If We Don't Learn Our History We Are Doomed to Repeat It

For many North Carolinians, the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 was a stark reminder of a dark day in the history of Wilmington back in 1898.  On a November day, a resentful white mob, whipped into a frenzy by politicians, tore apart the city to overthrow the elected government.

Historians have described it as the only coup in U.S. history.  Its ringleaders took power the same day as the insurrection and swiftly brought in laws to strip voting and civil rights from the state's black population. They faced no consequences.

The seeds of the rebellion were planted after the end of the U.S. Civil War in 1865-- when politicians in Washington DC passed a number of constitutional amendments granting freedom and rights to former slaves, and sent the army to enforce their policies.  But many southerners resented these changes. In the decades that followed, there were growing efforts to reverse many of the efforts aimed at integrating the freed black population into society.

Wilmington in 1898 was a large and prosperous port, with a growing and successful black middle class. Undoubtedly, African Americans still faced daily prejudice and discrimination - banks for instance would refuse to lend to black people or would impose punishing interest rates.  But in the 30 years after the civil war, African Americans in former Confederate states like North Carolina were slowly setting up businesses, buying homes, and exercising their freedom.  Wilmington was even home to what was thought to be the only black daily newspaper in the country at that time, the Wilmington Daily Record.

This growing success was true across the state of North Carolina, not just socially but politically. In the 1890s a black and white political coalition known as the Fusionists - which sought free education, debt relief, and equal rights for African Americans - won every state-wide office in 1896, including the governorship.  By 1898 a mix of black and white Fusionist politicians had been elected to lead the local city government in Wilmington.

But this sparked a huge backlash, including from the Democratic Party.  In the 1890s the Democrats and Republicans were very different to what they are today. Republicans - the party of President Abraham Lincoln - favored racial integration after the Civil War, and strong government from Washington DC to unify the states.

Democratic politicians feared that the Fusionists - which included black Republicans as well as poor white farmers - would dominate the elections of 1898.  Party leaders decided to launch an election campaign based explicitly on white supremacy, and to use everything in their power to defeat the Fusionists.  They implemented a concerted, coordinated effort to use the newspapers, speech makers and intimidation tactics to make sure the white supremacy platform won election in November.

White militias-- including a group known as the Red Shirts (so named for their uniforms)--  rode around on horseback attacking black people and intimidating would-be voters.  When black people in Wilmington tried to buy guns to protect their property, they were refused by white shopkeepers, who then kept a list of those who sought weapons and ammo.

Newspapers meanwhile spread claims that African Americans wanted political power so they could sleep with white women, and made up lies about a rape epidemic.  When Alexander Manly, owner and editor of the Wilmington Daily Record, published an editorial questioning the rape allegations and suggesting that white women slept with black men of their own free will, it enraged the Democratic party and made him the target of a hate campaign.

The day before the statewide election in 1898, Democratic politician Alfred Moore Waddell gave a speech demanding that white men "do your duty" and look for black people voting.  And if you find one, he said, "tell him to leave the polls and if he refuses kill, shoot him down in his tracks. We shall win tomorrow if we have to do it with guns."  The Democratic party swept to victory in the state elections. Many voters were forced away from polling stations at gunpoint or refused to even try to vote, for fear of violence.

But the Fusionist politicians remained in power in Wilmington, with the municipal election not due until the next year.  Two days after the state election Waddell and hundreds of white men, armed with rifles and a Gatling gun, rode into the town and set the Wilmington Daily Record building alight.  They then spread through the town killing black people and destroying their businesses. The mob swelled with more white people as the day went on.  As black residents fled into the woods outside the town, Waddell and his band marched to the city hall and forced the resignation of the local government at gunpoint. Waddell was declared mayor that same afternoon.

Within two years, white supremacists in North Carolina imposed new segregation laws and effectively stripped black people of the vote through a combination of literacy tests and poll taxes.  The number of registered African American voters reportedly dropped from 125,000 in 1896 to about 6,000 in 1902.

"Black people in Wilmington didn't think that something like this would ever happen," Yale University history professor Glenda Gilmore Gilmore said.  "There was a Republican governor in the state, their congressman was a black man. They thought that things were actually getting better. But part of the lesson about it was as things got better, white people fought harder."

The 1898 attack was not covered up.  University buildings, schools and public buildings throughout the state were all named after the instigators of the insurrection.  Men would later claim to have taken part in the attack to boost their stature in the Democratic Party.  As the decades passed, history books started to claim the attack was in fact a race riot started by the black population and put down by white citizens.  Charles Aycock - one of the organizers of the white supremacy electoral campaign - became governor of North Carolina in 1901.  His statue still stands in the U.S. Capitol.

Christopher Everett is a documentary maker who made a film about the 1898 insurrection, Wilmington on Fire.  Everett is now filming a sequel to his documentary to examine how Wilmington is grappling with its past. He said many local leaders are working to "bring the city of Wilmington back to the spirit of 1897, when you had this Fusion movement of white folks and black folks working together and making Wilmington an example of what the new south could have been after the civil war."