By Elizabeth G. Cook

This month, the people of Wilmington have been observing the 125th anniversary of an injustice that reverberated throughout the nation.   

On Nov. 10, 1898, White supremacists burned down the offices of Wilmington’s Black-owned newspaper and unleashed a violent attack on Black citizens. The gunfire left scores of Black men dead and countless families fleeing for their lives. 

Bent on regaining control of the city for White Democrats, the attackers then ousted the biracial board of aldermen and installed their chosen leaders.  

The state’s largest city at the time, Wilmington soon turned from a majority-Black municipality into a white citadel. 

No one alive today is responsible for the Wilmington massacre and coup, but the more we understand the complexity of the past, the better we can understand the present and plan for the future. 

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” 

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For generations the massacre was seldom mentioned, its truths forgotten or hidden away. 

In 2020, David Zucchino’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Wilmington’s Lie,” brought the national spotlight on the travesty as he shared research local and state historians had been piecing together for decades. 

A report commissioned by the N.C. General Assembly in 2000 laid bare the facts: “The riot was not an isolated, spontaneous incident but was the result of a series of events that were directed and planned by upper-class white businessmen in order to regain control of government.” 

After reading and discussing Zucchino’s book with friends, a few of us traveled to Wilmington recently to take in events planned for the anniversary. The book made for painful reading — the kind of material that you have to put down for a while before continuing. But it also left us wanting to know more. 

We rode a bus along the streets where the mayhem broke out, saw the still-empty lot where the newspaper office one stood, paused at the intersection of Third and Harnett streets where the first shots were fired. 

Modern life buzzed around us. Tourists visited the Battleship North Carolina. Thousands would watch the Veterans Day parade. There were few outward signs that this was the 125th anniversary of anything. But the ever-expanding knowledge of what happened that day in Wilmington haunts the city and the entire state. Once you know it, you can’t unknow it.

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One twist of history is the evolution of party identities. Though Republicans and Democrats drive this story, the people and ideologies behind the labels have changed through the years. 

In the late 1890s, White supremacist Democrats in Wilmington and other parts of the state had lost power to a Fusion coalition made up of Black Republicans and White Populists. To reverse the trend, Democratic leaders decided to use race to drive a wedge between the two groups and eradicate the Black vote.

Unlike masked KKK riders, the bigots of this era openly formed White supremacy clubs and wore buttons proclaiming their membership. Supremacist Democrats railed against “Negro domination,” even though the number of Black men holding office was a minority. 

White newspapers fanned the flames by demonizing Black men in hideous cartoons and sensationalized reports. Former Confederate officers delivered fiery speeches at rallies that stoked anger among working class Whites. Those men, in turn, built up arsenals of guns and ammunition that they were eager to use. 

Red-shirted patrols terrorized Black families to stop the men from voting in the 1898 elections. Through intimidation, violence and ballot-box stuffing, the White supremacist Democrats won sweeping victories in races for the General Assembly and Congress on Nov. 8. But they wanted more, and two days after the election they went for it. 

Once the first shot was fired on Nov. 10, the bloodshed began. Leaders whose primary goal was destroying the newspaper and overthrowing the government could not control the racist passions they’d ignited. 

• • •

On the surface, the Whites who went on the attack claimed to be seeking revenge for an editorial they said slandered virtuous white women. But the resentments and schemes went much deeper. Neither the old aristocracy nor poor Whites accepted the Black success they saw growing in the city — from working at the docks to serving as ministers and lawyers and building thriving businesses. 

Historians believe 40 to 60 Black men were shot dead or beaten to death. Some say the total was in the hundreds. The most prosperous Black leaders were banished, along with the ousted government officials. 

Supremacists ennobled the slaughter with the lie that they had to contain a violent Black mob. Those who knew better were frightened into silence. 

The lack of intervention by federal authorities and the complicity of state officials sent a clear signal. White efforts to intimidate, disenfranchise and even kill Black citizens could go unpunished. Washington was more concerned about bringing North and South together than in protecting the rights of the formerly enslaved. 

That gave White supremacists a green light across the South. 

North Carolina and other states went on to pass voting laws with poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses that virtually prohibited Black people from voting. Jim Crow laws followed, mandating the separation of the races in train cars, hospitals, schools, parks and more. Courtrooms kept two Bibles for people being sworn in, one for Blacks and one for Whites. 

• • •

One lesson from the Wilmington massacre is that those who hunger for power often use hatred and division to achieve their goals. Truth is the first casualty. 

Another lesson is how the lies and deceptions can linger and haunt us all. 

Yet there’s wisdom in weaving this thread into the tapestry of our acknowledged, shared history. As Cynthia Brown, a Black woman whose ancestors were in Wilmington in 1898, told one interviewer: 

“If you don’t see it for what it really is, it can happen all over again.”

Elizabeth G. Cook is former editor of the Salisbury Post.