Black and white people shared political and economic power for many years in the port city of Wilmington, N.C., in the late 1800s. It was surprisingly integrated, but that peaceful coexistence did not last. White supremacists feared the success of the city’s well-educated and thriving African American middle class. Shortly after the election of 1898, hundreds of African Americans were killed in a bloody massacre whose perpetrators included top city officials and the publisher of the local newspaper.
Black elected and appointed officials were forced out of their positions along with pro-integration white elected officials. This was the country’s first and only successful coup, overthrowing the government.
On Nov. 12, the PBS program "The American Experience," explores the deadly takeover in a documentary titled "The American Coup: Wilmington 1898." Co-director Yoruba Richen tells WFAE’s Gwendolyn Glenn how the murderous coup played out.
Yoruba Richen: There had been a year campaign to scare white inhabitants and say that there is Negro rule, that Negroes were taking over the government — and that also that Black men were attacking white women and this is going to continue if this Negro rule continued. So they were able to perpetrate these myths and these lies before the actual coup and massacre, but that set the stage.
Gwendolyn Glenn: Now, newspapers had a big role here as well. You had the News & Observer and you also had an African American newspaper publisher, Alexander Manly, of The Daily Record. Tell us about how those newspapers played into what happened during that massacre.
Richen: Well, the News & Observer [was] run by Josephus Daniels, who was one of the chief propagators of the myths and lies about Negro rule and Black people, you know, taking over the government — they used cartoons to do this as well. A lot of white people weren't literate, so they were able to create these evil cartoons of Black people attacking white women specifically and use that as a way to spread fear. The editorial was reprinted by a woman named Rebecca Felton in Georgia, and she had said that these Black men were raping and attacking white women. It was reprinted a couple months before the coup.
Glenn: And she called for them to be lynched, correct?
Richen: Yes. She called for them to be lynched, exactly. Alexander Manley wrote an editorial saying that this was a lie, that Black men were not attacking white women, and that, in fact, Black men and white women have gotten into consensual relationships many times. And, also, it was white men that had historically attacked and raped Black women and no one talked about that.
Excerpt from Manly’s editorial: Tell your men that it is no worse for a black man to be intimate with a white woman than for a white man to be intimate with a colored woman. Don't think, ever, that your women will remain pure while you are debauching ours, Alex Manly. Editorial Daily Record, August 18th, 1898.
Richen: So, of course, this response from Manly was used by the white supremacists as an excuse to institute the coup and the massacre.
Glenn: And then, of course, we know what happened after that — the killing of so many Black people on the streets. And they wanted to lynch Manly, but he left town.
Richen: Yes. He had heard that his life was in danger, and Manly was able to escape. Alexander Manley and his brother, who both looked white, told the white patrolman that they (were) on their way to an auction to buy horses. One of the patrolmen said if you see that Manly man, make sure you kill him.
Glenn: After all of this happened, so many Black people hid in the swamps and were run out of town and told to never come back again. There was a lot of generational wealth lost.
Richen: Absolutely. These were Black businesses. Black owners of houses. And one of the things that our film does is it features these stories of descendants of Black victims and white perpetrators — but one of the people that we have in the film is a descendant of a Black bank owner who owned at least one or two banks in 1898. That is wealth that's lost. So many other families who lost wealth that their ancestors had. And, of course, it hasn't been calculated. And Wilmington went from a majority Black city to a majority white city. And, of course, a couple of years after 1898, Jim Crow was instituted.
Glenn: And it kind of compares to Tulsa. The same thing happened in Tulsa, [Oklahoma,] and nobody talked about it for so long.
Richen: Yeah, which is, you know, why this conversation around reparations, is continuing and ongoing. And, you know, [it] has been a conversation that we've had since the end of slavery because not only was this country built on free Black labor, but then there were these many instances like Wilmington, like Tulsa, and many others, where Black communities that were thriving and building wealth were destroyed by white terrorism.
Glenn: And in the film, I remember a very poignant moment where you had the white supremacist saying, “Never again will there be African American rule in North Carolina." How do you think that is played out today?
Richen: We still see a very resistant strain of people who will do anything not to give up power. We see misinformation being spread. We see people believing it, pitting people against each other based on race or ethnicity or immigrant status. So, you know, these things run deep. People like to say this is not who we are, but unfortunately, this is exactly who we are.
Glenn: And then voters were intimidated by being told they would lose their job, their home or be killed. Today, you see different laws passed that affect people’s ability to vote. And, of course, the parties again have changed. The Republicans are now considered more conservative, Democrats more liberal. How do you see the comparison of then and now?
Richen: Well, it's not only laws being passed, but I'm reading about people trying to register voters and being intimidated by so-called, you know, "conservative groups." I see this as a continuation of the efforts to stop certain people from vote, usually Black and brown people.
Glenn: When you look at what happened on Jan. 6 — when the U.S. Capitol was stormed after former President Trump said the election was stolen — how do you look at those two incidents when you think about what happened in Wilmington in 1898, where people who had been elected were kicked out of office?
Richen: The echoes from 1898 still resound today. When we look at Jan. 6, and we see that this kind of thing can happen, it has happened in the past. What happened in Wilmington was buried for many years, so people you know didn't understand that this is something that could happen. And we saw efforts for it to happen again on Jan. 6.
Glenn: Was it hard to get people to talk about this?
Richen: The descendants of the victims have been meeting together at least a year before we started this, so they were eager to share their stories. And one of the white descendants was part of that group as well, and she was eager and wanted to share her story and wants the white people to take responsibility for understanding this history and to come to grips with it. To grapple with it, you know, it's still challenging.
Glenn: Daniels — you even had one of his descendants in it.
Excerpt from documentary:
Frank Daniels: I used to be the editor of the News & Observer. I was the fourth editor under the family ownership. The News & Observer did so many terrible things back in that period of time. We have had a, you know, a reckoning with ourselves about, you know, who Josephus was. In his later years, he was unapologetic. It's a shame that he did not recognize that the things that he did had damaged our state and our nation.
Richen: His family has been, you know, long dealing with Josephus’ role in perpetuating the massacre. And the News & Observer became a very different paper in the 1950s and '60s, and was a proponent of civil rights. You know, they were definitely grappling with Josephus' history. And we're really grateful that Frank Daniels participated.
Glenn: And when people see this, what do you hope they take away from this particular documentary that you did on 1898?
Richen: I hope that they understand that not only is our democracy fragile, as we see, but that history is so important to understanding why we are where we are today. Hopefully, this will prompt people to investigate more, investigate the history of this country, how we're still in such a polarized place, and still in a place where elections are contested and misinformation is spread, and how that happens — and why that happens — and what are the solutions to stopping that and to really truly making this country the democracy that it purports to be.
The 1898 documentary premieres on the PBS series "American Experience." It airs on NC PBS on Nov. 12 at 9 p.m.
