Wilmington 10 – U.S.A. 10,000

Gerima’s first documentary examines the case of nine Black men and one white woman who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned following racial violence in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1971. Rather than presenting a conventional account of the case, Gerima builds a vivid chorus of testimony from the defendants, their families, Wilmington residents, and political activists, connecting their struggle to the 1898 Wilmington massacre, the unfinished history of the Civil Rights Movement, and liberation movements around the world. A landmark of Black independent cinema, Wilmington 10 – U.S.A. 10,000 remains a vital document of collective memory, resistance, and the ongoing struggle to make suppressed histories visible.