kirk engages in the kind of rhetoric that demonizes or diminishes Black people. His words are not an isolated incident, but part of a persistent thread that has been woven through American discourse for centuries.

To answer such hateful rhetoric is to engage in a tradition of resistance that is as old as the struggle for Black freedom itself. From Frederick Douglass’s speeches to Ida B. Wells’s journalism, Black Americans have always responded to slander not with silence, but with truth, reason, and resilience.

When Charlie Kirk makes derogatory or misleading statements about Black people, the harm is not limited to abstract debate; it trickles into real lives, real communities, and real policies. The perpetuation of negative stereotypes leads to discrimination in education, employment, healthcare, and the justice system. It emboldens those who would do violence—either physical or structural—against Black bodies and Black dreams.

Words matter. They shape perceptions, harden prejudices, and, when repeated often enough from positions of power, they become part of the status quo that the Black community must struggle to overcome every day. Dismissing or ignoring these statements is not an option

One of the most insidious effects of hateful rhetoric is the way it attempts to strip away the complexity and dignity of Black life. In responding to such negativity, we must assert the full humanity, creativity, and resilience of Black people. Our history is not one of victimhood, but of overcoming. From the Harlem Renaissance to the Civil Rights Movement, from the election of Black leaders to the everyday triumphs of ordinary people, the story of Black America is one of contribution and achievement.

Affirming our worth in the face of such attacks is an act of self-preservation and collective healing. Black excellence and resilience are not just responses to adversity—they are the foundation upon which the American story is built. Our achievements, often made in the teeth of systemic opposition, speak not only to our capabilities but to an enduring spirit that refuses to be diminished.

In every field, from the arts to the sciences, from the classroom to the courtroom, Black people have contributed immeasurably to the nation’s growth and soul. Our joy, our creativity, and our perseverance are themselves forms of resistance—living proof that we are more than the distorted images others project onto us. To affirm Black humanity is to celebrate the fullness of our lives: our laughter, our struggles, our triumphs, and our dreams.

It is not enough to merely rebut falsehoods; we must also assert and uplift the true narratives of who we are. This means cultivating spaces where our stories are told by us and for us, where the richness of our identities is honored rather than reduced, and where future generations can see themselves reflected with pride and possibility.

We are artists, scientists, teachers, entrepreneurs, parents, and children. We are dreamers. We are builders. We are voters. We are thinkers. We are human beings, deserving of respect, dignity, and the opportunity to live our lives free from harm

It is necessary to challenge not only the content of hateful statements but also the hypocrisy behind them. Too often, those who decry “identity politics” are quick to weaponize identity when it suits their purposes. When Kirk and others attempt to define what Black people should think, believe, or aspire to, they deny us our individuality and agency. They perpetuate a monolithic view of Blackness that erases the incredible diversity of experiences and opinions within our community.

Let it be clear: Black Americans are not beholden to any single ideology or political party. Our voices are as varied as the nation itself. We reject attempts to pigeonhole us or to use us as props in someone else’s narrative. The right to self-definition is a cornerstone of our freedom.

No hateful statement can erase the power of community. Across the country, Black families, organizations, churches, and activists continue to work toward a more just and equitable world. We support one another, lift as we climb, and find strength in unity even as we acknowledge our differences.

Solidarity means rejecting attempts to divide us by class, generation, gender, or any other line. It means standing together not just against hate, but for hope—for the belief that America can live up to its highest ideals.

Painful as it is to hear public figures malign our community, we can transform that pain into purpose. Every hateful word offers an opportunity to educate, to organize, to vote, and to build. Our response is not just defensive, but creative. We answer attacks with art, with protest, with scholarship, and with love.To every young person who hears someone like Charlie Kirk and wonders if they belong: You do. You are part of a proud legacy and a brighter future. Do not let anyone define your worth or limit your vision. Stand tall, speak out, and know that you are not alone

Responding to hateful rhetoric also means demanding accountability from those who platform or enable it. Media consumers must be critical, informed, and unafraid to challenge misinformation wherever they find it. Sponsors, networks, and social media platforms must be urged to take a stand against hate, not just with words but with actions.

