Biography
Wayne Moore was among the Black students drawn into Wilmington’s 1971 school boycott and protests for educational equality amid intense friction surrounding desegregation. As the movement became a focal point for local and national attention, Moore was later grouped with the other defendants known as the Wilmington Ten.
Moore was charged and tried with the Wilmington Ten in 1972 in connection with the firebombing of Mike’s Grocery and allegations of a conspiracy to assault emergency responders. The jury convicted the group on October 17, 1972; Moore was sentenced to 29 years in prison. The convictions were overturned by a federal appeals court in 1980, and the group later received pardons of innocence from the governor of North Carolina in 2012.
