Weeksville Watchnight: WILMINGTON 10 – U.S.A. 10,000

In 1972, The Wilmington 10 – 9 Black men and one white woman social worker – were unjustly incarcerated – with combined sentences of 282 years – for a crime in racially and politically volatile Wilmington, NC, that they didn’t commit.

So obvious was this misjustice, The Wilimington 10 became a cause célèbre, as journalists and lawyers exposed criminal wrongdoing in the State’s case; religious leaders, politicians, and activists demanded their release and exoneration; and the Soviet Union brandished their photos as a symbol of American hypocrisy and racism.

This rarely seen or shown 1979 documentary, restored in 2021 by the Academy Film Archive, uses their case, and American history – including the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 – to show how their imprisonment affected their families and extended community. It is groundbreaking in its approach and execution.

Presented in partnership with The Luminal Theatre and Alfreda’s Cinema, this screening also pays tribute to the recently deceased Assata Shakur, who is interviewed in the film just before her escape from prison.

Following the screening, there will be a panel discussion on social and restorative justice, featuring key community stakeholders.

Doors open at 6:00 PM; the film begins promptly at 6:30 PM.

Meet the Panelist

Vincent M. Southerland is Faculty Director for New York University’s Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law, for which he also served as inaugural Executive Director in February 2017. He is also an Associate Professor of law and director of the Criminal Defense and Re-entry Clinic at NYU Law. Southerland has dedicated his career to advancing racial justice and civil rights. He previously served as an Assistant Federal Public Defender with the Federal Defenders for the Southern District of New York Prior to that, Southerland spent seven years at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), where he was a Senior Counsel; while at LDF, he engaged in litigation and advocacy at the intersection of race and criminal justice, including the successful representation of people sentenced to death across the American South and children sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Southerland holds an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center, received his JD from Temple University School of Law, and his BA from the University of Connecticut. He serves on the boards of The Bail Project, the Federal Defenders of New York, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. He previously served as a staff attorney at The Bronx Defenders.

Learn more about him at https://www.law.nyu.edu/centers/race-inequality-law/leadership

Melissa Lyde is the founder of the Brooklyn-based microcinema Alfreda’s Cinema. Alfreda’s Cinema is rooted in the belief that Black and brown stories deserve space, care, and visibility. They create space for films that center the lived experiences, aesthetics, and imaginations of Black and non-Black people of color. Their screenings champion historically silenced filmmakers and connect their work to local audiences through community-centered screenings that reflect the beauty, nuance, and complexity of our histories, cultures, and truths. By anchoring their work in a historically Black neighborhood, Alfreda’s bridges cinema and community, offering film as a site of reflection, resistance, and joy.

Moderator

Jessica Lynne is a writer, editor, and art critic. She is a founding editor of ARTS.BLACK, an online journal of art criticism from Black perspectives. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Artforum, Frieze, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and Oxford American. She is a recipient of a 2025 Rabkin Prize, which celebrates the creative and intellectual contributions of visual arts writers. Jessica holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and was the host of the limited series podcast, Harlem is Everywhere. She is currently the inaugural Editor-in-Residence at The Black Embodiments Studio, an arts writing incubator, public programming initiative, and publishing platform dedicated to building discourse around contemporary Black art.