10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 C M Y K DESIGNER—x3625—STATE EDITION—FILMX The Ghosts of 1898 WILMINGTON’S RACE RIOT AND THE RISE OF WHITE SUPREMACY

Destruction of The Daily Record of Wilmington, said to be the only black-owned daily newspaper in the United States at the time, by white supremacists. COURTESY N.C. ARCHIVES AND HISTORY

CHARLES B. AYCOCK BY TIMOTHY B. TYSON 1898. And Wilmington remained the center of African-American economic Charles Brantley Aycock gradu- n Nov. 10, 1898, heavily armed columns of white men marched into the black neighbor- ated from the University of North and political power, as well as a sym- Carolina in 1880, practiced law in hoods of Wilmington. In the name of white supremacy, this well-ordered mob burned the bol of black pride. White Democrats Goldsboro and became involved in were in no mood to wait. Democratic Party politics. As offices of the local black newspaper, murdered perhaps dozens of black residents — the The day after the election, Waddell North Carolina’s governor from precise number isn’t known — and banished many successful black citizens and their so- unfurled a “White Declaration of Inde- 1901 to 1905, he championed edu- pendence” that called for the disfran- cation and white supremacy. He called “white nigger” allies. A new social order was born in the blood and the flames, rooted chisement of black voters. The following morning, Nov. 10, died in 1912 while delivering a in what The News and Observer’s publisher, Josephus Daniels, heralded as “permanent good Waddell and a heavily armed crowd of speech on education. government by the party of the White Man.” about 2,000 marched to Love and Char- ity Hall, where the Record had been JOSEPHUS DANIELS O The Wilmington race riot of 1898 stands as one of the most important chapters in North Carolina’s published. The mob battered down the After studying door of the two-story frame structure, at the University history. It is also an event of national historical significance. Occurring only two years after the dumped kerosene on the wooden of North Car- Supreme Court had sanctioned “separate but equal” segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson, the riot marked floors, and set the building ablaze. olina’s law Soon the streets filled with angry school, Josephus the embrace of virulent Jim Crow racism, not merely in Wilmington, but across the United States. blacks and whites. Red Shirts on horse- Daniels was ad- back poured into the black community mitted to the bar Despite its importance, the riot has shared their economic grievances. for white women. Newspaper stories and other white vigilantes romped in 1885, though remained a hidden chapter in our As the economic depression deep- and stump speeches warned of “black through the black sections of town to he never prac- state’s history. It was only this year that ened, these white Populists joined beasts” who threatened the flower of “kill every damn nigger in sight,” as ticed. He purchased The News and North Carolina completed its official in- forces with black Republicans, form- Southern womanhood. one of them put it. Observer in 1896, making it a vestigation of the violence. In addition ing an interracial “Fusion” coalition The Democrats did not rely solely At the end of the day, no one knew pivotal instrument of the white to providing a thorough history of the that championed local self-govern- upon newspapers, however, but de- how many people had died — esti- supremacy campaign. President event, the report of the Wilmington ment, free public education and elec- ployed a statewide campaign of stump mates ranged from nine to 300. The Woodrow Wilson named him secre- Race Riot Commission recommended toral reforms that would give black speakers, torchlight parades and phys- only certainty in the matter of casual- tary of the Navy in 1913. President payments to descendants of victims. men the same voting rights as whites. ical intimidation. Aycock earned his ties is that democracy was gravely Franklin Roosevelt appointed him And it advised media outlets, including In the 1894 and 1896 elections, the Fu- chance to become North Carolina’s wounded on the streets of Wilmington. ambassador to Mexico in 1933. The News & Observer, to tell the peo- sion movement won every statewide “education governor” through his While the violence raged, white lead- ple the truth about 1898. office, swept the legislature and elected fiery speeches for white supremacy. ers launched a coup d’etat, forcing the ALEXANDER MANLY Those truths include that what oc- its most prominent white leader, mayor, the board of aldermen, and the curred in Wilmington on that chilly Daniel Russell, to the governorship. Issue of race and sex police chief to resign at gunpoint. By Alexander Manly autumn morning was not a sponta- In Wilmington, the Fusion triumph 4 p.m. that day, Waddell was Wilm- was editor of The neous outbreak of mob violence. It lifted black and white Republicans As in the rest of the state, Wilm- ington’s mayor. Daily Record, was, instead, the climax of a care- and white Populists to power. Hor- ington Democrats founded their cam- Still, they were not done. The white believed to be the fully orchestrated statewide cam- rified white Democrats vowed to re- paign upon propaganda, violence and mob gathered at the city jail to watch only daily newspa- paign led by some of the leading fig- gain control of the government. fraud. Their efforts to persuade white soldiers with fixed bayonets march Fu- per in the country ures in North Carolina’s history to men to commit wholesale violence sionist leaders to the train station, ban- owned by an end interracial cooperation and build Race baiting fuels vote was made easier in August 1898 when ishing at least 21 successful blacks and African-American a one-party state that would assure Alexander Manly, the black owner of their white allies from the city. at the time. His the power of North Carolina’s busi- As the 1898 political season loomed, The Daily Record, answered a speech editorial attacking whites’ hypocriti- ness elite. the Populists and Republicans hoped supporting lynchings. Not all interra- Effects of 1898 linger cal attitudes toward interracial sex to make more gains through Fusion. cial sex is rape, he noted; many white was used by Democratic leaders to The black-white coalition To rebound, Democrats knew they women willingly sleep with black men. When the new legislature met in support their anti-black scare tactics. had to develop campaign issues that For Democrats, Manly’s editorial 1899, its first order of business was to At the end of the 19th century, transcended party lines. Democratic was a godsend, allowing them to sup- disfranchise blacks. In the years that fol- FURNIFOLD SIMMONS Wilmington was a symbol of black chairman Furnifold Simmons mapped port their lies about predatory blacks. lowed, the leaders of the white su- After losing statewide elections in hope. Thanks to its busy port, the out the strategy with leaders whose And no one was better at spreading premacy campaign were largely re- 1894 and 1896, the North Carolina black majority city was North Car- names would be immortalized in stat- that message of hate and violence sponsible for the birth of the Jim Crow Democratic Party turned to Furni- olina’s largest and most important ues, building names and street signs: than Wilmington’s Alfred Waddell. social order and the rise of a one-party fold Simmons. As party chairman, municipality. Blacks owned 10 of the Charles B. Aycock, Henry G. Connor, The former Confederate soldier was political system. the former congressman orches- city’s 11 eating houses and 20 of its 22 Robert B. Glenn, Claude Kitchin, a passionate speaker, who riled crowds More than a century later, it is clear trated the campaign of 1898 that barbershops. The black male liter- Locke Craig, Cameron Morrison, with his famous line: “We will never that the white supremacy campaign restored Democrats to power. In acy rate was higher than that of George Rountree, Francis D. Winston surrender to a ragged raffle of Ne- of 1898 injected a vicious racial ide- whites. and Josephus Daniels. groes, even if we have to choke the gratitude, the legislature appointed ology into American political culture Black achievement, however, was They soon decided that racist ap- Cape Fear River with carcasses.” him in 1900 to a seat in the U.S. that we have yet to transcend fully. always fragile. Wealthy whites were peals were the hammer they needed As Waddell spoke, the Red Shirts, a Senate that he held for 30 years. Our separate and unequal lives attest willing to accept some black advance- to shatter the fragile alliance between paramilitary arm of the Democratic to the fact, though much has changed ment, so long as they held the reins of poor whites and blacks. They made Party, thundered across the state on ALFRED MOORE WADDELL for the better and a few things have power. Through the Democratic Party, the “redemption” of North Carolina horseback, disrupting African-Amer- changed for the worse. Alfred Moore Waddell served four whites controlled the state and local from “Negro domination” the theme ican church services and Republican But if 1898 has saddled us with its terms in Congress (1871-1879). A governments from 1876 to 1894. How- of the 1898 campaign. Though meetings. In Wilmington, the Red legacy, it also suggests how we might gifted orator, he championed white ever, the party’s coalition of wealthy, promising to restore something tra- Shirts patrolled every street in the overcome it. Its central lesson is this: supremacy in the 1898 election and working class and rural whites began ditional, they would, in fact, create a days before the election, intimidating Human beings make history. So the was installed as Wilmington’s mayor to unravel in the late 1880s as Amer- new social order rooted in white su- and attacking black citizens. mistakes that North Carolinians made during the coup that occurred dur- ica plunged into depression. premacy and commercial domination. Through these efforts, the Demo- in 1898 can be overcome, if we ing the riot. North Carolina became a hotbed of At the center of their strategy lay crats won resounding victories across choose. agrarian revolt as hard-pressed farm- the gifts and assets of Daniels, editor the state on Nov. 8, 1898. MORE ONLINE ers soured on the Democrats because and publisher of The News and Ob- Stealing the election would not be Timothy B. Tyson is senior Read Tim Tyson’s full report at of policies that cottoned to banks and server. He would spearhead a pro- enough for the conservatives. For one research scholar at the Center for www.newsobserver.com (key word: 1898) railroads. Many white dissidents even- paganda effort that would incite white thing, Wilmington’s local Fusionist Documentary Studies at Duke tually founded the People’s Party, also citizens into a furor that led to elec- government remained in office. Many University. This is a condensed THE COMMISSION REPORT known as the Populists. Soon they toral fraud and mass murder. It used local officials — the mayor and the version of an article he wrote Read the state report at imagined what had been unimagin- sexualized images of black men and board of aldermen, for example — for The News & Observer www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/1898-wrrc. able: an alliance with blacks, who their supposedly uncontrollable lust had not been up for re-election in and The Charlotte Observer.

1A, , 2006 C M Y K 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Destruction of The Daily Record of Wilmington, said to be the only black-owned daily newspaper in the United States at the time WILMINGTON’S RACE RIOT ANDTHERISEOFWHITESUPREMACY O The Ghostsof1898 n Nov. 10, 1898, armed white men marched through the black sections of Wilmington, murdering all who dared to challenge to dared who all murdering Wilmington, of sections black the through marched men white armed 1898, 10, Nov. n ures andinstitutionsseized power,alteringthestate’shistoryandcreatingalegacy thathauntsusstill. them. As violence filled the streets, others snatched control of the government. After installing themselves in power, they ban paign that spread white supremacy across North Carolina and the South. He explains how many of the region’s leading fig- leading region’s the of many how explains He South. the and Carolina North across supremacy white spread that paign ished at least 21 successful blacks and their white allies. Although it is one of the most significant chapters in state histor is a story many have never heard. In this special report, historian Timothy B. Tyson describes the carefully orchestrated cam- FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 STORY BY TIMOTHY B. TYSON B. TIMOTHY BY STORY COURTESY N.C. OFFICE OF ARCHIVES & HISTORY & ARCHIVES OF OFFICE N.C. COURTESY ✦ SECTION H ✦ RALEIGH, N.C. RALEIGH, , by white supremacists. y, it -

