1898 Massacre commemoration events conclude with Unity Service

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Wednesday marked 123 years since the 1898 Wilmington Massacre, where white supremacists attacked African Americans, killing an unknown number and forcing others out of the city.

Wednesday also marked the culmination of a 10 day series of events commemorating the incident. The Commemoration Unity Service was held at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Wilmington.

“If Wilmington, North Carolina can have a healing, maybe America can have a healing,” said Keynote speaker Dr. Benjamin Chavis.

Chavis is a surviving member of the Wilmington 10, a group of people wrongfully convicted for arson in 1971 and imprisoned for nearly a decade.

“There’s something about this city mayor, there’s such great potential, such great promise,” Chavis said during his speech. “But the forces of racism, the forces of oppression, the forces of economic exploitation would try to keep us divided so we think each other is the enemy.”

Dr. Chavis used his own experience to explore the event’s theme of ‘Healing Forward.’

“Healing starts in the mind,

you’ve got to want to heal,” he said. “I could’ve, and my co-defendants of the Wilmington 10, we could’ve come out bitter and broken. But we did not come out bitter and broken. We kept our faith.”

Elected officials also spoke at the event, including Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo and County Commission Chair Julia Olson-Boseman.

“The only way that we can come forward as a community and move forward as a community is to recognize what that event did for this community,” Saffo said. “It changed the trajectory of Wilmington, in many ways, forever.”

“Change does not happen overnight, and it must start with moments like these,” Olson-Boseman said.

Watch the entire service here.