Zucchino - Wilmingtons lie: the murderous coup of 1898 and the rise of white supremacy

Myth of the Welfare Queen

Thunder Run

DAVID ZUCCHINO

Copyright 2020 by David Zucchino

Cover design by Brbara Abbs
Cover photograph: Armed rioters pose with the destroyed
Record building, Wilmington, North Carolina, 1898.
Courtesy of New Hanover County Public Library,
North Carolina Room

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Photo credits are as follows: Photos 1.1 (fugitive slaves), 2.1 (Alfred Moore Waddell), 7.1 (rapid-fire gun crew), 7.2 (state militiamen), 12.2 (armed escort): Courtesy of the Cape Fear Museum of History and Science, Wilmington, NC. Photos 1.2 (Abraham Galloway), 5.2 (George Rountree), 9.2 (Donald MacRae), 10.2 (Fourth and Harnett): Courtesy of New Hanover County Public Library, North Carolina Room. Photos 2.2. (Alexander Manly), 3.1 (Furnifold Simmons), 3.2 (Democratic Hand Book), 4.1 (cartoon 1), 4.2 (cartoon 2), 4.3 (cartoon 3), 4.4 (cartoon 4), 5.1 (Remember the 6), 6.2 (John C. Dancy), 10.1 (committee response), 12.1 (Daniel Russell): Courtesy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wilson Special Collections Library. Photo 4.5 (Josephus Daniels): Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Photo 6.1 (William Everett Henderson): Courtesy of Lisa Adams. Photos 8.1 (Charles Aycock), 8.2 (Red Shirts), 11.2 (burning Record ): Courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina. Photo 9.1 (Roger Moore): Courtesy of the Internet Archive/NC Government and Heritage Library, originally published in Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to the Present, ed. Samuel ACourt Ashe (Greensboro, N.C.: C.L. Van Noppen, 1905). Photo 11.1 (Alex and Frank Manly): Courtesy of East Carolina University, Joyner Library.

FIRST EDITION

Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America

This title is set in 13-pt. Centaur by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH.

First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: January 2020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data available for this title.

ISBN 978-0-8021-2838-6
eISBN 978-0-8021-4648-9

Atlantic Monthly Press
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To the dead and banished, known and unknown

Charles Aycock His speeches incited whites to attack blacks. Conspired to deny blacks the vote. Elected governor in 1900.

Claude M. Bernard Republican US Attorney in Raleigh, failed to indict white supremacists for murders and coup

Robert H. Bunting White Republican, US Commissioner in Wilmington, married to black woman

Thomas Clawson White supremacist city editor of Wilmington Messenger, sold used press to Alex Manly

John C. Dancy Black customs collector at Wilmington port, counseled appeasement of white supremacists

Josephus Daniels Editor of News and Observer, militant voice of white supremacy campaign

Mike Dowling Brawling leader of a Red Shirt brigade in Wilmington

George Z. Gizzard French White Chief Deputy Sheriff in Wilmington, Republican targeted by coup leaders

Abraham Galloway Escaped slave, Union spy, state senator, early leader of black defiance in Wilmington

William E. Henderson Leading black lawyer and political figure in Wilmington

Captain Thomas C. James Commander of a Wilmington Light Infantry company

Edward Kinsley Massachusetts abolitionist, urged Abraham Galloway to raise black Union regiments in North Carolina

Reverend J. Allen Kirk Outspoken black minister in Wilmington, wrote A Statement of Facts

Captain Donald MacRae Commander of a Wilmington Light Infantry unit, brother of Hugh MacRae

Hugh MacRae Wealthy president of Wilmington Cotton Mills Co., leader of Secret Nine conspiracy

Alexander Manly Editor of black-readership Daily Record, confronted white power structure in Wilmington

Carrie Sadgwar Manly Wife of Alex Manly and vocalist for Fisk University Jubilee Singers

John Melton White Fusionist police chief of Wilmington, targeted by coup leaders

Thomas C. Miller Entrepreneur, wealthiest black man in Wilmington, loaned money to whites and blacks

Colonel Roger Moore Former Confederate officer, commander of Ku Klux Klan and Red Shirts in Wilmington

George Rountree White lawyer in Wilmington, leading organizer of coup

Daniel Russell Republican governor of North Carolina, member of Wilmington plantation gentry

Colonel William L. Saunders Former Confederate officer from Wilmington, commander of Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina

Armond Scott Young, ambitious black lawyer in Wilmington

Furnifold Simmons State Democratic Party chairman, political organizer of white supremacy campaign

James Sprunt Wealthy white owner of Sprunt Cotton Compress

J. Allan Taylor Member of Secret Nine conspiracy, brother of Walker Taylor

Lieutenant Colonel Walker Taylor Commander of Wilmington Light Infantry, member of Group Six conspiracy

Pitchfork Ben Tillman US senator from South Carolina, led white supremacist attacks on the states blacks

Colonel Alfred Moore Waddell Former Confederate officer in Wilmington, leading orator of white supremacy campaign

George Henry White US congressman from North Carolina, only black man in Congress in 1890s

Silas P. Wright White Republican mayor of Wilmington, targeted by coup leaders

The white mans happiness cannot be purchased by the black mans misery.

Frederick Douglass

had tucked their trousers into their boot tops and tied cartridge belts around their waists. A few wore neckties. Each one carried a gun.

Throughout that summer and autumn, white men had been buying shotguns, six-shot pistols, and repeating rifles at hardware stores in the port city of Wilmington, North Carolina, set in the low Cape Fear country along the states jagged coast. It was 1898, a tumultuous midterm election year. White planters and business leaders had vowed to remove the citys multiracial government and black public officials by the ballot or the bulletor both. Few white men intended to navigate election week that November without a firearm within easy reach. There was concern among whites in Wilmington, where they were outnumbered by blacks, that stores would run dry on guns and that suppliers in the rest of the state and in nearby South Carolina would be unable to meet the demand.