1H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 C M Y K 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 THE NEWS &OBSERVER even morevirulentracism,notmerelyinWilmington,butacrosstheUnitedStates. an of embrace the signaled riot the Ferguson, v. Plessy in segregation equal” but “separate sanctioned also an event of national historical significance. Occurring just two years after the Supreme Court had heralded as“permanentgoodgovernmentbythepartyofWhiteMan.” born in the blood and the flames, rooted in what The News and Observer’s publisher, Josephus Daniels, ished many successful black citizens and their so-called “white nigger” allies. A new social order was paper, murdered perhaps dozens of black residents O HISTORY OUR SHAPED 1898 OF EVENTS Introduction lot from black citizens in 1906, they Hoke Smith, sought to take the bal- governor would-be by led Georgia, in whites When States. United the spired bloody racist crusades across marked by race. clearly courtroom, every in Bibles and dismay in the 1950s to see two shock his recalled Wilmington, in leader black a Eaton, Hubert rants. restau- and theaters of doors the at stations, over drinking fountains and ored” signs were erected at railroad people their place. “White” and “Col- show to life everyday of signs and authorities constructed the symbols ering of the Age of Jim Crow. White as oneoftheirmodels. black citizens, using North Carolina its from vote the taken had South the in state every 1910, By 1900. stripped the vote from black men in Carolina North necessary. means any by labor and lives their trol con- to determined South white a to vote to right the lost Americans corpses. It was a time when African- souvenir postcards of the smoldering ones loved their mailed and watch, to children their brought public, in men black burn to gathered erners South- white respectable of groups Ku Klux Klan. It was a period when the of members by controlled were — South and North the in — tures was a time when some state legisla- and repressive era in this country. It launched an extraordinarily violent The Wilmington massacre in- massacre Wilmington The chasm racial deepening This The Wilmington race riot of 1898 was a crucial turning point in the history of North Carolina. It was In the name of white supremacy, this well-ordered mob burned the offices of the local black news- Wilmington 1898 marked a flow- ness interestskeptstepwiththeclerks.” laborers marched together. The lawyer and his client were side by side. Men of large busi- thorough discipline and under command of officers,” one witness wrote, “capitalists and “Under success. economic and political African-American of center the and city largest men marched military-fashion into the black neighborhoods of Wilmington, then the state’s white of columns armed heavily month, this ago years 108 morning autumn chilly a n ✦ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 “white womanhood” and demand- and womanhood” “white gia, braying about the protection of ter deadlywarfare.” af- peace permanent of comes only would bring the “satisfaction which and promised that disfranchisement violence bloody use to prepared be Overman urged white Georgians to and former Gov. Charles B. Aycock. S. Overman and Furnifold Simmons Lee Sens. U.S. Glenn, Robert Gov. supremacy campaign. They included white Carolina’s North leading by power to came who men consulted Black firefighters stand on the second floor of the destroyed Love Smith campaigned across Geor- across campaigned Smith below. The buildinghoused thecity’s black-owned newspaper. and Charity HallinWilmington. Children watch onthesteps — COURTESY NEW HANOVER LIBRARY HANOVER NEW COURTESY

the precise number isn’t known events in Wilmington have remained African-American citizens. its from vote the took Georgia of actly as in North Carolina, the state ex- Soon, blacks. of dozens killed and Atlanta of streets the in raged mobs white election, 1906 Smith’s after Right carcasses.” hanging their with “black left were woods the where Wilmington,” in did vowed, “we can handle them as they chise blacks legally in Georgia, Smith disfran- not could whites If blacks. ing that the state take the ballot from Despite their importance, the importance, their Despite — and ban- The Ghostsof1898 history of Wilmington teaches us teaches Wilmington of history the present to create the future. The made by people, who bend and shape rise and fall like the tides. History is or seasons the like naturally unfold tory does not just happen. It does not for us today. It reminds us that his- olina’s past. riot abides at the core of North Car- race Wilmington the of story The old. the of footsteps the in forever walks world new The knowledged. unac- remains it when especially the past holds our future in its grip, those who favor amnesia ignore how But past? the change cannot we ask: Why dredge this up now, when by ignorance and forgetfulness, some shadowed long 1898, of ghosts the truth about1898. the tell to Observer, & News The and advised media outlets, including payments to descendants of victims recommended It States.” United history of violent race relations in the tragedy “marked a new epoch in the Riot Commission concluded that the The report of the Wilmington Race violence. the of investigation cial offi- its completed Carolina North that year this only was It history. largely a hidden chapter in our state’s teach usthanthe winners. flawed themselves, have far more to though 1898, of losers The errors. those responsible for our worst brate cele- and greatness for power take mis- we Instead, justice. simple for lives their gave who those member re- we do Nor supremacy. white of bounds the beyond future, better a sionaries who were able to imagine monument exists to the handful of vi- No Daniels. Josephus and cock Ay- B. Charles including premacy, su- white of name the in ernment men who overthrew an elected gov- the exalts lawn, statehouse the and buildings university our on marble into carved history, public correct politically Our persisted. memory North Carolina’sbusinesselite. state that would assure the power of one-party a build and cooperation interracial end to campaign trated was the climax of a carefully orches- “genocidal massacre” in Wilmington the terms scholar another What Prather calls it a “massacre and coup.” Leon H. (1984), City” a Taken suggests. “riot” word the that lence vio- mob of outbreak spontaneous it a “race riot,” though it was not the white domination in 1898 by calling torians have obscured the triumph of come its legacy. remember that past, we might over- we as long So inevitable. not was tion during much of the 20th century na- the and Carolina North shaped that conflict racial ugly the that And that story holds many lessons acknowledge finally we as Even When the violence ended, a war of Have “We study, seminal his In For more than a century, most his- WILMINGTON RACE RIOT opponents, blackandwhite. their most ableanddetermined moved opposition by banishing re- power,whites seizing After themselves incharge. from theiroffices, placing to resign leaders local other mayor, police chiefand the unfolded, white leaders forced their property. whites attacked blacks and elections onNov. 8,1898. boxes to winthestatewide propaganda andstuffed ballot threats, intimidation, anti-black the Democratic Party used the banner of white supremacy, pronged plan: violence, of butpart afour- of day single a just not were PLAN FOUR-PRONGED assault. and 200 blacks diedinamass In Tulsa in1921, between 150 bodies. of scores left D.C., ton, cities from Omahato Washing- similar riots in26 other U.S. blacks alone, dead; in1919 left15whites1919 and23 1917. The Chicago race riot of 6,000 outof theirhomes in as 200 blacks andburned Ill., white mobs killedasmany Louis, St. East In example. ton’s that drew force from Wilming- in Springfield,Ill.,anattack South. the to confined not was massacres thatWilmington led RIOTS RACE U.S. laws. Crow Jim restrictive inspiring aharsher wave of tion inpublicfacilities and challenge, validating segrega- heard, andrejected, Plessy’s Ultimately, theSupreme Court accommodations for theraces. railway separate required home state of Louisiana, which ride onlythird class inhis law. Blacks were permitted to ticket —andthereby broke the chased afirst-class railroad INSPIRED JIMCROW LAWS HOW ARAILROAD TICKET 4. Banish the opposition. the Banish 4. coup. a Stage 3. 2. Riot. 1. Steal theelection: Wilmington in events The In 1908,scores of blacks died racial urban of march The In 1892, HomerPlessy pur- TIMOTHY B. TYSON J. PEDER ZANE PEDER J. ZANE PEDER J. On Nov. 10, armed As the riot the As Under 3

3H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 C M Y K 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 C M Y K 4H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 A WILMINGTON: SYMBOL OFBLACK ACHIEVEMENT Chapter 1 ton aroundtheworld. match those of Savannah or Charleston, but it shipped tons of cot- quite not did port Its darkness. in along lumbered state the of open Atlantic, boasted electric lights and streetcars when much 4 included the horrors of lynching. of horrors the included nation and a range of violence that discrimi- harassment, exclusion, ten found themselves the victims of businessmen and professionals of- farmers, black aspiring struction, strategy. In the years after Recon- divide-and-conquer a in blacks and whites poor between imosity whites persistently encouraged an- wealthy and them, with peted voked many poor whites who com- pro- also gains economic black whites held the reins of power. But as long so advancement, black some accept to willing be might was always fragile. Wealthy whites 1849-51. from state the of governor Manly, Charles of descendant mixed-race the Manly, Alexander gressive pro- and dashing the by edited was States, United the in paper be the only black-owned daily news- to said Record, Daily The whites. of that than higher was rate eracy and industry. stands as a monument to his talents still that home stately a owned contractor, and financier chitect, ar- African-American an Sadgwar, wrights and brick masons. Frederick masons, plasterers, plumbers, wheel- stone- shoemakers, blacksmiths, makers, furniture chanics, elers and watchmakers, tailors, me- after craftsmen were also black: jew- Many of Wilmington’s most sought- oysters. and fish of shippers and dealers four only of one as Pickens directory listed black-owned Bell & real estate agents. The city’s business Miller was one of Wilmington’s three Thomas entrepreneur Black shops. barber- 22 its of 20 and houses ing Blacks owned 10 of the city’s 11 eat- majority. black its upon rested ity Black achievement, however, achievement, Black lit- male black the more, What’s prosper- middling Wilmington’s on the Cape Fear, about 30 miles upriver from the from upriver miles 30 about Fear, Cape the on Americans and 8,731 whites. The beautiful port city it had a black-majority population — 11,324 African- Carolina, North in city important most and largest The America. War post-Civil in hope black of bol t the close of the 19th century, Wilmington was a sym- The Ghostsof1898 One of thecity’s three real estate agents was black.Andblack-owned Bell & Pickens was oneof four shippers of fishandoyste Pedens Shop was one of many black-owned businesses in Wilmington. Blacks owned 20 of the city’s 22 barbershops. barbershops. 22 city’s the of 20 owned Blacks Wilmington. in businesses black-owned many of one was Shop Pedens WILMINGTON RACE RIOT FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 Front and Second streets, 1898. streets, Second and Front Market Street between OF ARCHIVES &HISTORY PHOTOS COURTESY N.C. OFFICE ✦ THE NEWS & OBSERVER rs. N c R o D 8 THE NEWS &OBSERVER hard tolimitblackvoting. the Democrats, took power across the region by 1876, and worked construction. The Conservatives, who later changed their name to Re- of end the about brought fraud electoral and terrorism white came increasingly reluctant to protect the rights of former slaves, D THE FUSIONMOVEMENT: EXPERIMENTININTERRACIAL DEMOCRACY Chapter 2 grievances but also sought secure sought also but grievances economic their shared who blacks, with alliance an unimaginable: sidents, too. nomic dissidents became racial dis- meet human needs, many of the eco- credited itself through its inability to dis- order ruling the As Populists. the as known also Party, ple’s sues and eventually founded the Peo- is- economic around rallied sidents banks and railroads. Many white dis- because of policies that cottoned to Democrats the on soured farmers hard-pressed as revolt agrarian of headed towarddepression. economy American the as 1880s late the in unravel to began power in Democrats the kept that whites rural and class working wealthy, of coalition the But 1894. to 1876 the state and local governments from ruled Democrats the Washington, from appointments federal many licans, favored by blacks, controlled tinct political parties. While Repub- dis- two with Carolina North left Riot Commission Report Source: 1898 Wilmington Race rats in1894. orth Carolinaorth General Assembly epublicans andPopulists emocrats 94 statewide election results ined forces to defeat Demo- coalition Now they imagined what had been hotbed a became Carolina North Reconstruction of collapse The FUSION VICTORY Fusion os Senate House 040 20 0 rorism swept the South. As the federal government be- ter- Klan Klux Ku violence. of level any justified and Southerners, black citizenship remained unacceptable off like mists in the midmorning sun. For many white former Confederates to white dominion did not burn espite their defeat in 1865, the feverish devotion of the 60 ✦ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 80 leader, Daniel Russell, to the gov- the to Russell, Daniel leader, white prominent most its elected and legislature the swept fice, movement won every statewide of- Fusion the elections, 1896 and 1894 the In man. white a as power voting same the man black a give would which vote,” one man, “one ulation of monopoly capitalism and reg- modest education, public free championed local self-government, that coalition “Fusion” interracial publicans. Together they formed an Re- with forces joined Populists desperate increasingly these ened, among Democrats. were they as Populists white among common as were — tion pigmenta- of basis the on worth intellectual and cultural moral, distributed had God that — ery once served as a rationale for slav- had that ideas poisonous Still, opponents. conservative their as supremacy white to devoted from whiteterrorism. safety and box ballot the to access the civil rights movement at its at movement rights civil the as vision same the represented they that imagine and Fusionists the of view romantic a take to black majority. African-Americans, despite the city’s were aldermen 10 the of four kept most offices to themselves; only Populists and Republicans white Wilmington Board of Aldermen. But the of majority a won and ership, communities to pick their own lead- reformed local government to allow power. The new Fusion legislature to Populists white and publicans Re- white and black lifted umph ernorship. We must resist the temptation the resist must We tri- Fusion the Wilmington, In As the economic depression deep- These “Pops” were not quite as to coalitionpolitics. ideals but in its practical approach future for our state, not just in its sion coalition embodied a brighter Imperfect thoughitwas,this Fu- county electoral tickets and won. North Carolinians took places on black few a quite coalition, the of part vital a represented they African-American allies. But since sionists resisted equality for their Fu- white the of all Nearly best. education and givingablackmanthesamevote asawhite man. Republicans who championed local self-government, free public free self-government, local championed who Republicans Horrified at the prospect of a of prospect the at Horrified A cartoon inThe News andObserver onOct. 26, 1898, warned voters of the interracial Fusion coalition of Populists and Populists of coalition Fusion interracial the of voters SOURCE: THENEWS ANDOBSERVER The Ghostsof1898 whites andblacks. poor between alliance fragile the shatter would that issue an was needed they What policies. their disgruntled white voters away from of focus the move would that egy strat- a finding as challenge their of thegovernment. Democrats vowed to regain control fice on equal terms, wealthy white all men eligible to vote and hold of- more democratic government, with Beginning in 1897, they saw they 1897, in Beginning WILMINGTON RACE RIOT Russell waselected. Russell and 1896, in polls the to went percent of eligibleblackvoters be revived. Anestimated 87 tion, butdead for 20 years, could democracy borninReconstruc- cious hopethattheinterracial auda- of gesture a in out voters HAND THAT LASHED YOU.” pride. “NOW NEVER LICKTHE citizens inanappeal to race black reminded alliance racial TUDE AREBROKEN,” theinter- again. “THECHAINSOFSERVI- crats enabledblacks to vote only thisdefeat of theDemo- that liberty,” for and struggle united andmadeonegrand Carolina North of Populists and Republicans the ago years “two that African-Americans reminded County” Union of Voters Colored “To the voters. sionist effort to appeal to black 1896 electionreveal theFu- white manhas.” ought to have it, every right a they and demand, only They Negroes donot want control. “Theing hisenormousgirth. plentiful,” Russell joked, mock- must have beennutritiousand the adultdevelopment themilk from judge I woman. Negro a of clared. “Isucked atthebreast rights andliberties,” hede- black advancement. for support swore his Russell had favored anothercandidate, delegates African-American ernor. Though many of the gov- for pounds, 300 nearly of broad-faced, fleshy white man ists nominated DanielRussell, a a heated struggle, theFusion- After 1896. in governor for race the marked that cooperation again witnessed theinterracial tions before Carolinians North RUSSELL LEADS FUSION Such appeals brought black brought appeals Such the from fliers Campaign “I stand for theNegroes’ It would beseveral genera- COURTESY UNC-CHAPEL HILL UNC-CHAPEL COURTESY TIMOTHY B. TYSON 5