Accountability is not censorship. It is the insistence that public discourse be rooted in truth and respect for human dignity. Let us use our collective voice to make it clear that bigotry has no place in the American conversation.

In the end, the response to hateful statements is not just about refuting lies; it is about reclaiming the narrative. It is about telling our own stories, on our own terms, and refusing to be silenced or defined by those who wish us harm. We answer hate with hope, ignorance with knowledge, and division with unity.

The legacy of Black America is not one of defeat, but of defiance. We have faced the worst, and still we rise

A military approch to terroism is not the answer

Let’s see, we were told that Osama Bin Ladin, and the majority of the terrorist responsible for 9/11, were from Saudi Arabia, land gushing oil and lots of Sunni Muslims. We were told that Bin Ladin was a Sunni who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia. We were told that it was the Saudis who financed Bin Ladin’s 9/11 attack on America. We were told that the first order of business would be to go after Bin Laden. After all, he and his buddies were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans. All over America, there was a call to arms. Americans everywhere readied themselves for war, adorning their cars with American flags, and bumper stickers that read “these colors don’t run. America would serve Bin Ladin with a merciless indictment, and unleash the greatest military in the world, in an effort to bring him and other terrorist to justice. President Bush promised that justice would be swift and certain. Though justice was anything but swift and certain, Bin Ladin is now dead, no longer a threat, but Al Qaeda has metastasized into ISIS.

One would have thought that America would have immediately gone after Bin Ladin, who was in the mountains of Afghanistan, and the Sunni leaders of Saudi Arabia for their role in financing him. It didn’t happen. America’s thirst for oil caused it to turn its head. Instead, America went after the Sunnis in Iraq, overthrew their leader Saddam Hussein, disbanded their military, and turned a rudderless country over to the Iran backed Shiites. It didn’t seem to matter that Iran is one of America’s biggest enemies. Meanwhile the generals and officers of Hussein’s Sunni army, angry over Americas intervention in their sovereign nation, and the public hanging of their leader, went on to form an invisible nation called ISIS or ISEL. It appears as if America is breeding its own enemy. The more we kill, the more we seem to create. One year it’s Islamic Jihad, the next year it’s Al Quaeda and now it’s ISIS.

Lately, ISIS has been beheading people at an alarming rate. These beheadings should make it obvious to any sane person, that America’s approach to eliminating terrorism has been a complete failure. The American people has given the greatest military force in the world, an unbridled mandate to eradicate terrorism. Yet, after a 14 year mission to “kill the terrorists”, after 4493 Americans have been killed in Iraq, after 2,356 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan, terrorism is still alive and well. It should be abundantly clear by now, that a military approach to this problem is not the answer. However, if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, then I at least understand the real problem. We have a lot of Americans who are crazy as hell.

I will be in D.C. all this week promoting "Triumphant Warrior" and will definitely be available to sign and discuss my memoir on this momentous occasion.
OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE -

