The Wilmington Ten were nine young men and a woman, who were convicted in 1971 in Wilmington, North Carolina of arson and conspiracy, and served nearly a decade in jail. The case became an international cause célèbre, in which many critics of the city's actions characterized the activists as political prisoners.
Amnesty International took up the case in 1976 and provided legal counsel to appeal the convictions. In 1980 in Chavis v. State of North Carolina, 637 F.2d 213 (4th Cir., 1980), the convictions were overturned by the federal appeals court, on the grounds that the prosecutor and the trial judge had both violated the defendants' constitutional rights.
Read more about Wilmington Ten: Background, Arson At Mike's Grocery and Trial, Trial and Sentencing, International Response, Appeals, Pardon, Representation in Other Media
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“Material advancement has its share in moral and intellectual progress. Becky Sharp’s acute remark that it is not difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand a year has its applications to nations; and it is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.”
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