5H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 C M Y K 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 C M Y K 6H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 the U.S. Senate thathewould holdfor 30 years. FURNIFOLD SIMMONS 1933. in Mexico to ambassador him Daniels diedinRaleigh onJan.15, 1948.appointed President 1913. Roosevelt in Navy the of Franklin secretary him named Wilson Woodrow a it making pivotal instrument of1894, thewhite supremacy campaign. Presidentin Observer and News The purchased He Party. JOSEPHUS DANIELS CHARLES B. AYCOCK 6 NEWS &OBSERVER FILEPHOTO COURTESY UNC-CHAPEL HILL UNC-CHAPEL COURTESY COURTESY UNC LIBRARY UNC COURTESY The Ghostsof1898 appointed himin1900to a seat in ing its gratitude, the legislature Show- power. to party the restore the campaign of 1898 thatwould chairman. Simmonsorchestrated Democratic Party namedhimits in 1894 and1896, Carolina’s North seat. that for then lost thenext two elections one term inCongress (1887-89), practicing inNew Bern. Heserved 1873, hestudied law andbegan in University) Duke (now College Trinity from graduating After locksville inJones County in1854. his father’s plantation near Pol- a fierce allyof theDemocratic edit newspapers, proving himself and publish to continued he stead though henever practiced. In- 1885, in bar the to admitted was he school, law Carolina’s North of Greene counties. and Nash Wilson, serving paper 18 hehadboughttheAdvance, a entered theworld of journalism;by he 16, age At office. post the for worked she where Wilson, to family the moved soon mother His 3. was eracy, was killedbefore thechild fa- ther,His ashipbuilderfor theConfed- 1862. in N.C., Washington, delivering aspeechoneducation. supremacy. while Hediedin1912 championed education andwhite governor from 1901to 1905, he Carolina’s North As politics. Party became involved inDemocratic practiced law inGoldsboro and sity of Carolina North in1880, he Univer- the from graduating After 1859, theyoungest of 10children. born inWayne County onNov. 1, Furnifold Simmons was born on born was Simmons Furnifold University the at studying After Josephus Danielswas bornin Charles Brantley Aycock was After losing statewide elections statewide losing After WILMINGTON RACE RIOT C THE STATEWIDE WHITESUPREMACY CAMPAIGN Chapter 3 happened isalessoninthepoliticsofracialviolenceandironiespublicmemory. ernment by force and by fraud, ending meaningful democracy in the state for generations. How this discomfort with black political par- political black with discomfort politics had taught them that white lines. Southern history and practical party across cut that issues paign crats’ only hope was to develop cam- Winston andJosephusDaniels. D. Francis Rountree, George rison, Kitchin, Locke Craig, Cameron Mor- Claude Glenn, B. Robert Connor, G. Henry Aycock, signs: street and ings be immortalized in statues, on build- egy with leaders whose names would mons mapped out the campaign strat- Sim- Furnifold chairman Party nism. antago- racial on chips their all place to decided unpopularity, their come over- to desperate Democrats, The Fusion. through gains more make to the Populists and Republicans hoped These men knew that the Demo- the that knew men These As the 1898 political season loomed, campaign — with Wilmington as its flash point — essentially overthrew the state gov- state the overthrew essentially — point flash its as Wilmington with — campaign his prominence by fomenting a bloody white supremacy revolution in North Carolina. This civility routinely invoke “the spirit of Aycock.” The contradictory truth is that Aycock earned governors.” Politicians in North Carolina making high-minded appeals for education and “education our of illustrious most and first traditions, progressive state’s the of symbol harles B. Aycock, governor of North Carolina from 1901 to 1905, has become the central tor and publisher of The News and News The of publisher and tor edi- Daniels, of assets and gifts the ter theirvictory. pledged to slash corporate taxes af- Democrats the away, right tions dona- for exchange In dustrialists. in- and banks railroads, with deals secret made Simmons cheap. come not would African-Americans ing commercial domination. and supremacy white in rooted der would, in fact, create a new social or- they traditional, something store campaign. Though promising to re- 1898 the of theme the domination” tion” of North Carolina from “Negro “redemp- the made they So flame. full to fan could they that ember smoldering a remained ticipation At the center of their strategy lay slander- campaign propaganda A FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 enough meeting of the Democratic ex- the campaign began with an ordinary means necessary. any by polls the from away kept be terror. Black North Carolinians had to vigilante for euphemism a employed Daniels “ride,” By important.” least could ride — the last by no means the who men and speak, could who men body to work — men who could write, Simmons “ageniusinputtingevery- olence and intimidation. Daniels called vi- of one also but rhetoric heated of toral fraudandmassmurder. elec- commit to enough angry sans parti- white made that effort ganda Observer. He spearheaded a propa- CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE NEXT ON CONTINUED Though it would end in bloodshed, It would not be merely a campaign ✦ THE NEWS & OBSERVER THE NEWS &OBSERVER sanctity of the and invaded, been have “Homes blacks. to offices local over turning for leaders Populist and Republican ment in North Carolina.” He attacked govern- honest and rule glo-Saxon whites to rise up and “reestablish An- for call a published County Bertie of Winston D. Francis end, its At ecutive committee on Nov. 20, 1897. crats clearly planned to portray to planned clearly crats truth was not the point. The Demo- the But railways. public on lease road interests had obtained a 99-year eted during the decade; and the rail- skyrock- had Carolina North in ers value; the number of employed work- ital had surged to 12 times its 1890 had increased fourfold; invested cap- agricultural depression, textile mills national the by pelted farmers of olina in the 1890s. Despite the pain commercial expansion in North Car- erty renderedlessvaluable.” prop- and paralyzed been has ness Democratic broadside claimed. “Busi- litical equation. wanted blacks removed from the po- was tantamount to domination. They elections sway could — candidates that black votes — usually for white domination.” “white as affairs of more accurate to describe the state far be would it African-American, percent 33 was population olina’s litical power. Given that North Car- ment based on the arithmetic of po- arrange- an in office-holding black of degree small a supported ulists Pop- the though blacks, to hostile crats — could fairly be described as them — the Populists and the Demo- of Two whites. by controlled were in WarrenandoneCraven.” ington; and one county commissioner in Craven; one Negro jailer in Wilm- deeds of register one Hanover; New in coroner county one and treasurer county one Raleigh, in two or one Greenville, in two Bern, New in two aldermen were elected in Wilmington, gress; ten to the state legislature; four Con- to elected was Negro one that revealed Carolina North in nation’ 1901.” She wrote: 1894- Carolina, North in Politics 1951 work, “The Negro and Fusion classic her in matter the weighed North Carolina College for Negroes, called was day her in which sity, Univer- Central N.C. from scholar the Edmonds, G. Helen politics. Carolina North “dominate” to said be hardly could African-Americans domination.” “Negro from and — Carolina from the Fusionist regime North of saviors the as themselves CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE PREVIOUS FROM CONTINUED By any rational assessment, rational any By This claim ignored the enormous But to white supremacists, the fact parties political three all Indeed, “An examination of ‘Negro domi- ‘Negro of examination “An SUPREMACY w o m a n