The much acclaimed feature-length film, Pardons of Innocen...ce: The Wilmington Ten, will have its national debut during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference this Friday, Sept. 26 at the Renaissance Hotel on Ninth Street NW in downtown Washington, D.C.
Produced by the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and CashWorks HD Productions, the 119-minute documentary recounts the turbulent history surrounding the troubled desegregation of New Hanover County Public School System in North Carolina during the late 1960s through 1971, and the violent incidents, reminiscent of what we saw in Ferguson, Mo. this summer, that led up to the false prosecution of eight black male students, a white female community organizer, and fiery civil rights activist, Rev. Benjamin Chavis, for protesting racial injustice.
The case of the Wilmington Ten made national and international headlines, resulting in the federal government, and specifically the Congressional Black Caucus, speaking out for justice.
Produced, written and directed by Wilmington Journal staff writer Cash Michaels, the film also traces how the Black Press, led initially by Wilmington Journal publisher Thomas C. Jervay, Sr., and subsequently over 40 years later by his daughter, publisher-editor Mary Alice Jervay Thatch, through the NNPA, ultimately pushed for, and achieved the official and dramatic exoneration of the Wilmington Ten in 2012 by North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue.
Featured exclusive interviews in the film include Governor Beverly Perdue, who tells how powerful people across the state of North Carolina tried to stop her from granting pardons of innocence to the Wilmington Ten; Joseph McNeil, Wilmington, NC native and member of the legendary Greensboro Four, who tells why black students had to stand up for freedom and against racism during the 1960’s and 70’s; Dr. Benjamin Chavis, NNPA interim president and leader of the Wilmington Ten, who relives the events that led up to that racially violent week in Wilmington in February 1971; Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, recalling how he and other clergy from the United Church of Christ came to Raleigh in 1977 and met with then Gov. James Hunt to implore him to pardon the Wilmington Ten, only to be rejected.
The film, to be screened as part of the NNPA’s 2014 Leadership Conference in Washington this week, will be shown Friday, Sept. 26th, 4 pm. at the Renaissance Hotel, 999 Ninth Street NW, across from the Washington Convention Center.
The film will be followed immediately by a panel discussion on issues impacting the African-American community, tentatively featuring members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Admission is free and open to the public.

So if you’re in Washington, D.C. on Friday, please drop by the Renaissance Hotel on Ninth Street, right across from the Washington Convention Center around 4 p.m.. we’d love to have you. And if you want to see the trailer for the film, then please go to - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhfAQy5kx- See More

PARDONS OF INNOCENCE: THE WILMINGTON TEN TRAILER 2:58

(c)2014 NNPA/CashWorks HD Productions. All rights reserved. Trailer for the documentary about the infamous Wilmington Ten case, the false prosecution of the ...

Letter from South Africa

Brother Wayne
Greetings from South Africa, the cradle of human kind.
I have just finished reading Triumphant Warrior and I would like to commend you for exposing the ugliness of humanity that we sometimes tend to forget. I was filled with rage as I read every page but was also filled with admiration for the courage that you and your nine fellow warriors exemplify.
The lowest point for me was i...n the epilogue when Gwen passed away. I cried. I feel so protective of you that I felt your loss was my loss. But soon my spirits were lifted by how you were given a second chance in life in the form of a successful career and beautiful children who have become upright citizens.



I am passing my book to a close friend and my message to him is that every black person like us who was once oppressed and is now free must read this book just to be soberly reminded of the sacrifices our forebears had to go through in order for us to gain our freedom.
Thank you for the memoir. I have already told my wife and two sons (11 and 15) to read your book (see the family on the attached picture). We would be most honoured to be counted among your friends.

Take care.
Emmanuel Tlou

Book Signing at the National Book Club Conference in Atlanta

Testimonials For Triumphant Warrior

Testimonials: “I finally got around to reading it and I read it from cover to cover in about two days. It is brilliant! I love the way you wrote it as memoir. It made me laugh and cry. I am going to recommend it to all my friends and my book club.” Beverly Tetterton, noted historian, archivist, and special collections librarian at the New Hanover County Public Library.  “ A wonderful and rich story of injustice and vindication, of suffering and redemption.” Dr. Phillip L. Clay—Dr. Clay grew up in Wilmington and teaches at the Massachusetts  Institute of Technology Triumphant Warrior “is well written an easy to read. I couldn’t put it down” Linda Pearce “ Former member of the University of North Carolina –Wilmington Board of Trustees “Wayne Moore’s vivid, firsthand account of the long yet triumphant struggle of the Wilmington Ten is inspirational for all who cry out for freedom. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis-- President and CEO of the National News Paper Association --author of Psalms from Prison. "...The following is an excerpt from the book TRIUMPHANT WARRIOR; "Jail is one of the few places in America where Blacks are guaranteed to be in the majority”….   “I knew that but it sure hit me to see it on print!!! Excellent Book!!! Vincent Butler MBA A&T State University, Ashland University Triumphant Warrior is a very vivid account of a long awaited justice and vindication! It is totally what I expected! Couldn't put it down! Karen Beatty MSW East Carolina University- retired licensed social worker.  Everyone in America should read this book!The Wilmington Ten story has long needed to be told and Wayne Moore does a beautiful job telling it. His account of how he rose with character, grace and dignity above the evil and injustices that were perpetrated against him is remarkable and inspiring. This book wonderfully elucidates the tremendous damage racism causes, not just to individuals, but to our society as a whole. This book is a must read! Donna Templeton Psychiatric Advanced Practice Nurse at Saint Clare's Hospital and Acupuncturist at Lake View Acupuncture “Triumphant Indeed!!! The fact that an individual could suffer so many injustices over such an extended period of time in 20th, 21st century America is incredulous. To continue, however, not only to persevere to ensure that an injustice is made right but take the time to document the events preceding and subsequent to events that span more than a thirty-year time frame is a triumph in itself. As my friend's Mother often said, if its not written down it never happened. Well this happened, Mr. Moore made it through and yes, after all those years he was triumphant. Thank you Wayne for making the world aware of the strength of your late Mother and yourself”. C.E. Mayo This book tells the story of The Wilmington Ten, the city of Wilmington, N.C., and a group of young people caught in Southern justice. The author is an excellent writer who tells his story well. I highly recommend it. Georgia Champion

