In a victory for civil rights advocates, North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue has issued pardons of innocence for the Wilmington Ten. The group of mostly African-American activists were falsely convicted and imprisoned for the firebombing of a white-owned store in the 1970s. Their pardons in the waning days of Perdue’s administration follow a campaign to vindicate unequivocally the Wilmington Ten after their convictions were overturned by a federal court decades ago. Newly surfaced documents show the prosecutor in the case made racially based notes next to potential jurors, writing comments like ”KKK good” and “Uncle Tom type.” In a statement about the Wilmington Ten, Gov. Perdue said, “These convictions were tainted by naked racism and represent an ugly stain on North Carolina’s criminal justice system that cannot be allowed to stand any longer.” Wilmington Ten member Benjamin Chavis appeared on Democracy Now! last week before the victory to talk about what a pardon of innocence would mean.

Benjamin Chavis: “A pardon of innocence would mean that the state of North Carolina finally realizes that the trial, the unjust arrest charges, were all racially motivated, politically motivated. And now it’s time, 40 years later, for the state to remove this pain from the members of the Wilmington Ten, from the community of Wilmington, and from the state itself. It’s been an albatross around the state’s neck for over 40 years.”