endangered,” the ✦ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 T PROPAGANDA, PASSION ACROSS THESTATE Chapter 4 American men as merely an effort to get close to white women. African- by assertion or achievement any cast They anhood. ing ‘nigger.’” pers “together in the same bed shout- pa- Charlotte and Raleigh the with for the ‘nigger’ to be made the issue” ture the next legislature, and that is cap- to railroads the for hope one but and chance one but is “There wrote, he before, year The paign. papers would play in the 1898 cam- news- role crucial the anticipated 1895, in Senate U.S. the to islature leg- Fusion the by elected was who the Fusiongovernment. of accounts disparaging and paign cam- supremacy white the about Carolina filing triumphant dispatches North traveled Bryant Buck” “Red white women. Star reporter H.E.C. against atrocities and corruption crime, black about stories cated stream of sensationalized and fabri- Daily Observer. It offered readers a Charlotte the paper, conservative read a headline in the state’s leading Saxon/A Great White Man’s Rally,” Anglo “The propaganda. black of many newspapers spreading anti- White” weretypical. Behind Feet Big With Train A Have Social Equality” and “Negro On “Negroes Letter,” A Get Not Did sulted the Postmistress Because He In- Negro “A Wilmington,” in trol Daniels’ stock in trade: “Negro Con- were crimes Negro supposed of Last?” This Will Long “How tion: white man pinned under it. The cap- a with foot Negro large a included Over North Carolina.” Other images caption “The Vampire That Hovers the with claws, its beneath women white and wings, its on inscribed huge vampire bat with “Negro rule” a of depiction a was masterpiece page caricatures of blacks. Jennett’s toonist Norman Jennett to pen front- Daniels engaged the services of car- Josephus votes, thousand a worth This propaganda fell on fertile soil. Butler, Marion leader Populist The News and Observer was one Sensational headlines and accounts be could picture a that Aware who threatened the pure flower of Southern wom- Southern of flower pure the threatened who speeches warned of “black beasts” and “black brutes” stump and stories Newspaper women. white for lust uncontrollable supposedly their and men black of images sexualized used They passions. rational o achieve victory in 1898, Democrats appealed to ir- ran these headlines: “A City Under Wilmington, The Washington Post Two weeks before the slaughter in strategy. Democrats’ the of part Day approached, that violence was in bigtype.” up played were they … down them winnowing out the stories or running about careful very never were “We tions,” Daniels wrote 40 years later. flagella- its in “cruel was Observer and News The irresponsible. and unfair harsh, been had newspaper Daniels later acknowledged that his campaign, the in role central his for apologized never he Although campaign could not have succeeded. and Observer, the white supremacy papers, though, especially The News news- the of cooperation the out effective were commonplace. With- The racist assumptions that made it Nor was it a secret, as Election as secret, a it was Nor The Ghostsof1898 only crowd at the Metropolitan the at crowd only cock mesmerized a standing-room- Ay- campaign, the throughout did ness of ‘Negro domination.’ ” As he Carolina out of the chaos and dark- cratic Moses, who would lead North H. Leon Prather writes, “the Demo- historian Aycock,” B. Charles was cause. conservative the for blow a many struck Morrison Cameron and Glenn B. Robert Govs. future and Former Gov. Thomas J. Jarvis intimidation. physical and rades pa- torchlight speakers, stump of but required a statewide campaign not depend solely upon newspapers, Upon Ending Negro Domination.” Determined Classes erty-Holding Prop- — War Race for Prepared from Voting in Wilmington, N.C. — Prevented Be to Blacks — Arms N&O cartoonist NormanJennett pennedcaricatures of blacks. “The king of oratory, however, oratory, of king “The did forces supremacy white The WILMINGTON RACE RIOT THE NEWS ANDOBSERVER rats’ campaign. Democ- the of focus the became it heart of the Fusionist threat. And so the represented Wilmington ers. hold- office African-American eral sev- and newspaper, daily owned black- a and majority black a with state, the in city largest the was white supremacy movement.” Here the of center storm “the was later, continue.” to is supremacy Negro whether everything is “it men, daughters and sweethearts of white wives, the of said he them,” “For fall. that state the across repeated and degradation” speech, which he “guilt famous his in explained he women, white long-suffering and the protection of white womanhood. and supremacy white for podium the pounding Raleigh, in House Wilmington, Aycock explained Aycock Wilmington, poor neglected have men White 7

7H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 C M Y K 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 C M Y K 8H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 You sow the seed — the harvest the — will come induetime.”seed the sow You while you are debauching ours. pure remain will women your that ever think Don’t ours. of morality the destroy to seek you ofthe virtue your women while crites inthat you cryaloudfor down asalotof carping hypo- ored woman. You set yourselves man to beintimate withacol- white woman, thanfor awhite black manto beintimate witha men thatitisnoworse for a Tell your lynched for rape. … tion to themandthemanis the man’s boldness bringatten- until thewoman’s infatuation or time some for on go kind this of with colored women. Meetings men thanare thewhite men destine meetings withcolored clan- of matter the in particular that race are notany more of women the that us teaches white peopleinthecountry … selves in theintelligent Negroes them- allies strongest their find would they criminals, only the were make itappear thattheNegroes because itiscrimeandnot tryto demn thecommission of crime con- would race other the of guilty. Ifthepapers andspeakers because of thefew whomay be Negroes all against aspersions of volumes forth pour editors The lynching of theallegedrapist. subsequent the and women, with reports of rapes of white scareanti-black tactics. their to support it used saries lated painful truths, hisadver- articu- editor African-American cratic leaders. Though the Demo- to heaven-sent seemed ered by aGeorgia woman deliv- speech pro-lynching a to Record Daily The in response EDITORIAL STOKED ANGER 8 “Our experience amongpoor “The papers are filledoften Alexander Manly’s editorial COURTESY UNC-CHAPEL HILL UNC-CHAPEL COURTESY The Ghostsof1898 Raleigh dubbedthelocalclubs—tomeetintheiroffices. in headquarters Party Democratic the as — Union Government and Iredell others Meares, allowed John the Dillard White Bellamy E THE WILMINGTON CAMPAIGN Chapter 5 paign and proudly celebrate the celebrate proudly and paign cam- supremacy white the assess would Observer Daily Charlotte the Later, interests. ufacturing man- and financial of triumph the represented campaign supremacy white the Carolina, North across banished orkilled. be to Fusionists white and black of trol of the streets and drew up lists con- take to militias armed nized orga- who aristocracy, Carolina’s North Eastern of scions other and men, these was It MacRae. Hugh E.S. Lathrop, Walter L. Parsley and Manning, P.B. Gilchrist, William Fennell, W.A. Johnson, L.B. Sasser, L. Hardy Taylor, Alan J. cluded in- Wilmington, in coup and lence the cabal that helped hatch the vio- admiring local white historian called the charge. “The Secret Nine,” as an neck.” “red- uneducated the — racism not led by that symbol of Southern tions. However, the campaign was posi- municipal especially blacks, by held now jobs the given be Commerce, it demanded that whites With the blessing of the Chamber of peals for the support of poor whites. ap- fervent made Wilmington in of rope.” leave the city … as there was plenty [sign] were notified that they must not did that “Those said: he plain, threat of banishment or worse was and told to sign,” Keith wrote. The mittees, and taken to headquarters com- by some homes, their from marched were people good “Many join. community the in man white tary; the clubs demanded that every volun- altogether not was Union support for the White Government that claimed Aldermen, of Board Wilmington the on served who Not only in Wilmington but Wilmington in only Not In fact, Wilmington’s elite directed campaign supremacy white The Benjamin Keith, a white Populist clubs in the port city. Lawyers William B. McCoy, B. William Lawyers city. port the in clubs of Bertie County, organized white supremacy Winston Francis and conservative, local a Rountree, George money. contributed town in businesses white-owned arrived in Wilmington to press their cause. Most of the organizers Party Democratic 1898, of fall the in arly WILMINGTON RACE RIOT terest. They worked from start to the State — taken such sincere in- of interest property the of bone back- the — general in men ness busi- the and men, mill the men, Not before in years have the bank largely responsible for the victory. “The business men of the State are bigotry: and wealth of triumph descendant of North Carolina’s North of descendant truth — the black editor was a direct its embodied he because cendiary black woman? a white man to be intimate with a mate with a white woman than for inti- be to man black a for worse women. Why, Manly asked, was it black raped or seduced tinely rou- men white that noted also and white women was coerced. He sexual contact between black men all not that out pointed Manly, der, the Record’s editor, Alexander mur- mass for call and scare rape black rapists. tect white women from if necessary,” to pro- sand times a week, to “lynch, a thou- men Southern white urged that Georgia becca Felton of Re- by speech year-old a senger reprinted barrage, the Mes- propaganda tive part of the conserva- As Messenger. ington Wilm- the in article matory of Wilmington answered an inflam- when the black-owned Daily Record 1898 August in easier made was violence wholesale commit to men cause.” large bits of money in behalf of the finish, and furthermore they spent Manly’s charge was particularly in- fabricated this to response In white persuade to campaign The ger editor who wrote that?” Till- that?” wrote who editor ger “Why didn’t you kill that damn nig- Manly. against especially ready, al- violence use to failure for them shamed and policy” “shotgun his adopt to Carolina North in forces supremacy white the urged man Carolina by force and by fraud. Till- South in power seized had militia, terrorist a Shirts, Red fellow his and he that bragged and Simmons of invitation the at 1898 of fall the Tillman came to North Carolina in demagogue, saw no reason to wait. olina, the South’s most gifted racist election.” and prevent any riot until after the try to us urged and us for victory that the article would make an easy us told time, the at here was who ington, wrote: “Senator Simmons, lor, a white Democrat from Wilm- was far more cheerful. Walker Tay- Democratic Party’s chief strategist the however, private, In hood.” woman- white pure our of virtue the assail to publicly and openly “dared had Manly that fumed Simmons Furnifold public, In Manly’s editorial was a timely gift. Manly. Charles governor, white from Wilmington. band brass a to percussion olent vi- a added cannons of boom stant women dressed in white. The con- white young beautiful 22 with float a by trailed formation, tary mili- in Shirts Red 300 by lowed fol- parade, the led Wilmington from delegation A achievements. terrorist Tillman’s to homage paying shirts, red in up showed men white of Hundreds room.” school- neighborhood very the the machine shops, the kitchen, nay, upper Cape Fear had left the plow, of people white the that evidence the streets and thoroughfares gave Sen. Ben Tillman of South Car- South of Tillman Ben Sen. strategists, Democratic For man taunted the crowd. the taunted man count, “vehicles filling all filling “vehicles count, “Send him to South to him “Send morning, in one ac- one in morning, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 Carolina and let him Oct. 20. By early By 20. Oct. publish any such any publish Fayetteville on Fayetteville offensive stuff, offensive paign, held in held paign, and he will be will he and premacy cam- premacy killed.” the white su- white the largest rally of rally largest headlined the headlined Tillman intimidate blacks. city’sto streets the patrolled Shirts Red 1898, of campaign ington’s white supremacy their white allies. DuringWilm- mit violence against blacks and donned by meneager to com- were shirts red struction, Recon- of end the spell would in theelectionsof 1876 that prominence inSouth Carolina black people. First coming to of hearts the in fear struck vigilantism, butRed also Shirts enduring symbol of racist Klux Klanhave become the RED SHIRT VIGILANTES that occurred duringtheriot. city’s mayor duringthecoup election andwas installed asthe white supremacy inthe1898 gifted orator, hechampioned active inDemocratic politics. A remained and (1881-82) years lotte Journal-Observer for two practiced law, edited theChar- gress (1871-1879). later served four terms inCon- during theCivilWar, Waddell colonel lieutenant of rank the to Rising 1853. in Carolina North of graduating from theUniversity law inWilmington after shortly Moore Waddell beganpracticing POLITICS WADDELL’S PHOTO COURTESY OFLOWER CAPE FEAR The white sheets of the Ku the of sheets white The he defeat, electoral his After Alfred Hillsborough, in Born ✦ THE NEWS & OBSERVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY J. PEDER ZANE PEDER J. ZANE PEDER J. THE NEWS &OBSERVER some called“thesilvertonguedoratoroftheeast.” throw the Russell regime by violence and demagoguery, becoming what ernor of North Carolina. Unemployed in 1898, Waddell set out to over- to Daniel Russell, the Republican who would become the Fusionist gov- After the war, he served three terms in Congress, finally losing his seat T SILVER TONGUES ANDREDSHIRTS Chapter 6 Bible in one hand and the sword the and hand one in Bible the carried has race great This foe. the exterminated or quered con- either and supremacy its asserted has it race, another with ever thisracehasbeeninconflict nent,” Guthrie claimed, “and wher- conti- this on civilization planted Anglo-Saxon “The war. race bloody a imagined Shirts, Red by passage to the sea. Guthrie, flanked its block to River Fear Cape the to throw enough black bodies into trified the crowd with his promise Durham. of mayor Guthrie, A. William and Aycock Simmons, cluding in- leaders, Democratic other and colonel long-haired the cheer to where 8,000 white Democrats came Goldsboro, in declaration thirsty carcasses.” with River Fear Cape the choke to Waddell thundered, “even if we have render to a ragged raffle of Negroes,” sur- never will “We violence. the of brunt the bear would blacks that clear made fall, that speech stump standard his of line tag the came try.” But his fiery closing, which be- devil- the all of engineer the is who state this of governor the mean I … it. for responsible chiefly be will who Negroes the of leaders white the are account to held be to ought that men first very the Carolina, North in occurs conflict race a if publicly,” Waddell proclaimed, “that this say to hesitate not do “I able. account- held be should race white the to traitors and issue sole the White supremacy, he declared, was citizens. prominent most city’s the where he shared the stage with 50 of Wilmington early in the fall of 1898, Waddell set the tone and elec- and tone the set Waddell Waddell unfurled his next blood- Waddell packed an auditorium in fought as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate cavalry. on Moorefield Plantation near Hillsborough, Waddell had Moore Waddell. A lawyer and newspaper publisher born Alfred was probably violence of advocate effective most premacy, Wilmington had plenty of homegrown talent. The su- white of boiler the fire helped Tillman Ben hough ✦ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 arm of the Democratic Party, Democratic the of arm paramilitary a Shirts, Red The to Kill.’” Time a is ‘There says, “Solomon bloodshed: for plea her in Bible the quoted Cameron particular, in Russell, Gov. eliminate to folk ing to Maxton and many other com- Red Shirts blocked every road lead- polls.” On the day of the balloting, warned Negroes not to go near the and houses, through shot raids, nightly made day election before just “and recalled, Blade Maxton the of editor the alarm,” and rest Shirt organization caused much un- Red “The counties. eastern the Wilmington; it was felt in many of tacking blackcitizens. the election, intimidating and at- street in the city in the days before ton, the Red Shirts patrolled every Wilming- In meetings. publican American church services and Re- African- disrupting horseback, on state the across thundered let and when the depletion commences for the hearts of the common man threats but “bloodletting is needed perate, she believed, that not mere The situation was sufficiently des- elections.” the in one, active an quoted shotgun to play a part, and oft the for time is “It exclaimed. she shotguns!” the and men white murderous threats. “Where are the Oct. 26 to urge him to carry out his Waddell’s cousin, wrote to him on Cameron, Rebecca violence. for Earth.” the of face the off you wipe will of progress and civilization and we march our “Resist Fusionists: the warned Guthrie other.]” the [in The terror went far beyond far went terror The empty. not were threats The Men weren’t the only ones calling it be thorough !” Urging her men- “we will kill enough of them that them of enough kill will “we declared, Kitchin W.W. gressman Con- now,” do they as state this control to Negroes the allow we “Before gunfire. with away voters munities, and drove would-be black resisted thecampaign. openly who those for quences conse- the of doubt no leaving ber, Novem- early in power its strated rapid-fire Gatling gun. They demon- staggering sum of $1,200 on a new, supremacy campaign also spent the white the of Leaders streets. the food and liquor to the white mobs in ington onhorseback. Wilm- of streets the through them and continued insubordination,” led job for “incompetency, drunkenness a former firefighter who had lost his election approached. Mike Dowling, 1898 the as Wilmington of streets toral opponents. elec- his by organized mob lynch a from hiding car, mail-baggage a template the governor huddling in con- to forced are we year, that Carolina North in process cratic derstand the condition of the demo- un- To him. lynch to tried and let terrorists swarmed his train at Ham- Shirt Red Day, Election on ington Wilm- to traveled Russell When opponents. his satisfy to enough not was this Yet County. Hanover New from ticket Republican the lence, Russell eventually withdrew vio- the quell To vote. to register” that peaceful citizens were afraid to and whipped; and night at homes from ambush and taken from their on fired been had “citizens that ton, complained before the election bury them.” to left enough be not will there Red Shirts were a paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party that disrupted black church services church black disrupted that Party Democratic the of arm paramilitary a were Shirts Red Wealthy Democrats provided free the ruled mobs Shirt Red The Russell, who was from Wilming- and Republican meetings. This photo was taken inLaurinburg inScotland County in1898. The Ghostsof1898 COURTESY N.C. OFFICE OF ARCHIVES & HISTORY & ARCHIVES OF OFFICE N.C. COURTESY Anglo-Saxons. You are armed and armed are You Anglo-Saxons. minded the armed throng: “You are night before the election, Waddell re- The men. armed of parades light torch- and barbecue free featured optimism wasunfounded. cent ortheguilty.” ding of the blood of either the inno- shed- the “without wrote, Cronly, Jane woman, white a passed,” has election the that heart ful widespread violence. relief that the city had been spared pointed Fusionists, there was some disap- the among Even advantage. 5,000-vote a earned Fusionists the when before, years two from swing huge a votes, 6,000 by replaced.” Republican ballots so they could be others were taught “how to deposit and he that explained official, tion served as a Democratic Party elec- also who leader Shirt Red the ing, Dowl- boxes. ballot stuffed theless never- Democrats the ticket, lican the withdrawal of the local Repub- and atmosphere violent the given sufficed, have might timidation from the ballot box. Though the in- away many kept certainly Union Government White the by block every on posted men white armed the But vote. to attempted izens evading bloodshed. Other black cit- ington avoided the polls in hope of Wilm- in African-Americans many have todoitwithguns.” tracks. We shall win tomorrow if we fuses, kill him, shoot him down in his re- he if and polls, the leave to him If you find the Negro out voting, tell prepared, and you will do your duty. A “White Man’s Rally” on Nov. 2 But even her small and measured “I awoke that morning with thank- Wilmington in won Democrats The following day, Nov. 8, 1898, WILMINGTON RACE RIOT lynch mob. mail-baggage car to avoid a and persuaded Russell to hide. nor of vigilantes upthetrack, gover- the warned Morrison son. future governor, Cameron Morri- including onegangledby a — Shirts Red by twice stopped was train His quiet. so not was Nov. 8.Hisreturn tripto Raleigh hometown of Wilmington on his in incident without voted Russell Daniel Gov. Republican GOVERNOR ELUDES MOB votes. 607 of total a produced voters registered 343 with precinct A votes. 456 precinct, buttheparty earned crats were registered inthe their own totals. Thirty Demo- black vote, they also inflated crats not votes.97 only the precinct, theparty tallied in registered were Republicans the blackvote. Although337 cratsdramatic Ward. First the of sections fraud occurred inheavily black egregious cases of election crats inWilmington. The most Day tools of choice of Demo- Election werethe ballot-stuffing 1898 IN FRAUD VOTING The governor huddled in a in huddled governor The Despite aflurryof threats, In theFifthPrecinct, Demo- In theFourth Precinct, Demo- Intimidation, violence and TIMOTHY B. TYSON only suppr J. PEDER ZANE PEDER J. ally suppr essed essed the 9

