The Wilmington Ten

“The subject matter is fascinating. . . [and] illustrative of how far Americans still have to go in bridging our society’s divisions.”—Publishers Weekly

“Janken’s highly recommended history of student racial protest provides a historical perspective on the current struggle for diversity within academia and the black lives matter movement.” — Library Journal

“A passionate, intensely engaging portrait of the group’s initial mission, as well as the terrible personal lifelong toll the struggle took.” — Kirkus Reviews

“This first book-length scholarly treatment of the event is meticulously researched and compelling in its analysis. . . . Highly recommended.” — CHOICE

“Simultaneously thorough and concise, deeply researched, and insightful, The Wilmington Ten deserves a wide readership.” — Journal of Southern History

“Provides fresh insight into hard truths about procedures used by the state to suppress and repress black challenges to the racial status quo. . . . A sincere exploration of black politics in the 1970s, one that takes seriously black power activists and ideologies.” — American Historical Review

“Explodes what little is left of [the] cut-and-paste version of the [civil rights] movement, reminding readers that many different movements were operating over a period of decades. . . . An important, approachable study.” — North Carolina Historical Review

“No one explains this complicated story better than Kenneth Robert Janken. . . . Shows the complicated ways the 1970s black revolt took up the unfinished civil rights agenda, especially its attempt to resist white terror.” — Journal of American History

“Kenneth Janken’s Wilmington Ten is a fast-paced, deeply researched investigation of an atrocity whose ordinary black and white victims might otherwise have remained all but forgotten and whose large civil rights significance holds lessons to be taught ever and again.” — David Levering Lewis, Julius Silver University Professor, Emeritus, New York University, and author of books on Martin Luther King Jr., and W. E. B. Du Bois

“The story of the Wilmington Ten, despite its tragic aspects, demonstrates the power of an inclusive, eclectic, and morally grounded movement to triumph over repression and wrong. Kenneth Janken has written an utterly fascinating account of a tumultuous and transformative episode in the struggle for democracy in America.” — Timothy B. Tyson, Duke University