Debbie says:
Like most Americans, I didn’t know much about the history of the November 1898 election in Wilmington, North Carolina until a few years ago. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to hear a couple of podcast episodes on the subject, most recently “If It Ever Happens, Run,” on Criminal. Reveal’s “Remembering a White Supremacist Coup” digs a little deeper. In 2020, David Zucchino published Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy.
If you haven’t heard or read this history, here’s what the city of Wilmington has to say about this story, today in 2021.
It isn’t very detailed, but it could be worse (I found some really whitewashed language on other tourist pages, so kudos to the city for telling the basic truth):
The Civil War wasn’t the only tumultuous time in Wilmington’s history, and The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 proved that the racial conflicts in the Port City were far from over after the war. In 1898, two days after the election, more than 1,500 white men attacked and destroyed the only black newspaper in the state before spilling into the streets and wreaking havoc on black residents. An estimated 10-100 black residents were killed during the violent mob attacks, and no government officials or governmental body stepped in to prevent the atrocities or administer justice to the radical offenders. Today, the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, (also known as the Wilmington Race Riots of 1898), remain one of the darkest chapters in the town’s history.
For more detail, here’s Aaron Randle, writing at history.com
In 1898, a group of white vigilantes—angry and fearful at the newly elected biracial local government—joined forces with area militias to rain terror on Wilmington, North Carolina, then the South’s most progressive Black-majority city.
After stoking fear of a Black uprising that would upend their way of life, endanger their women and bring about an unfathomable new American reality in which Black men—not white—governed, white city leaders pledged to “choke the current of the Cape Fear with carcasses” rather than allow Wilmington’s Black citizens to succeed, and lead.
When the carnage ended, more than 100 Black government officials—city councilmen, the city clerk, the treasurer, the city attorney and others—had been forced from their elected roles. Somewhere between 60 and 250 Black citizens were murdered.
After the coup, for which no one was ever prosecuted or punished, more than 100,000 registered Black voters fled the city. No Black citizen would again serve in public office for three-quarters of a century.
As we are newly confronted with having to think about coups, violent insurrections, and white supremacist mob rule, remembering Wilmington is sobering … and important.
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