9H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 C M Y K 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 C M Y K 10H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 nocent menkilledhereifthingscontinueastheyarenow.” T VIOLENCE INTHESTREETS Chapter 7 10 dell to head a Committee of Twenty- city.” The committee selected Wad- the from banished editor “its and newspaper to “cease to be published” in addition to the demand for Manly’s of police, and the board of aldermen, chief the mayor, the of resignations the for calls adding declaration, the feet. its to rose and roared crowd The participation. political black permit County Hanover New of men white would said, declaration the again, Never race.” inferior an to subjection a descendants their for contemplate not “did Union the of framers The aloud. read Waddell origin,” African of tion popula- ignorant an of chisement enfran- the anticipate not “did Secret Nine. The U.S. Constitution the by up drawn Independence,” of Declaration “White a unfurled Waddell podium. the to Waddell Mayor S.H. Fishblate calling Alfred town.” of out Negroes prominent some and mayor the run to steps take to meeting big a holding sent Raleigh that “businessmen are at pre- in friend a to wrote man white mechanics.” and divines, doctors, lawyers, merchants, men, business- of assemblage resentative the courthouse as a “respectable rep- mony later described the meeting at testi- Court proclaimed. Messenger Men,” the headline in the Wilmington White “Attention meeting. public a called Nine, Secret the of one and industrialist Technology-trained of Institute Massachusetts a MacRae, Democrats were in no mood to wait. well as a symbol of black pride. White ican economic and political power, as remained the center of African-Amer- Wilmington And 1898. in election re- for up been not had — example mayor and the board of aldermen, for fice, since many local officials — the of- in remained government sionist Fu- local Wilmington’s thing, one For conservatives. the for enough An appointed committee revised committee appointed An former with began meeting The Hugh election, the after day The Stealing the election would not be Marion Butler in late October. “I look for a lot of in- of lot a for look “I October. late in Butler Marion Sen. to wrote alderman, Fusionist a Keith, Benjamin Democrats seem to have adopted to carry this section,” imagine anything to equal or compare to the policy the or think cannot “You unavoidable. seemed violence he white supremacy campaign was so inflammatory that The Ghostsof1898 One local One commemorate the moment. to building blackened the of front for a photograph with their guns in destroyed, some of the whites posed set the building ablaze. After it was and floors wooden the on kerosene dumped structure, frame story two- the of door the down battered published. Led by Waddell, the mob streets, where the Record had been enth Street between Nun and Church the black community center on Sev- Hall, Charity and Love to marched men of crowd swelling a Street, Market up Passing breeze. light the in flowing hair white his umn, rifle, and assumed the head of the col- cession, shouldered his Winchester Twenty-Five at the head of the pro- mory. He lined up the Committee of at the city’s stately white marble ar- Waddell met a heavily armed crowd had alreadyceasedpublication. already fled the city and the Record stolen the election, editor Manly had already had Democrats the since 12-hour deadline, an empty gesture, a them gave Waddell limited. were options their as pose, compliant a The African-American leaders struck city. the leave editor its and cation manded that the Record stop publi- de- He Negroes.” to given fore large part of the employment hereto- a men white to “give city the that and ballot,” his by especially way, every in interests our tagonizing “an- stop Negro” “the that sistence explained the white conservatives’ in- claration of Independence. He firmly waver; there was murder in the air.” not did supremacy white of voice the that too, clear, was It power. fire- and number both in superior Prather writes, “backed by weapons nancial powers of the city,” H. Leon saw arrayed against them the real fi- men black the “There courthouse. prominent “colored citizens” to the provisions oftheresolutions.” the of execution the “direct to Five The following morning at 8:15, at morning following The Waddell read them the White De- 32 summoned committee The But soon the streets filled with an- WILMINGTON RACE RIOT community. Sporadic gunfire quickly on horseback poured into the black Shirts Red whites. and blacks gry trap,” oneobserver wrote. a from thrown pigeon a like lets, bul- of pint a with riddled was “He about 40 shots ripped him to pieces. until so or yards 15 for ran Wright run!” nigger, “Run, chanting loose, him turned mob The prevailed. let who wanted Wright to run the gant- men white the But yelled. mob the him up to a lamp post!” a member of “String pipe. a with down Wright knocked Someone amusement. into mutated murder and ered gath- had crowd large a house, his had managed to haul Wright out of they time the By mob. the on fired cian, whom some accused of having politi- black well-known a Wright, mob surrounded the home of Daniel targeted particular blacks. A howling into homesandbusinesses. citizens through the streets and fired as white men randomly chased black ward a swirling cacophony of gunfire, initial orderly barrages quickly fell to- feet in front of the news-hawks.” The man’s head and he fell dead about [black] 20 a of top the off tore volley “a that wrote and reporters, paper news- of group a with nearby ing stand- was Messenger, Wilmington you toshootkill.” want I shoot, to command the give I when “and them, told reportedly soldiers, foot of group one manded com- who James, T.C. load,” to all you want I now right you tell to Harnett streets. “Now, boys, I want and Fourth of intersection the at turned to disciplined military action Sometimes the white marauders white the Sometimes the of editor Clawson, Thomas ington on Nov. 10, 1898. Wilm- of streets the on wounded gravely was Carolina North ter of casualties is that democracy in count. The only certainty in the mat- body the determine to impossible coup, it will probably always remain and massacre the of wake the in about 1,400 blacks fled Wilmington Since 300. exceeded have would count body honest an that believe Wilmington in African-Americans some generation, grandparents’ black folks. boasted that they’d killed “over 100” ported that some of his white sources re- campaign, supremacy white the torian Harry Hayden, an admirer of put the number at lor 90. Local his- Rountree, MacRae and J. Alan Tay- casualties. black 20 about mated esti- memoirs, his in writing dell, per, put the death toll at nine. Wad- York Times, then a conservative pa- how many people had died. The New black neighborhoods. to peace than fear more brought mand of Capt. William Rand Kenan rapid-fire Gatling gun under the com- horse-drawn the However, order. restore to Infantry Light ington fice in Raleigh, called out the Wilm- tified of the violence and, from his of- swer, since “they had done nothing.” an- to unable himself found paign, cam- the of architect an Rountree, George And cried. man black one have we done, what have we done?” “What it. put them of one as sight,” in nigger damn every “kill to town romped through the black sections of Echoing the oral traditions of their At the end of the day, no one knew no- was Russell Gov. Eventually, vigilantes other and Shirts Red FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 to disperse. to aimed atcrowds underorders and Wilmington of sections black through wheeled were daythe of riot,the guns both 80 to 100shots perminute. On gunthatcould fire Hotchkiss the Naval Reserves acquired a 1. Nov. exhibition an in leaders black to strated press andits power demon- the in trumpeted was weapon The minute. per rounds 420 chased aguncapable of firing local business interests pur- squad. through theirmachinegun before andduringtheriot deadlytheir intentions both premacy movement signaled INTIMIDATING FIREPOWER OF ARCHIVES &HISTORY OFFICE N.C. COURTESY with rapid-fire gun, 1898. Infantry Light Wilmington Justtwo days before riot,the election, the before Weeks su- white the of Leaders ✦ THE NEWS & OBSERVER J. PEDER ZANE PEDER J. THE NEWS &OBSERVER in NorthCarolinanowranthecityofWilmington. paramilitary force that wealthy conservatives had built to seize power ing the mobs in the streets, was Col. Alfred M. Waddell. In short, the with its hand-picked white appointees. The new mayor, fresh from lead- W COUP AND BANISHMENT Chapter 8 my memory with the air: ‘When de ‘When air: the with memory my ful song, the words of which fell into hoarse voice crooning softly a mourn- a and crying child a heard “I served, ob- Bourke pines,” the of blackness the “In them. find would mobs the that fear for fires light to reluctant whimpered in the cold, their parents Children clothes.” sufficient [or] fearful of death, without money, food, whites, of vengeance the of fearful about, wander children and women men, terrified of hundreds nocent in- woods, and swamps the in “Yet scene. the from wrote Weekly lier’s Col- of Bourke Francis Charles sky,” leaden a from sadly falls rain zling driz- “Bone-chilling woods. vember No- wet the in ground the on slept and blankets, or coats with bother to quickly too escaped had Many forested thickets around Wilmington. the in huddled mobs white the fled had who African-Americans of Wilmington Light Infantry and Naval Reserves members escort captured blacks. Fusionist leaders were marched to the train statio train the to marched were leaders Fusionist blacks. captured escort members Reserves Naval and Infantry Light Wilmington For days after the coup, hundreds coup, the after days For elected Fusionist city officials, both black and white, replaced had committee the day, that p.m. 4 By of aldermen, and the police chief to resign at gunpoint. corridors ofCityHall,forcingthemayor,board mittee of Twenty-Five launched a coup d’etat in the Com- the ground, killing a became streets the hile ✦ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 Cape Fear. Everyone seemed to un- this new Jerusalem along the Lower new Je-ru-sulum.’” battle over we kin wear a crown in the Wilmington Morning Star wrote of the as had, who politicians white prosperity offended local whites; and whose businessmen black paign; cam- supremacy white the posed op- openly who or people their for citizenship on insisted who leaders African-American rough categories: zens slated for banishment fit three citi- local Those station. train the bayonets march Fusionist leaders to city jail to watch soldiers with fixed ished fromWilmington.” ban- be must who black, and white list of prominent Republicans, both a with him furnished Nine Secret mayor,” H. Leon Prather writes, “the “Immediately after Waddell became derstand that a purge was in order. The white mob gathered at the at gathered mob white The But the work was not complete in COURTESY N.C. OFFICE OF ARCHIVES & HISTORY & ARCHIVES OF OFFICE N.C. COURTESY successful fish and oyster business. a operated who Pickens, B. Robert and Bell J. Salem included bayonet to the train station at the point of a of “whitenigger.” train to Washington, D.C., amid cries a on Fusionists white other two and as a sheet.” The mob dispatched him feet, [and Melton] turned just as white his at it threw and it in noose a with the boys went upstairs and took a rope get” how Melton looked when “one of crat recalled that he would “never for- Demo- white local One intervened. lynched him but for some soldiers who have would that mob a by ported, accosted, The News and Observer re- staunch white Populist, found himself peril ofhislife.” upon again return never and olina tion and told him to “leave North Car- mob dragged French to the train sta- law enforcement officer’s life, but the white the saved Twenty-Five, of tee Commit- the of member a Stedman, Frank Street. Front North on pole light a from up him string to started and neck his around noose a placed rowly escaped lynching. A raging mob nar- sheriff, deputy a and stalwart Fusionist white another French, Z. names on the banishment list. George as Bunting and stood among the first fit the same “white niggers” category deposed, had Waddell whom mayor Negro element.” litical record of cooperating with the Commissioner R.H. Bunting, a “po- States United soon-to-be-exiled the The black men who were hustled a Melton, John Police of Chief Silas Wright, the white Republican The Ghostsof1898 the presentcity government.” idation used in the establishment of intim- no was “there that explained ter the riot, Wilmington’s new mayor for Collier’s Magazine two weeks af- be tolerated.” In an article he wrote turbulence or disorderly conduct will cent events afforded” that “no further portunity of carrying arms which re- “who seem disposed to abuse the op- even though Waddell notified whites white terror in the streets persisted, The districts. black in even zens,” composed “exclusively of white citi- be would henceforth mittees cers. They declared that school com- offi- police and firefighters with ing start- employees, city Fusionist and public order. They fired all the black ministration declared its devotion to ad- new the opponents, principal ary governments, having silenced its kept alittlequieter.” and when we told him to shut up, he click’ ‘click went gun McKoy’s Ed quiet and he talked and talked until Negro that we could not make keep took Miller recalled that he was “one One member of the detachment that alike. whites and blacks with gages mort- entering and money loaning force in Wilmington, dealing in land, financial a become had yet and ery C. Miller, who had been born in slav- perous exile may have been Thomas Bryant’s banishment. The most pros- explaining of way by mocked, Star Morning Wilmington the groes as a high and mighty leader,” Ne- the by upon “looked was shop, butcher a owned who Bryant, Ari Like most triumphant revolution- WILMINGTON RACE RIOT n. banished from this community.“ this from banished its editor [Alexander Manly] be that and published be to cease “Record” the as known paper license in the future, thatthe city, asaprotection against such ple of thiscommunity andof this peo- the to it owe therefore We offense. this for adequate courts, punishment, provided by the lynching andyet there isno editor. deprecate We the of ties have resulted inthelynching that itwould inmost communi- soarticle vileandslanderous an published city this of paper negro the when reached was interests andourrights. Aclimax peace, blindedbothto ourbest in ourdesire for harmony and what we know to beourrights. now andimmediately to enforce munity. But are equallyprepared progressive of portion thecom- interestthe of intelligentthe and involvenot do which sacrifices of and consideration inallmatters treat thenegroes withjustice heretofore given to negroes … a large of part theemployment the future to give to white men … community. identical withthose of the interests are andshouldbe is incapable of realizing thathis he that ballot, his by especially our interest inevery way, and demonstrated by antagonizing question. the of out be to ness to stagnate andprogress busi- causing thus community, gent andthrifty elementinthe they can dominate theintelli- that by means of theirvotes affiliating withthenegroes so unscrupulous white menin of action the tolerate ruled by negroes. be to proportion, like in taxes 90% of theproperty andpaying owning community the of zens citi- intelligent the for passed declaration: and rhetoric inthecity thatfall. gap thatexisted between reality pointsmain suggest wide the election, thedeclaration’s seven the after and before whites by and economy were controlled Given thatWilmington’s politics Nov. 9. on Independence” of unveiled the“White Declaration Waddell Alfred election, stolen OF INDEPENDENCE’ ‘WHITE DECLARATION “Seventh “Sixth “ “Third “Second “First Here are excerpts from the Flush withvictory inthe Fifth That the time has time the That That we propose in propose we That We are prepared to prepared are We That the negro has negro the That That we will not will we That That we have been, have we That 11

