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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Kojo Nantambu, May 15, 1978. Interview B-0059. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Alibis for some of the Wilmington Ten

Nantambu discusses where he believed various members of the Wilmington Ten were at the time Mike's Grocery burned. Included in this list are Connie Tyndall, James McKoy, Joe Wright, and Ben Chavis.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Kojo Nantambu, May 15, 1978. Interview B-0059. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

All that night was gun fire. I myself and a few of my friends slept on the sidewalk that night, watching out and stuff like that. It was because of this night--I know for a fact--that Connie Tindall as well as a few others who I'll get to wasn't involved in the incident at Mike's Grocery.
LARRY THOMAS:
You know this for a fact?
KOJO NANTAMBU:
Connie's birthday has got to be February 6th or 7th ... because he told us that Friday night, "I don't know about y'all but I ain't going to be here tomorrow night. I'm going to be partying"--you know, celebrating his birthday. He didn't come back the next day. He wasn't there. Bunn or James McCoy wasn't there. left there that third night and didn't never come back.
LARRY THOMAS:
He left and didn't come back?
KOJO NANTAMBU:
Joe was a kind of scared brother. Joe always thought about some violence. He just didn't come back to the church until the funeral for Steve. Of all the people in the Wilmington Ten that I know of, Wayne Moore wasn't there that Saturday night, and I know that Reginald Eppes wasn't there. All the people that I know was at the church, at the Templeton house, that Saturday night was February sixth, the night of Mike's Grocery's burning, was Ben and Chili. We were all in the house ...
LARRY THOMAS:
Y'all were not in the church?
KOJO NANTAMBU:
We were all in the house; nobody was in the church that Saturday night because they had put us out. [Pause]