Chapter 8

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

    The process of transforming Wilmington from a racially exclusive to a racially inclusive city needs your help!

    Each of us can make a contribution, whether by studying the history of our city, by participating in upporting one of the interracial dialogues, by getting personally involved one of the 1898 economic initiatives, by joining the 1898 Foundation and becoming involved in our efforts, or by offering financial support to any of the Foundation's efforts.

You can learn about the true history of our city, by reading about it on the 1898 web site, http://www.1898wilmington.org/ or by reading H. Leon Prather's We Have Taken A City, republished by NU World Enterprises, Inc., 1998, or other works cited in ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, BOOKS AND RESOURCES.

• You can sign up to participate in an 1898/YWCA Interracial Dialogue by contacting Amber Millikan at the YWCA, telephone #799-6820.

• You can become involved in one of the 1898 Inclusion Initiatives by contacting Kenneth Davis, Rob Gerlach, Peter Grear, or Herbert Harris.

• You can become a member of the 1898 Foundation by contacting one of its co-chairs, Herbert Harris or Dr. Tom Schmid, and if you wish, choose to participate in one of our ongoing committees, Program and Memorial.

Harris:      458-9547                    Schmid:       962-3409
address:    P.O. Box                                      P&R, UNCW
                Wilmington, NC                            Wilmington NC 28403
email:       lifeskill@wilmington.net                 schmidt@uncwil.edu
web page: http://www.1898wilmington.org/
 
• You can provide financial support for the 1898 Foundation or for the 1898 Memorial Monument, either by contacting co-chairs Harris or Schmid, or by contacting Laura Padgett or Bertha Todd, the co-chairs of the Memorial Committee.

1898/1998 Centennial Events
    It is important to say not just with our words, but with our time, our money, and our deeds: "We envision a different society, which does not look back to a false past, but to an inclusive future."

    In the words of Bertha Todd, co-chair for the Centennial Year,

"No one living in Wilmington today
was a participant in the events of 1898.
Consequently, none among us bears any personal
responsibility for what happened.

But all among us--
no matter our race or history, whether we have
arrived here only recently or come from families that
have called Wilmington home for generations--
all among us are responsible for 1998.
On each of us falls the personal responsibility
to make our community one where
economic justice and racial harmony flourish.

Surely this is a challenge we are willing to accept."
 



return to Table of Contents

Link to
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, BOOKS AND RESOURCES