11H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 C M Y K 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 C M Y K 12H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 D THE AFTERMATH Chapter 9 demonstration oftheresourcesformaintenanceorder.” formidable “a parade the called Star Morning The charge. in firmly 12 McKinley said nothing. The lack The nothing. said McKinley William President Republican Carolinians, North black for help visitors and telegrams begging for by besieged Though it. supported who those of celebrations the as opposed the massacre said as much praise.” the be God “To Hoge. crowed city,” a taken have we walls, these in met we last “Since pretation. cities, but Hoge had his own inter- control, as opposed to the taking of Proverbs plainly was endorsing self- of author The city.” a taketh that he than better is spirit his ruleth that “He Proverbs: from passage First Presbyterian Church parsed a at Hoge H. Payton Rev. the der, to educate.” primary purpose was not to kill but The eggs. few a breaking without omelet an make cannot “you that originality, much without served, killings as “a mere incident” and ob- the dismissed He angels.” robed enly hosts over Satan and his “black heav- his and Lord the of triumph the to supremacy white of victory the compare Blackwell S. Calvin Church, congregants heard the Rev. ing God’s service.” At First Baptist “do- been had streets the in mobs the that declared Kramer J.W. Rev. The slaughter. the of tions celebra- heard and churches their Christians of Wilmington filed into and highlighteditsleaders. peted the white supremacy campaign Glorious Victory, 1898,” that trum- sembled a booklet, “North Carolina’s phere. The victorious Democrats as- atmos- carnival a creating smoke, filled the air with plumes of colored of burning tar along the parade route barrels 500 and throngs, cheering the illuminated torches 2,000 than party in Raleigh after nightfall. More Democratic Party flung a huge street The public silence of those who those of silence public The mur- mass of defense own his In white the 13, Nov. Sunday, On statewide the later, days Three white supremacy but an assurance that the new regime was of celebration a merely not was It Reserves. Naval the of ton, displaying two rapid-fire guns and the Hotchkiss gun Wilming- throughout marched companies five of parade military a 11, Nov. On order. in seemed celebrations tial espite Mayor Waddell’s assertion of “no intimidation,” mar- The Ghostsof1898 stitutional amendment that cre- that amendment stitutional white rule. elite threaten again never would News and Observer editorial put it, a as slaves,” quondam and scum “low-born of alliance an that tain and many poor whites, making cer- blacks disfranchise to was 1899 in business of order first The forever. away fromblackNorthCarolinians ror in 1898 moved to take the ballot hands that welcomed Red Shirt ter- whom. no longer quibble about who killed would nation the and whim own their at ruled Southerners white mistakable signal that conservative un- the sent response federal of A militiaunit in Wilmington. Immediately after theelectionof 1898, military mightshowed thatthenew regime was firmlyinc The Democrats introduced a con- bloody the year, following The WILMINGTON RACE RIOT This Democratic Party booklet trumpeted the white supremacy white the trumpeted booklet Party Democratic This campaign and highlighted its leaders. leaders. its highlighted and campaign COURTESY N.C. OFFICE OF ARCHIVES & HISTORY & ARCHIVES OF OFFICE N.C. COURTESY HISTORY & ARCHIVES OF OFFICE N.C. COURTESY FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 and whites. blacks of generations of pirations as- the strangled that South the in rise of a one-party political system the and rights voting black of end the order, social Crow Jim the of birth the witnessed aftermath Its it reverberated far beyond the state. against interracial democracy, and counter-revolution a than less of the United States. It was nothing history the in moment pivotal a is in the history of North Carolina and events important most the among stands 1898 of riot race ington to mostofustoday,buttheWilm- is candidlyrecognized.” self-preservation of law supreme the under it of necessity The days. Reconstruction in nounced de- be to used it as South the in vote Negro the of suppression the denounce longer no men ern “North- stated: Times York New The campaign, franchisement dis- the about editorial 1900 a democratic horizons narrowed. In 50 percentwouldvote. than less 1904, By ballot. a cast had electorate Carolina’s North of percent 85.4 1896, In whites. many and blacks all nearly from rights voting removed eventually amendment suffrage the so, Even literacy. his prove not need — to vote before 1867 — a white man eligible man a of descendant eal illiterate whites for a time; any lin- The “grandfather clause” protected placed a poll tax on aspiring voters. and voting for tests literacy ated Its “necessity” seems less evident It was not only in the South that ✦ THE NEWS & OBSERVER harge. THE T THE IMPACT OF1898 Chapter 10 the wetnessof water. consider might fish than it ponder more no could people white most that deeply so life daily permeated supremacy White subtle. and stark both was South Crow Jim the in Americans. The power of white skin ter whose antics demeaned African- charac- show minstrel stock a after Crow,” “Jim as to referred quently the doorondemocracyandinstalledaneworder. tice multiracial politics. But the white supremacy campaign slammed whites had attempted, in their halting and imperfect way, to prac- and blacks Carolina, North Fusion-era In exclusion. of smacked that segregation any resisted steadfastly they though aspiration, The new social order was fre- was order social new The

