In the weeks leading up to Election Day, Vice President Harris and former President Trump made their final pitches to American voters. For Trump especially, the rhetoric was not about unity — instead, his rallies often stoked racial tension. A comedian at a Trump rally recently described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage” and talked about Black people carving watermelons.
Experts say Trump also laid the groundwork for challenging election results. He pushed conspiracy theories that suggested the crowds at Harris’ rallies were fake and AI-generated, for example, and polls show most Republicans and Trump supporters still believe the 2020 election was stolen.
The racial and political turmoil of 2024 has startling connections to another moment in U.S. history when the only coup d’état ever waged in the country took place. In 1898, in Wilmington, N.C., white supremacists overthrew the city’s multi-racial government in a race massacre — Black residents were murdered, and thousands more were forced out.
A new documentary details the bloody history of the insurrection, why the story was covered up, and how it informs our current political moment.
GUESTS:
Brad Lichtenstein, co-director, co-writer and co-producer of “American Coup: Wilmington 1898”
David Zucchino, contributing writer for The New York Times and author of “Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy,” winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction
American Coup: Wilmington 1898, premieres Tuesday, November 12 at 9:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) on American Experience on PBS and will stream on PBS.org and the PBS app.
