DemocracyNow.org As the new year approaches, North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue is being urged to pardon a group of civil rights activists who were falsely convicted and imprisoned 40 years ago for the firebombing of a whiteowned grocery store. Their conviction was overturned in 1980, but the state has never pardoned them. We're joined by one of "The Wilmington Ten," longtime civil rights activist Benjamin Chavis, who served eight years behind bars before later becoming head of the NAACP. We also speak to James Ferguson, a lead defense attorney for The Wilmington Ten; and to Cash Michaels, coordinator for The Wilmington Ten Pardons of Innocence Project and a reporter for the Wilmington Journal where he has been covering the activists' case.

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