NEWS

& A scene of thesegregated South, taken in1938 attheHalifax County Courthouse innortheastern Carolina. North

O ers chose to build their own worlds of community and Southern- black freed Newly 1840s. the in North the in passed laws on efforts their modeling often life, lic War, Southern whites had attempted to segregate pub- the South but instead cemented it. Right after the Civil he Wilmington race riot did not invent segregation in B SERVER ✦ F RIDA Y , poo. A white man might share his share might man white A poo. face, cut his hair or give him a sham- anyone but a black man to shave his permit to refuse might man black a with hands shake never would who man white A custom.” of cake “the called Bois Du W.E.B. what in inscribed inviolable, nearly and of 1898 was at once bizarre, arbitrary from the white supremacist violence NOVE The racial etiquette that emerged MB ER

1 PHOTO 7 , 2006 BY J OHN

VACHON /F AR M Carolinians in the Age of Jim Crow. God were well-known to white North “Miss.” or “Mrs.” as them address ever hear a white person of any age they should circumstances no der old enough to be called “auntie.” Un- women were “girls” until they were Black lips. white from “sir” or ter” man must never hear the words “mis- black a But affection. and mockery of mixture a contained titles the cle or a real college professor. Thus long as he was not actually your un- black man “Uncle” or “Professor,” so made it permissible to call a favored chines thatwhitepeopleused. laundered in the same washing ma- were compelled to wear could not be they uniforms white starched the the bodies of the aged and infirm, but washed maids Black people. white to sale for unfit rendered be it lest store, department a in hat a on try mouths, but black heads must never white for dough biscuit out pat white babies, and black hands could suckle could breasts Black woman. bed, but never his table, with a black SEC The eternal racial views of almighty The folkways of white supremacy U RIT Y AD M INISTRATION The Ghostsof1898 fought forwhite supremacy.” everywhere and all the time we have “but 1912, in died he before porters that policy,” Charles Aycock told sup- have fought for this issue and against “We it. about crowed they paign, olina. In the years following the cam- supremacy would reign in North Car- government and ensured that white men who had overthrown the Fusion fixed asthestars.” as laws eternal God’s of violation students in 1927, would represent “a auditorium filled with black college an told schools of tendent premacy, North Carolina’s superin- su- white to challenge Any dained. not only natural but even divinely or- seem it made defenders its force, by maintained and imposed der premacy. Though it was a social or- and drawers of white people’s water. to be hewers of white people’s wood Ham,” whose appointed purpose was of “sons the above them placed had himself Lord the God; of will the was supremacy white that lieve be- to came Christians white Most This was the world shaped by the by shaped world the was This su- white of genius the was This WILMINGTON RACE RIOT Wilmington city school disbursements majority city. Wilmington becomes awhite- Riot Commission Report Source: 1898 Wilmington Race suggest them: but these statistics beginto supremacy campaign onblacks, the effects of thewhite It isimpossible to fullymeasure suffers. African-American education one-party state. CarolinaNorth becomes a Wilmington populationby race 2,000 20,000 1,000 1,500 10,000 Percent of votes for president Percent of votes for governor 15,000 5,000 WHITE SUPREMACY 500 Republican . 0.1 1.4 THE EFFECTS OF 0 White White 0 57.8 60.2 8018 901910 1900 1880 1860 o.19 o.19 Jan.1903 Nov. 1899 Nov. 1898 861900 1896 MEASURING 40.8 39.8 Black Black Democrat 2.6 The News &Observer 97.4 99.9 Othe 13 r

13H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 C M Y K 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 C M Y K 14H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 F THE MEMORY OF1898 Chapter 11 14 to escape the conclusion that if the if that conclusion the escape to the streets of this city.” It was hard five years ago, blood flowed freely in “Forty- chase: the to cut he Then would result only in a mongrel race.” conclusion logical their to carried if which philosophies and theories he claimed were seeking “to advance condemned “radical agitators” who preying on white women, Broughton blacks against 1898 of tirades tory inflamma- the evoking language In promised toclotwithblackbodies. Fear River that Alfred Waddell had mounted a podium beside the Cape themselves.” behave to have will people colored them as long as you are governor the “tell to Broughton Melville J. Gov. Mayor Bruce Cameron pleaded with seating. black limited that policies segregation protest to Wilmington buses at Grace and Second streets in overturned Wilmington, of north miles 30 Davis, Camp at stationed black men in uniform. Black soldiers among especially blossomed, tion discrimina- racial against protests ory, afterthefact.” “murder does its best work in mem- writes, Gilmore Glenda historian “Sometimes,” happen. could what made it necessary to remind them of justice for African-Americans from demands mounting when 1898 of Whites would often raise the specter 1943. and 1900 between Carolina North in lynched were blacks 60 Crow world it had made. More than Jim the in everywhere, day, every seen be course, of could, It gotten. Wilmington was not completely for- cation governor. edu- the as known became Aycock B. Charles Eventually, memories. history, from our textbooks and our state’s our from cleansed gradually was episode central The murky. stuffed ballot boxes — soon became banishments, murders, — entailed the memory of what that victory had tightened its grip on North Carolina, On July 11, 1943, Broughton 1943, 11, July On black II, War World During of violence raw the However, And yet, even as white supremacy in the“partyofwhitesupremacy.” Democrat Shirt Red a as laurels his on campaigned Morrison Cameron 1920, as late As ranks. its from least five of the state’s next six governors were drawn paign became the irreplaceable political credential; at or decades afterward, participation in the 1898 cam- The Ghostsof1898 1902, because white people just people white because 1902, to 1895 from period the than long very before Carolina North in exist wrote, “a worse condition is going to on insisting for more privileges,” he African-Americans continue to “keep If stance. harder a took Observer, and News The publish to Raleigh said later. blacks] just to keep them in line,’’ [for he justice little a get to had we tain white domination. “We thought small concessions in order to main- favored Jonathan rights,” their on at “the rising insistence of Negroes Roosevelt on race relations. Alarmed as an assistant to President Franklin worked Jonathan Carolina. North ten conferred about race relations in sons, Jonathan and Frank Daniels, of- rested. the violence upon which their world understood still who elite, olina’s Car- North of much of view the taining law and order. He reflected main- on intent politician dering happen again. “radical agitators” persisted, it could speech invoking the1898 riots. by black soldiers in Wilmington in soldiers black by After a violent demonstration violent a After Frank Daniels, who stayed in stayed who Daniels, Frank During the war, Josephus Daniels’ Broughton was not simply a pan- during World War II,Gov. J. Melville Broughton made a NEWS & OBSERVER FILEPHOTO WILMINGTON RACE RIOT but rarelywon publicapplause. persisted terrorism white 1960s, the During indicted. were men Klans- 60 1950s, early the in olina and shootings in Eastern North Car- whippings kidnappings, of dozens committed Klan the When failed. he though mob, the of members prosecute to attempted Cherry Gregg R. Gov. 1947, in mob lynch a of clutches the escaped ulously mirac- N.C., Jackson, in man black ued to happen occasionally. When a contin- it though option, political pose whiteterrorafterthewar. and Observer, began to actively op- News The including newspapers, national Democratic Party and many the government, federal the racy, democ- of beacon a as image ica’s Amer- to committed Newly occur. not did predicted some bloodbath the state, the across protests black in theHitlerstyle.” and write are going to be eliminated that all of [the blacks] that can read “mean would activism rights civil the end, Daniels warned, continued In picture.” national the from them eliminate and arms in rise to going are people “white insisted, Daniels “equality,” for press to continued aren’t going to stand for it.” If blacks A Rights of White People meeting atHughMacRae Park inWilmington, 1971.‘What we needinthis Lynching was no longer a viable a longer no was Lynching Despite several riots and persistent town are some dead agitators. They should be shot and left in the streets …,’ a white man said. PHOTO BY ANDY HOWELL/WILMINGTON STAR-NEWS whispering, and that is what is that and whispering, their in persisted river the along tones about 1898.” But the ghosts hush-hush in talked “… viewer, enced teachers,” she told an inter- experi- old “Those century. the of turn the at happened had what about her warned schoolteachers her recalled, woman black one raged with violence in early 1971, got mygun.” three days and then bury them. I’ve left in the streets as a reminder for agitators. They should be shot and dead some are town this in need we “What Star: Morning ington Hugh MacRae Park told the Wilm- in rally People White of Rights a at man white a Wilmington, through tore integration school happen again.” intimidate — to warn that it could the violence of 1898 “as an effort to to alluded who attorney, board’s the by rebuffed was he which in meeting board school 1951 a calls in Wilmington for many years, re- integration for pressed who cian Eaton, an African-American physi- Hubert Wilmington. haunted violence of memory the gle, of the modern black freedom strug- When Wilmington’s streets Wilmington’s When In 1971, when the upheavals over And yet from the very first hints FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 choose. we if mended be can 1898 in made The mistakes that North Carolinians history. make beings Human this: is lesson central Its it. overcome legacy, it also suggests how we might its persistence. separate and unequal lives attest to Our culture. political American of heart the into ideology racial cious 1890s and early 1900s injected a vi- the of campaigns supremacy white the that see can we later, century a the living. America’s racial past and its hold on of meaning the contemplate to us that transpired in Wilmington force events tragic the 1898, and olina true today. Far beyond North Car- the city. And this is only a little less of the racial massacre still haunted Americans realized that the legacy African- Wilmington’s Fear. Cape bodies drifting in the current of the of memories back brought 1971 in Wilmington in movement dom conflict that marked the black free- ” full ofblackbodies.’ was river that say ‘They Tyson, C. Vernon Rev. the father, my told woman African-American an echoed in our church in 1971 when If 1898 has saddled us with its with us saddled has 1898 If From our vantage point more than furious the that wonder no is It ✦ THE NEWS & OBSERVER THE NEWS & OBSERVER ✦ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 The Ghosts of 1898 WILMINGTON RACE RIOT 15 K Y

