Point Four: Two Ugly Chapters in N. C.’s Racist History

Point 4: The overthrow of the bi-racial 1898 Wilmington Government and the sterilization of poor, mainly Black, women from 1947-1974. North Carolina should implement its 1898 Wilmington Riot Commission recommendations and pay damages to the poor women it forcibly sterilized.

Rev. Barber: Although there are hundreds of ugly racist attacks, rapes and murders that have never been addressed by our government, we have selected two of the ugliest that must be redressed. Prof. Irving Joyner from NCCU School of Law and Co-Chair of the Official State Commission on the Wilmington riot of some racist whites, and Rev. Nelson Johnson, who helped organize the highly successful Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Greensboro will present this issue:

DID YOU KNOW that the official State Commission on the l898 riot in Wilmington concluded that the racist attack on the bi-racial Wilmington Government in l898 murdered over 25 Black people, exiled at least the same number of Black and White leaders, and suppressed Black economic development and set back race relations in our state for the next 100 years?

DID you know that from l947-1974, N.C. sterilized thousands of poor women, 69% of whom were Black, women it had labeled mentally ill or retarded, some of whom are still alive? 

Rev. Nelson Johnson:  That’s why, To move toward reconciliation with the state’s racist past, the North Carolina General Assembly must  Re-Constitute the “l898 Wilmington Riot Commission” for three more years and carry out the 15 Recommendations of the Commission to “repair the wrong,” including monetary redress to the families of the survivors of the l898 overthrow of the Wilmington Government. 

That’s why we demand the Legislature must hold hearings on the racist sterilization of young Black women to expose this ugly story to the light, to help us understand how tests, arbitrary labeling and denial of due process is still being used as a means of ethnic cleansing in some of our school systems today.

That’s why we demand the Legislature pass the Sterilization Compensation Act. That’s why we demand the legislature set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for North Carolina to begin facing our ugly, racist history and its present legacy.