Gov. Bev Perdue of North Carolina won’t have that title much longer, but she is making the most of her last few days in office. To end 2012, Perdue issued a full pardon of innocence for the Wilmington 10, nine black men and one white woman accused of firebombing a white-owned grocery store in Wilmington, N.C., in 1971, a time of racial unrest in the region.
Perdue, a Democrat, made history when she was elected North Carolina’s first female governor in the Obama 2008 wave. But she saw her popularity drop and Republicans gain control of the state legislature in the 2010 mid-term elections. She decided in early 2012 not to run for a second term, and former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory, the Republican opponent Perdue narrowly defeated in 2008, handily defeated Democrat Walter Dalton in November to win the governorship. President Obama also lost North Carolina in November, a state he won by 14,000 votes in 2008.
While Democrats celebrated a national win in this election cycle, including a strengthened Senate majority and pickups in the GOP-controlled House, North Carolina trended from purple to red, with Perdue’s one term being emblematic of the shift.