Other publications : Atlanta Daily World http://atlantadailyworld.com/2013/02/12/wilmington-10-member-summoning-strength-through-struggle/

Political Pimps

        Last night on a radio program I was asked to share my thoughts about today’s black leaders. I responded that in the past we had authentic black leaders who were freedom fighters; people who would lay down their lives for the cause. Today we have a lot of political pimps posing as freedom fighters, whose deepest desire has little to with the liberation of the masses , and more to with economic and  celebrity status. This may be fine for personal upward mobility, but it does nothing to liberate the masses.

I remember many years ago, wearing overalls and marching behind a mule,  alongside SCLC leaders like Golden Frinks and Hosea Williams.  Many of today’s leaders wear designer suits while only  pretending  to lead the masses from limousines and expensive hotel ballrooms. Most of these people were tried and tested in the early day s of the struggle, but seem to have become blinded by the bright lights of their own personal success.

Triumphant Warrior Book Tour Continues

Triumphant Warrior, the memoir written by Wilmington Ten survivor Wayne Moore, is in Week 3 of its Official Release to the world. This evening, Mr. Wayne Moore will be at the lovely Pomegranate Books in Wilmington, North Carolina for a book discussion and signing. Come prepared with your questions and feedback. For the latest news on the Triumphant Warrior Book Tour, Click on the Book Tour Tab.

Where Have All The Leaders Gone

  

I believe that the greatest hope for a brighter future for inner city youth and ending gang violence is for our leaders to first acknowledge, and then take steps to remove, the psychological chains of slavery. It’s time to call a spade a spade. It is self-hatred that has given rise to self-destruction and dysfunctional behavior in the inner cities of America. That self-hatred has its roots in the psychological trauma of slavery. As evidenced by significant population of successful African Americans, the psychological chains of slavery have been broken for most. For others, not so much.

For many, the pain and humiliation of indentured servitude, along with the separation of families during slavery, has left a lasting and ongoing legacy that has for far too long, been overlooked. In most cases, a defining legacy that has seldom been openly addressed. Therefore, without realizing it we have passed down from generation after generation, a legacy of inferiority and self-hatred.

Young people who hate themselves don’t have a problem hating others , or killing someone. They hate themselves because subconsciously, they believe in their minds, that in the eyes of society they aren’t good enough, that they aren’t equal. They don’t feel empowered to determine their own destiny. Therefore to them life has very little meaning. It’s kill or be killed.

We need to find ways to empower our youth. We need leadership that will subscribe to that fact. We need an army of courageous leaders to not only identify viable solutions to this problem, but also to lead a mentally enslaved peopled to the Promised Land, where self-hatred, hopelessness and fear are non-existent.

