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Citing ‘naked racism,’ N.C. Governor Bev Perdue pardons Wilmington Ten

By Cash Michaels

Special to the NNPA

RALEIGH, N.C. – In what civil rights leaders across the nation are calling a significant moment in the civil rights movement, North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue has granted individual pardons of actual innocence to all members of the Wilmington Ten.

“I have decided to grant these pardons because the more facts I have learned about the Wilmington Ten, the more appalled I have become about the manner in which their convictions were obtained,” Perdue said in her Dec. 31 statement. A Democrat, Perdue will leave office Jan. 5…. […]