Epilogue M

BUILDING FROM THE PAST C 15H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 17, NOVEMBER 15H, FRIDAY,

Modern Wilmington has risen on the banks of the Cape Fear River. PAUL STEPHEN/WILMINGTON STAR-NEWS

s a historian, I find it easier to friends and I were playing baseball in Hugh people had none. “The niggers keep talking terracial politics and create strong public in- MacRae Park. As day dimmed toward dusk, about how Waddell said in 1898 they were stitutions — offer examples that we can learn understand what happened in we huddled in a dugout to smoke cigarettes gonna fill up the river with carcasses,” he said. from. We have made great strides since 1898, the past than to draw easy and discuss the mysteries that seventh-graders “I don’t know if they did or not. But if this in- but the effort to separate people into “us” and ponder. As we chattered away in the dark, tegration and rioting business doesn’t stop, “them” continues. lessons for the future. We can- we began to hear engines racing and car doors we’re going to clog that river with dead nig- A new Fusion movement, one rooted in slamming. At first, we assumed that it was only gers this time, and I mean it.” hope and generosity, and encompassing not not go back and change the the stirrings of a Little League game. But What I saw that day was hatred. What I only blacks and whites but new immigrants to history and yet, as William when we peered out of the dugout, hundreds have seen too often since then is the neglect the state, could still redeem the best dreams of white men and a few women had gathered of public schools and civic responsibilities. that have made us. We look to Wilmington in 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Faulkner observed, “The past is never on the baseball diamond, many brandishing ri- What I learned in the years that followed was 1898, then, not to wring our hands in a fruit- A fles and shotguns and others waving U.S. and that the venom and the apathy were an in- less nostalgia of pain, but to redeem a demo- dead. It’s not even past.” Confederate flags. Several held a banner that heritance, passed down through the genera- cratic promise. And so we hold fast to what proclaimed the name of their organization: tions from days of slavery and the riot of 1898. Charles Chesnutt, an African-American from What I do know is that in order to change The Rights of White People. It was only much later that I learned that this North Carolina and one of our great writers, the past, we must understand and confront it. Their leader, Sgt. Leroy Gibson, walked up sad epic in our state’s and nation’s history called “the shining thread of hope,” which per- I first heard about the Wilmington race riot of to the makeshift microphone and began bel- harbors stories of hope. In their imperfect mitted him, over a century ago, to close his 1898 in 1971, soon after I entered Roland- lowing about how the “niggers” and “nigger way, the losers of 1898 — the leaders of the own story of the Wilmington catastrophe: Grise Junior High School in Wilmington. Some lovers” had all the rights and white working Fusion movement who tried to practice in- “There’s time enough, but none to spare.” 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 C M Y K 16H, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 the incompetent negro andwhite officers of thecity were forced to and whites returned thefire, killingseveral. “After theriotwas over lawlessness prevailed.” The account says thatblacks fired onwhites, gro rule. …The government of thecity was badly carried on,and instructs thattheFusion legislature “putthecity largely underne- the State returned to inpart Democratic control.” and Legislature the in majority a elected Democrats the term, sell’s governor, andthennotes that“inthesecond year of Governor Rus- Harvey Hill of sample a is follows What the state’sdetail. officialin history: riot the mention textbooks rary Nation” by W.S. Powell, isequallysilent —thoughother contempo- Chapel Hillmiddleschool,Carolina: “North AProud State inOur 1906, ignored these events. The history text my son uses athis and 1903 1901, in published found, have I textbooks earliest The ways. of variety a in children its to campaign supremacy white the of rallies, disrupted black church meetings, whipped outspoken blacks, outspoken whipped and drove blacks from thepollswhenthey triedto register.”meetings, church black disrupted rallies, and carrying guns…Democratic ruffians broke upFusionist political frighten voters andregain power. …Ridinghorses, wearing red shirts, Carolina.North Nevertheless, theDemocrats used therace issue to in exist ever rule’ ‘Negro did nor numbers their to equal sentation Townsend Kenneth in end CarolinaNorth forever.’an at is ” rule ‘Negro reported: Observer and News Raleigh Silas Wright, theblackmayor, fledto New York. Three days later, the when end immediate to an came Wilmington in rule Republican fled. blacks many and burned, was newspaper black Manly’s Alex of office there was abloodyriot inwhichten ormore blacks were killed, the mined to end‘Negro rule’ inthecity promptly. OnNov. 9and10 election, armedwhite menappeared onthestreet. They were deter- Powell S. William by white administration took over Wilmington’s government.” cials. Anumberof blacks were jailedfor ‘starting ariot’ andanew ported killedand many others fledthecity, includingblackcity offi- printing office …Intherioting thatfollowed, ten blacks were re- the burning and wrecking eraby new the in ushered and Wilmington days after theelectionaforce of sixhundred whites gathered at the town. The revolution of 1898 restored ‘white supremacy.’ ” both Negroes andwhite menwere wounded. Many Negroes fledfrom later abad race riot took place inWilmington. Negroes were killedand helped theDemocrats. White supremacy was theissue. …Afew days Simmons of leadership and planning careful The home. at stayed trouble …theNegroes were frightened andonelectionday many slipped away. The Negro by nature was friendlyandeager to avoid “Negroes whocame to therallies saw the‘Red Shirts’ andsilently membered those terrible days too well to allow themto return.” gers seemed aboutto return. But thepeopleof Carolina North re- government “negroes could holdoffice. The days of theCarpetbag- Ashe andOrinaKiddGarber(1940) races.” the between feeling ill aroused naturally This tasks. the eastern of part thestate, some of whomwere poorlyfitted for their Jackson Clinton ter prospered.” greatly has Wilmington discharged ...Thus therevolution was atanend.Since thattime places their … aconservative in board of aldermen[was]chosen installed, negro policemen men white competent and one, by one resign, WHAT WETOLD THECHILDREN:TEXTBOOKS SINCE1907 16 2006 — “North Carolina: the History of an American State” by State” American an of History the Carolina: “North — 2006 1987 Carolina: —“North The Story of aSpecialKind of Place” 1978 —“Carolina Quest” by Thomas C.Parramore 1958 Carolina —“North History” by Daniel Jay Whitener 1940 Carolina — “North for Boys and Girls” by Sarah William 1933 —“The Story Carolina” of North by Alex Mathews withWal- —“A1916 Child’s History Carolina” of North by W.C. Allen 1907 —“Young People’s History Carolina” of North by Daniel In theyears after 1898, thestate of Carolina North told thestory refers to the election of Daniel Russell, the Fusionist the Russell, Daniel of election the to refers The Ghostsof1898 teaches: “At no time did blacks ever enjoy repre- enjoy ever blacks did time “At no teaches: teaches: “There were many Negro office-holders in office-holders Negro many were “There teaches: reports: “In Wilmington, on the night of the of night the on Wilmington, “In reports: TIMOTHY B. TYSON says that under the Fusion the under saysthat says:“Two WILMINGTON RACE RIOT states: owned businesses). minority- attract to incentives tax create small business incubator with zone; enterprise establish (e.g., 1898 of riot race Wilmington the by impacted areas of development portunities. op- development economic prove im- to Authority Development and will be directed by the Restructuring timidation, funding from all sources loss of civil service positions and in- banishment, by created advantages ognizing the long-term economic dis- Americans. African of lives the on discrimination and Crow Jim ery, examine the broader impact of slav- Hanover County. New add to Act Rights Voting eral RECOMMENDATIONS OFTHECOMMISSION The future via intestacystatutes. prove loss and relationship to victims can who victims of heirs pensate mercial properties in Brooklyn and Brooklyn in properties mercial inent domain to acquire vacant com- ship in impacted areas (e.g., use em- the consequencesof1898. pecially those which benefited from as well as media and businesses, es- federal, state and local governments, through an endowment, supported by mentation of a strategic vision funded imple- supervise to leadership cal Development Authority including lo- their homes without due process of livelihoods, and were banished from ernment; that people lost their lives, gov- local elected duly a replace to elite that used intimidation and force of 1898 was a conspiracy of a white els failed to protect citizens. the law, and governments at all lev- pursue actions that repair the wrong. will levels all at leadership ernment gov- community, American African the to especially treatment vorable unfa- persistent, in resulting ington, the democratic process failed in Wilm- ommendations: in January. Raleigh to returns which Assembly, would require action by the General recommendations the of Many ago. years 108 done wrong” the “repair mission offered recommendations to Com- Riot Race Wilmington 1898 1. EMPOWERMENT: rec- commission’s the of text The the of members 13 the May, In 7. 6. 5. REDEVELOPMENT: ECONOMIC 4. 3. 2. Acknowledge that the violence the that Acknowledge Increase minority home owner- Support judicial redress to com- Support amendment of the fed- Provide incentives for business Create a study commission to commission study a Create Establish a Restructuring and Restructuring a Establish Acknowledging that Rec- relative to1898anditsimpact. available resources make to brary the New Hanover County Public Li- universities. public state’s the at scholarships the state’s black press and to endow of 1898 and impact of Jim Crow on upon said papers to study the effects calls commission The statewide. distribution for report sion prepare a summary of the commis- Carolina black press association to North the with work and 1898 of edge the role of media in the events acknowl- should etc.) Post, ington Wash- The Star, Wilmington The Observer, Charlotte The server, tions. loca- public prominent in available be conspicuously displayed and made the documented events of 1898 will of amorecompleterecord. ward the research and development to- contributed who individuals to state and national repositories, and published report to appropriate local, Archives and History; distribute the Commission with the N.C. Office of Riot Race Wilmington the of port with guaranteedmortgages). sections those of residents income low- to properties sell Southside; statewide andin Wilmington. events 1898 of locations and pants partici- key identify to monuments statewide. use for museum the by signed and creation of a traveling exhibit de- Museum Fear Cape the at exhibit County, targetingat-riskyouth. mentoring programs in New Hanover in schoolcurriculummaterials. tary should be suitable for inclusion documen- The locally. and gionally re- nationally, aired be to mentary the materialsintoinstruction. workshops for effectively integrating riculum materials; and provide teacher cur- grade-level appropriate velop de- expectations; learning riculum Department of Public Instruction cur- and theworldwideweb. gions using print, audio-visual media, re- and ages all to available made tion about the events of 1898 will be 15. 14. 13. COMMEMORATION: 12. 11. 10. 9. 8. EDUCATION: Incorporate the 1898 events into Maintain and update the final re- Increase support for tutoring and Fund establishment of an 1898 Fund development for a docu- a for development Fund Erect plaques, markers and/or Provide additional funding for Newspapers (News and Ob- and (News Newspapers FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 Educational informa- Educational Recognition of Recognition Burkins, Charlotte Observer Charlotte Burkins, News & Observer; Glenn Project Directors: Research: Graphics: Photo Editor: Editor: Copy Design: Editor: 1898 TEAM OUR (1989). Powell S. William by Four Centuries” Through (2000) Carolina and“North olina Way” by JohnL.Godwin Car- North the and Wilmington ShapiroHerbert (1988); “Black by Montgomery” to struction From Response: Recon- Black (1954); “White Violence and Newsome R. Albert and Lefler Carolina”North by HughT. History of ASouthern State: similar context. provides (1977) Durden Robert CrowJ.and Jeffrey by Russell” Daniel of Biography Political A State: North Old the in can the period.“Maverick Republi- good overview of thepoliticsof Anderson (1981) furnishes a Eric 1872-1901”by Carolina, beth Gilmore (1996). 1896-1920” by GlendaEliza- Carolina, North in Supremacy and thePolitics of White “Gender andJimCrow: Women and context, wide a in riot race the puts which (1951), Edmonds Helen by 1894-1901” Carolina, and Fusion Politics inNorth Negro “The especially works, with historian David Cecelski. anthology of articlesIedited and Its Legacy” (1998), an 1898 of RaceRiot Wilmington “Democracy Betrayed: The Prather’s bookappears in the tragedy. version Ashort of probably ourbest account of and Coup of 1898” (1984), is Massacre Racial Wilmington “We Have Taken ACity: The book, Prather’s Leon H. readers. that shouldinterest general books two upon relied I sources, archival andnewspaper and informative appendices. context historical their in events including afullnarrative of the a groundbreaking compilation, is report This Umfleet. S. LeRae is author and researcher pal princi- whose Report,” Riot Race heavily onthe“1898 Wilmington SOURCES [email protected] I frequently consulted “The “Race andPolitics inNorth I also drew uponscholarly In additionto avariety of As Iwrote thisaccount, Irelied ✦ THE NEWS & OBSERVER J. Peder Zane, Peder J. Teresa Kriegsman Teresa TIMOTHY B. TYSON Judson Drennan Brooke Cain Bill DuPre Bill Robert Miller Robert Steve Riley,Steve