North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue pardoned the group for the 1971 firebombing of a white-owned grocery store.
North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue has pardoned the Wilmington 10, a group that was wrongly convicted of fire-bombing a white-owned grocery store in 1971.
"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 a news release.
The NAACP recently presented Perdue with new evidence showing how racism tainted the trial and jury selection. Notes written by Prosecutor Jay Stroud revealed that he tried to keep Blacks off the jury and instead selected white jurors who were aligned with the Ku Klux Klan.
The civil rights organization started an online petition asking that the group be exonerated for the crime.
Stroud believes that Perdue has made a mistake in pardoning the Wilmington 10 and that the jury had given its decision fairly and quickly.
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(Photo: AP Photo)
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