But where can we find such leadership? It seems that our most introspective and talented leaders have fled to a safe haven in the plush surroundings of  suburbia, leaving behind so many who so desperately need to bear personal witness to  the successful achievements of people who look like them. It is selfish not to acknowledge where you came from, and it is insensitive not to be willing to lead to freedom those you have left behind. Yet I understand all too well your reluctance to look back. You have little or no desire to return from whence you came, especially when your most vivid memories are rooted in desperation and hopelessness. You somehow beat the odds, you played by the rules and made it to suburbia vowing to never return to the bowels of that slave ship from which you so desperately fled.

Honoring Mothers of the Wilmington Ten

              

The Mothers of Wilmington Ten

  

The Wilmington Journal had had just been bombed. My mother had been sitting at the kitchen table with a young civil rights leader named Ben Chavis. Suddenly the plates on the table rattled from the concussion of a loud blast around the corner from the house. With my mother leading the way, they rushed out of the door toward the sound of the explosion. As they approached ground zero, they found a shocked Tom Jervay Sr., standing in front of the building he owned. The iconic structure which stood in heart of black Wilmington, had just been blown to smithereens. It had been home to the cities’ black newspaper, The Wilmington Journal.

The 1973 bombing had come in the wake of racial hostilities that had begun in 1968 with the closing of the city's only black high school. Mr. Jervay had been the voice of the black community throughout the turmoil. No doubt, the bombing was a not-so-subtle attempt to muffle the resounding sound of Jervay’s constant drumbeat for justice. 

As if this courageous man needed reassurance, my mother looked up at him, as he stared blankly at his blackened building - she said, “We are not going to let them scare us. Bombing our community’s newspaper will not silence us.” 

That was my mother. Like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, like Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King. Dolores F. Moore will always be remembered as one of those brave and courageous African American Women, who made a difference in the world around them, who “refused to remain silent in the face of injustice.” 

To me Dolores F, Moore was the greatest civil rights leader of all time. “Triumphant Warrior” is my attempt to honor her legacy. She once said in a documentary on the Wilmington 10. 

“Wayne would never speak up about what was happening to him, She then said “I had no choice but to step forward.” 

She is the pillar on which I lean, and the prism through which I have always viewed the future . When I was lost she helped me find my way back home. When I was weak she lifted me up; when the jaws of injustice and persecution swallowed me up, she boldly and courageously stepped forward to free me. She taught me to never give up, to never forget to hold my head up high, to be bold in the face of injustice, to love even my enemies, that it is always better to give than to receive. I cannot fill her shoes, but I promised her during her transition that I’d try to walk courageously in her footsteps. With “Triumphant Warrior” I have at least stepped forward.

Addiction To Racism

 

 

               Seldom does anyone, black or white, ever want to be told that they have issues.  Just try getting an alcoholic to admit that they are an alcoholic, or a husband or wife to admit that they are the reason the marriage failed. It gets worse when you try to get a racist to admit to being a racist.

 

 I have for some time now, felt that racism is an addiction not unlike addiction to drugs or alcohol.  Donald Sterling   retreated into denial the second his blatant racism was revealed before the world.  After having his addiction to racism exposed, he denied that there could have been even the slightest possibility of racism underlying his “unfortunate words”.

 

Just as Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind”, boasted about how well she treated her slaves, Sterling continues to boast about how well he treats “his” blacks, especially his black players. He talks of buying them “food, and cars, and houses”. He doesn’t have a clue how that sounds to his millionaire players, whose exceptional talents helped him make his billions. He is so blinded by his racist superiority complex, that he actually believes that his players love him. In all actuality, they probably want to open up a can of ass-whipping on him.

 

               Like most addicts, Sterling has failed to seek the help he most urgently needs.  He is learning the hard way, a very important lesson; that in 2014, he lives in a society where the majority of its citizens, at the very least, want to appear to treat its fellow citizens with a degree of fair-mindedness and humanity.  The blatant transgressions of a few brought on by years of unbridled addiction to a tradition of racism will no longer be tolerated.

Mothers of the Wilmington Ten

There has been much said about Ben Chavis and the Wilmington Ten. No one ever mentions some of the greatest civil rights workers of all time, our mothers. As Mothers’ Day approaches, I am dedicating this entire week to the mothers of the Wilmington Ten.  

