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North Carolina

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for North Carolina.

200Documented
5In custody
147Released
1Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in North Carolina

Where North Carolina’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1930s 48 1970s 37 1920s 32 2010s 15 2020s 14 1800s 10

Documented cases

200 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

Hanover Thompson
Released
James Hanover Thompson was a nine-year-old boy at the center of the 'Kissing Case' in Monroe, North Carolina....
Joseph Thompson
Joseph Thompson, a Jamaican green-card holder, father and chef raised in New Jersey and New York, spent two ye...
Connie Tindall
Released
Connie Tindall was among the Black student activists in Wilmington who participated in the 1971 school boycott...
Anne Sheppard Turner
Released
Anne Sheppard Turner was originally from Auburn, NY. She was a white social worker, age 35 at time of arrest —...
Zebulon Vance
Released
Zebulon Vance was Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War and was imprisoned for seven weeks after it...
Willie Earl Vereen
Released
Willie Earl Vereen was one of the Black students involved in the Wilmington school boycott and broader protest...
Joseph Waddell
Released
Black Panther Party member known as 'Joe-Dell,' who The Black Panther Vol. 18 no.29 (1978) says was serving a...
Jesse Lee Walston
Jesse Lee Walston was one of three Black men sentenced to death in Tarboro, North Carolina, in January 1974 af...
Courtney Williams
Awaiting Trial
Courtney Williams is a U.S. Army veteran and former Department of the Army employee who supported a special mi...
Mabel Williams
Released
Mabel Williams was a civil-rights organizer who, with her husband Robert F. Williams, championed armed Black s...
Robert F. Williams
Released
Robert F. Williams was a civil-rights organizer who organized for civil rights in Monroe while insisting that...
Wesley Williams
Released
Wesley A. Williams, known as King Bam, was a member of the Greensboro chapter of the Almighty Latin King and Q...
William Wright Jr.
Released
William Wright Jr. was a Wilmington native, age 19 at conviction. 29-year sentence. Died c. 1990, pardoned pos...
K. Y. Hendricks
Released
K. Y. Hendricks, known as Red Hendricks, was a National Textile Workers Union defendant in the Gastonia strike...
E
Ernesto Wilson
In Custody
Ernesto Wilson, known as King Yayo, was charged as an associate of the Greensboro Latin Kings. A jury convicte...
M
Major Benton
Major Benton appears in a prisoner-aid committee list published by Laisvė on December 19, 1953. The article id...
B
Barry Nakell
Barry Nakell, a North Carolina civil-rights attorney, served ten days in Robeson County Jail for criminal cont...
D
Darwin Airola
Darwin Airola was listed by Breakthrough in its Summer 1991 prisoner directory as a Gulf War military resister...
R
Robert Aitoff
Released
Robert Aitoff is individually listed among eight Gastonia textile-strike defendants already out on bonds in th...
W
Wyatt Sherman Allgeier
Released
Wyatt Sherman Allgeier, then 19 and living in Mount Pleasant, North Carolina, was arrested after the May 1, 20...
J
John Anderson (Burlington textile defendant)
John Anderson, known as Slim, was president of the Piedmont Textile Council and one of six Burlington mill wor...
A
A. F. Ashe
Released
A. F. Ashe was a United Textile Workers striker at the Eton Mill in Shelby, North Carolina, charged with "inci...
T
Tommy Atwood
Released
Tommy Atwood was arrested on March 6, 1972 with the Reverend Benjamin Chavis and Marvin Patrick and accused of...
C
Charles Auslander
Released
Charles Auslander was a Textile Workers Union organizer convicted with Boyd Payton and Lawrence Gore in the He...

Institutions in North Carolina

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in North Carolina that appear in the census’s case files.

North Carolina state courtsWilmington, North Carolina
10 cases
Gaston County JailGastonia, North Carolina
9 cases
North Carolina State Penitentiary (Central Prison)Raleigh, North Carolina
7 cases
Buncombe County Superior Court
5 cases
Union County JailMonroe, North Carolina
3 cases
Camp Lejeune brigCamp Lejeune, North Carolina
2 cases
North Carolina State Prison System
2 cases
FMC ButnerButner, North Carolina
2 cases