Wilmington Massacre

I want to talk about the race riots that happened in 1898, in Wilmington, NC, just 20 minutes away from where I live.  It is a big part of our history in North Carolina.   The riots are called the Wilmington Massacre of 1898. This happened on November 10, 1898.  It was a well planned coup by the Democratic Party at the time to come to power over the Republicans.  The city of Wilmington was the most populated city in North Carolina in 1898 and had a very large African American population.  This population held elected office and professional positions.  The Democratic Party was led by early white supremacists, their leader being Furnifold Simmons,  who thought that white men who could “write, speak and ride” were the only ones that should hold prominent positions.

 

An editorial written by Alex Manly, editor of the Wilmington Record, the city’s African American newspaper, challenged these views and became a pivotal point in this tension filled city.  The Democrats won the elections in Wilmington by intimidation of blacks and whites.  The men now in power called for Alex Manly to leave Wilmington and presented that and other demands to a Committee of Colored Citizens (CCC).  The demands were to be met on November 10, 1898. 

 

When the CCC did not hurry with their response, Alfred Waddell, one of the Secret Nine – a group of business men responsible for the election outcome and intimidation, rallied almost 2000 white men.  They stormed the Record and burned it to the ground. Fights then broke out throughout the city.  Many African Americans were forced to flee and many were killed.  Due to the lack of records, the exact number of fatalities is unknown, but it is known that at least 14 died and possibly as many as 60.

 

(http://ncpedia.org/history/cw-1900/wilmington-race-riot)

 

The Wilmington Massacre is thought to be the only known violent overthrow of a government within the United States.  Rev. Charles S. Morris was a refugee that fled from Wilmington that day.  His eyewitness account is chilling.

 

“Nine Negroes massacred outright; a score wounded and hunted like par¬tridges on the mountain; one man, brave enough to fight against such odds would be hailed as a hero anywhere else, was given the privilege of run¬ning the gauntlet up a broad street, where he sank ankle deep in the sand, while crowds of men lined the sidewalks and riddled him with a pint of bullets as he ran bleeding past their doors; another Negro shot twenty times in the back as he scrambled empty handed over a fence; thousands of women and children fleeing in terror from their humble homes in the dark¬ness of the night, out under a gray and angry sky, from which falls a cold and bone chilling rain, out to the dark and tangled ooze of the swamp amid the crawling things of night, fearing to light a fire, startled at every foot¬step, cowering, shivering, shuddering, trembling, praying in gloom and terror: half clad and barefooted mothers, with their babies wrapped only in a shawl, whimpering with cold and hunger at their icy breasts, crouched in terror from the vengeance of those who, in the name of civilization, and with the benediction of the ministers of the Prince of Peace, inaugurated the reformation of the city of Wilmington the day after the election by driving out one set of white office holders and filling their places with another set of white office holders—the one being Republican and the other Democrat.”

 

(“Writings of Charles H. Williams,” Folder in the library of the Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison.)

(http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1898-rev-charles-s-morris-describes-wilmington-massacre-1898)

 

In 2000, the North Carolina General Assembly established the Wilmington Race Riot Commission.  After they released their report in 2006, the North Carolina Democratic party officially renounced the actions of the party in 1898.

 

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_Insurrection_of_1898)

 

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