These women fought hard and valiantly for our freedom. Dolores F. Moore, Louise Hyman Carolyn Vereen, Margaret Jacobs, Etta Patrick, Sarah Wright, Elisabeth Chavis, Florence Epps, and Lue Vell Tindall. Though Ann Sheppard was also a co-defendant she was also like a mother to some of us. These brave women risked their jobs and reputations to fight for justice and freedom. They marched tirelessly around the country demanding justice for the Wilmington Ten. They car-pooled to prisons around the stare delivering comfort and home-cooked meals to us. 

Most of them never lived to see to us pardoned, but it is never too late to honor them. I honor them now. I will do a special honor to my mother in my blog on Thursday.

Melissa Harris-Perry Mentions Wilmington Ten

In case you missed it, the United Church of Christ and the Wilmington Ten were mentioned on the Melissa Harris-Perry show yesterday in a segment entitled, "Faith-based Action Oriented Toward Justice." In this segment Harris-Perry cites some of the social justice causes the United Church of Christ has championed over the years, including the Wilmington Ten. My memoir,Triumphant Warrior, details the support given by the UCC at the national and local level.

In the 1970's the United Church of Christ spent close to $1,000,000 defending the Wilmington Ten. After posting close to $500,000.00 bond for our release, they provided scholarship money for four of us to go to college. Through one of their many ministries, the Commission for Racial Justice, they paid our legal fees throughout a long and expensive appeal process. It was one of it's member churches, Gregory Congregational, from which we launched our boycott. It is only appropriate that I launch the story surrounding that boycott from a UCC affiliated church:The Church of the Good Shepherd in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

The Thing I am Learning to Accept

Since the soft launch of my memoir, Triumphant Warrior, in my hometown of Wilmington, I have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback I have received from local educators and former Williston Senior High classmates like Diane Emerson.

The praise from Diane means the most to me because is deeply rooted in a story that we both share. That story hit home a few years ago when I read her doctoral dissertation. It was only then that I came to realization that we had both accomplished things that are often praised in society. We had achieved a certain level of success beyond the stereotypical expectations of folk from the inner-city.

Diane once lived on the front row of Jervay Projects just across Dawson Street from Dew Drop Inn, a local hang-out for Wilmington’s most “aspiring pimps, players and pushers had obtained their kick-ass diplomas there. It was where dope addicts went to get their fixes and potheads went to cop a nickel bag.”

It has been said that living in the projects is a horrible and demeaning way of life designed to control an entire segment of society. But not everyone can be controlled. Not everyone is willing succumb to the wretched designs of the environment in which they live. Diane was such a person. Like Diane I too am a product of Jervay projects, though I was there by choice. It was the one place my mother always told me to never hangout. She had heard all the horror stories about the drugs and shootings in and around Jervay. “Nothing good can happen by you hanging out there” she said. Yet I had been hanging out in front of the Dew Drop Inn across the street from Jervay when a friend provided me a way out. 

“One evening, in September 1973, my old friend, Kojo Nambtambu, walked up to me and took me aside. He asked with worry and concern playing in his eyes. “What are you doing hanging out on a street corner? You need to be in college.”

 Kojo Nantambu, no stranger to how the streets can wreck the aimless, asked me if given the chance I would go to college. I said sure, and he said, “Go home and pack your bags. We are going to Raleigh and Shaw University tonight.” I did exactly what Kojo told me to do. I went home, packed a duffel bag full of clothes, and rode off to Raleigh in Kojo’s ‘67 Dodge Rambler. Like Diane, I was able to see beyond the "now' in which I then lived. Life in and around Jervay was environment in which mere survival is worthy of praise. A place where praise is seldom looked upon as being sincere.

I have never expected praise for doing what I believe is a natural instinct. Nor have I ever wanted to be looked upon as a victim. As we approach Mother's Day, I should mention how I have long been inspired by the courage of the mothers who survived the Middle Passage, after giving birth to their young, in the bowels of slave ships. Like those mothers, people like Diane were determined that it would be themselves, and not their environment, that would determine their destiny.

