During my senior year at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, I attended the Wilmington Ten symposium hoping to find a session that connected history to present-day strategy. I was already familiar with the Wilmington Ten story, but I wanted to hear how its lessons could be transformed into modern solutions for wrongful convictions, racism, and systemic oppression. I was not looking only for reflection. I was looking for a model of resistance.
The session, “Strategizing a Movement: Educators and the Politics of Wilmington Ten,”immediately felt aligned with my own belief that education can serve as a tool for liberation. Even the experience of getting there became part of the lesson. I was frustrated by the rain, the distance across campus, and the inconvenience of having to navigate from one side of UNCW to the other, but as I walked, I found myself thinking about the discomfort and uncertainty the Wilmington Ten endured in their own struggle. What felt frustrating to me was small compared to what they faced.
When I arrived soaking wet, I noticed the small crowd and felt disappointed by the lack of attendance. That absence said a lot to me about representation, about whose stories are centered, and about how often Black history and Black intellectual spaces are treated as optional instead of essential. Still, the room carried something powerful. The background music—soul, R&B, and conscious hip-hop—set a tone of remembrance and resistance, and when “Glory” played, the atmosphere became even more meaningful. It felt like history, pride, and liberation were all in the room together.
The acting superintendent for our local public schools spoke with conviction about the power of education to change lives, while Bertha Todd brought the deepest weight to the conversation through her lived experience. Her words reminded everyone that education is not just about school or degrees. It is about awareness, self-determination, and the ability to recognize and challenge systems built to keep people uninformed and disconnected. Her reflections on Wilmington’s history made clear that oppression thrives when people are denied truth, culture, and opportunity.
What stayed with me most was how deeply this conversation reflected my own experience with the school-to-prison pipeline. For too many young people, school has not been a place of growth but a place of surveillance, punishment, and disconnection. That reality makes education feel less like a pathway and more like a sorting system that pushes certain students toward exclusion instead of opportunity. Hearing this symposium frame education as strategy reminded me that schools can either reinforce oppression or become places where young people are equipped to resist it.
Education is not only a pathway forward; it is also a weapon against ignorance and a foundation for leadership. It gives people the tools to challenge systems that were never designed for their success. It prepares communities not just to survive injustice, but to organize against it.
Bertha Todd’s words stayed with me, especially when she said, “I’m assertive; I’m a strategist, not an activist.” That line captured the spirit of the event. Real movement requires more than passion. It requires discipline, memory, courage, and intention. We have to know our history, teach our people, and protect what we learn so the next generation is not robbed of the knowledge, confidence, and power they deserve.
About Jamir Jumoke:
Jamir Jumoke is a writer, speaker, recidivism reduction and recovery coach, and community outreach specialist with the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition. With a passion for helping individuals rebuild, recover, and thrive, Jamir brings both lived experience and professional insight to community leadership, self-development, and social change.
WHQR commentaries don’t necessarily reflect the views of WHQR Public Media, its editorial staff, or its members.