Up until recently I shunned praise. Who can you trust? Praise can be the voice of friendship but it can also be the language of the insincere, the fair-weather friend. Additionally, it didn't quite seem fair to be praised for just surviving when other classmates were being praised for their accomplishments. So, I developed a way to measure when it was okay to accept praise. For me, that development has come only in the past few years - - now that I am being praised for being a man of triumph, an overcomer, a writer, an author, the founder of a social justice organization - instead of a victim. 

What I am noticing is that I am slowly learning to accept praise. It is why when a Ph.D. from the projects reaped praise on my work I jumped for joy. She had been where I had been. Done what I had done, and understood my triumph.

Book Excerpt

My new book, Triumphant Warrior will be released Mother's Day Weekend. Here is a small excerpt:

Once, when I was a teenager, I sat on a huge rock at Fort Fisher, a state park with sugary sand beaches, squawking seagulls and keyhole urchins, all about 30 miles south of Wilmington. During the Civil War, this out-stretched earthen and brick fortress was, as one historical reference put it, “the South’s most powerful bastion.” But on this sunny afternoon, I wasn't thinking much about the Confederacy and the bulging buckets of blood, referring to the union and rebel blood that had soaked this ground. My gaze was fixed on the vast Atlantic Ocean that restlessly rippled and rolled against the shimmering horizon. I was thinking of a mighty carnage, of mass murdering and kidnapping on a global scale.

Before I fully realized it, I was reflecting on what the journey across the Atlantic must have been for my ancestors. I was lost in thought thinking about the Middle Passage. The roar of the waves as they pounded the shore gave due and timely notice of the destructive forces that most certainly confronted any vessel of that time on the high seas. It would have been hard enough for a seaman on some creaking, sea-slickened deck of a slave ship. But what about below, in the bowels of such ships? There, in a dark, dank, stink of a waking nightmare, I contemplated what it must have been like to be captured, chained, innocent of no crime other than being seen as inhuman in the cold eyes of those who captured you. Little did I know that I would, years later, get a glimpse of an answer, experiencing a 20th-century version of the slave ship in which I was captured and locked away – confined -- for no other reason than the color of my skin.

In the darkest days of my incarceration behind the “Wall” of Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C., I reached into the not-so-deep recesses of my mind for ancestral memory. I would revisit where I had actually never been, the way lots of African Americans making their first trip to Africa talk about “going back.” I daydreamed, nightmared really, of the ship and felt a real connection between my now and my people’s then. I experienced a kind of inner vision, seeing myself lying on my back in manacles, as the ship groaned all around me in a horror hold of others just like me, chained.

I could hear the dying, the sick and the able bodies unable to do anything more than rattle their shackles, and beg their gods for freedom now stolen. I’d live these atrocities in my head, even experiencing enslaved Africans giving birth to the first African Americans in those ships, and I would appreciate, that much more, being a black American. Sometimes, during my incarceration, I would open my eyes and convince myself that I didn't have it so bad behind bars compared to their struggle.

Back then behind bars, I’d tell myself an unshakable truth: I come from people who have endured much worse, like slaves, lynch mobs and the likes of the Wilmington Massacre of 1898. With that, my pain would lessen for a while, and I’d feel my shoulders begin to square and my backbone stiffen.

I wish I had known all of that, the great record of black people’s relentless courage, strength and faith, when I was a little black boy growing up in Wilmington, North Carolina.

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Wilmington Looks Into Its Past

With the pending documentary, Wilmington on Fire, a lot of people are coming forth about how their families have been affected many years later. In the memoir, Triumphant Warrior, Wayne Moore draws parallel between the massacre and what he experienced later as part of the Wilmington Ten.

Moore writes in his memoir, "Wilmington never fully recovered from that day. I know because I was swept up some 73 years later in its echo, in a kind of historical aftershock of the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898."

What Being Pardoned Means To Me

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

Strength Through Struggle

By Wayne Moore

Reaffirmed.

          That’s what I felt deep within, where even the January cold that stalked the National Mall  could not touch me  as I stood there on Inauguration Day. For so long, frustration and disappointment had taken up residence in the hot, earthen-red marrow of my bones. I reflected on how Michelle Obama must have felt in her husband’s maiden run for the White House when she said, "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country.”

            On that Mall with so many others there to witness Barrack H. Obama, a black man like me, sworn in for his second term as our nation’s president, I felt overwhelmed, and like I belonged there. It wasn’t just the day’s flowery prose and poetry, its soaring songs, festive parades and fluttering flags. It was, for me, the culmination of a realization that the country that I always loved more than it loved me had done right by me – and, along the way, the cause of justice.

            In the last hours of 2012, outgoing North Carolina governor, Beverly Perdue, issued and signed a Pardon of Innocence for the Wilmington Ten. I was among nine black men and one white woman who were unjustly charged and convicted for the 1971 firebombing of a grocery store in my hometown of Wilmington, N.C. during an especially racially tense time following the closing of the city’s only black high school. At the time, I was a teenage activist who only wanted, like all ten of us, to see black students treated with some degree of respect and consideration.

           For our efforts, the Wilmington Ten were sentenced to a total of more than 280 years in prison. Our case generated widespread condemnation and support, especially following the recantation of the prosecution’s three star witnesses. Sixty U.S. Congressmen filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the Forth Circuit Court of Appeals demanding that it overturn our conviction. The Justice Department found widespread misconduct on the part of prosecutors. President Jimmy Carter even spoke up after Amnesty International declared us political prisoners in 1977.

            In 1980, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals finally overturned our convictions; we were  all  released from prison,  released but not exonerated. I was free of the degradation of prison life, of physical bondage, but I hardly felt free because every day we spent  in N.C. we  carried the gorilla of injustice on our backs That heavy weight dogged us for years, following four of the ten to all-too-early graves, and prompting me to try to start a new life in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I, now 60, live and work as an electrician.

         But I wasn’t thinking about the Great Wrong done to us as I stood at the inauguration, which happened to fall on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the 150th anniversary year of the Emancipation Proclamation. I was thinking, as I do now during Black History Month, of all the triumphant warriors that came before me. I thought of the strength and courage of  Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, Toussaint L’ouverture, Malcolm X and Dr. King. Of Barrack Obama.

            Being in Washington on that day was an indescribable experience, heavy with the weight of the struggles all black, brown, yellow and red people have had to wage since we all first set foot on  American shores.  I give such heartfelt thanks that I could be free, vindicated and live to see a black man stand on Capitol steps built by slave labor and take the oath of the land’s highest office in the same vein as a George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

           I am overjoyed to have received the pardon after forty years of immense pain trying to live without it. However, my greatest joy is found no so much in the fact that I have been exonerated from any culpability in the case, but in the truth that I was able to summon strength through struggle, from all those triumphant warriors who live within me.

          My greatest wish is that these kinds of injustices continue to be exposed, so that what happened to the Wilmington Ten won't continue to destroy the hopeful dreams of young black folks, any folks for that matter. A pardon can't give back my life. It does, though, officially bestow upon  me the title of Triumphant Warrior.

           Earlier that day in D.C. I found myself staring up at the great granite likeness of Martin Luther King, Jr., memorialized on the Mall, as he should be. I couldn’t help but think that this tribute was to the same Dr. King who just a  little more than 40 years ago was the subject of jeers and vilification and hatred. This great monument  stood before me in all its  majesty, honoring the same man for whom I had heard  blaring horns of cars filled with whites cheering his assassination as I strolled through the streets of Wilmington on that awful day in 1968.

        But staring up at the stone Dreamer on his January holiday, I wondered if there wasn’t a lesson in his turnabout for me, for the remaining six Wilmington Ten. Will history be as kind to us? Could those who water-boarded Lady Justice, and the many who chose to look the other way, to lock us away, ever understand that we were guilty of nothing more than acting like Americans? 

I certainly hope so, because if they do, they too will likely find their love and faith in this nation reaffirmed.

It feels so good.

triumphantwarriors.ning.com