American Experience

CAROL ANDERSON: The story of the Wilmington coup is so important for American history.

ALFRED MOORE WADDELL (dramatized): Men, the crisis is upon us.

You must do your duty.

This city, county, and state shall be rid of Negro domination once and forever.

You are the sons of noble ancestry.

You are Anglo-Saxons.

You are armed and prepared.

LUCY MCCAULEY: It was never discussed.

Nobody told us anything about what had happened in our own town.

I remember there sort of being whispers, talking about a race riot.

MAN (dramatized): "We, the undersigned, "citizens of the city of Wilmington "and County of New Hanover "do hereby declare that we will no longer "be ruled and will never again be ruled by men of African origin."

KIERAN HAILE: It wasn't talked about, it was deliberately covered up.

We still have to contend with 120 years of silence and fear.

FRANK ARTHUR DANIELS: Why has North Carolina buried and avoided this story?

We always bury the things that we're ashamed of.

DAVID ZUCCHINO: It was the only armed overthrow of an elected government.

Black citizens were murdered with impunity.

No one was ever held accountable or held responsible.

PEYTON HOGE (dramatized): We have taken a city as thoroughly, as completely as if captured in battle.

It has been redeemed for civilization, redeemed for law and order, redeemed for decency and respectability.

ANDERSON: This was a coup based on the devaluation of African American citizenship.

What Wilmington tells us in that larger scope of American history is how fragile American democracy is.

WOMAN: Mother, my dear mother What rapture did you feel?

Your daughter smiling in your arms Just after the repeal First-born out of slavery Your hopes to me affixed Newborn cries sweet lullabies So long ago in 1866 Lashes still stinging, yet your songbird bringing The life that salvation redeems Echoes still ringing, but your sunshine singing Of freedom no longer in dreams ROBIN KELLEY: In the years after the Civil War, we have the end of chattel slavery as we know it.

Four million people formerly held in bondage are now citizens.

They have the marks of the lash on their backs, and they settle in this city that's on the rise.

ANDERSON: The best way to understand Wilmington is to understand that coming out of the Civil War, you have Reconstruction.

KIDADA WILLIAMS: Reconstruction was the process by which the nation tried to come to terms with the end of slavery and the end of the Civil War, to bring the seceded states back into the Union and to try to make good on the promises of the original founding by integrating newly freed African Americans more fully into the nation.

The end of slavery means that they can have access to their families, that they can work and get... be paid for it.

That they can have schools, that they can have churches, their own businesses, land.

A lot of historians have likened it to a second American Revolution.

Before 1898, Wilmington exemplified the spirit of Reconstruction.

Wilmington was the state's largest city.

LERAE SIKES UMFLEET: As one of the few open ports for international travel and traffic in North Carolina, this was a very prosperous city.

The railroad system drove back country items straight into the port in Wilmington and then out into the rest of the world.

So tar pitch and turpentine, the things that came from the forests of North Carolina, really drove some of this economy.

The Sprunt Cotton Compress here in Wilmington, they were one of the largest exporters of cotton in the world by this time.

KELLEY: Wilmington was one of those important centers for newly freed people to find opportunity.

There was really no other major city in the South like Wilmington.

First of all, it had a majority Black population of 56%.

SANDERS: They have the opportunity to compete with whites for well-paying jobs for both skilled and unskilled labor.

So we see African Americans working as brick masons, blacksmiths, carpenters.

ANDERSON: You have folks who are stevedores working on the docks.

You're having the Black leadership that have college degrees.

There was a professional class there of doctors and teachers and lawyers.

You've got the array of hardworking Black folk, up and down the class line.

It was a real community.

ZUCCHINO: One interesting aspect of Wilmington was that Blacks sold items at the city market downtown alongside whites.

And this was highly unusual.

SANDERS: They are operating on terms of equality.

White vendors are having to compete with Black vendors for customers.

And one of the most prominent Black businessmen in the 1890s was a man by the name of Isham Quick.

My name is Inez Campbell-Eason.

I am the great-great-granddaughter of Isham Quick.

He was born in 1843.

At the end of slavery, he sojourned up to North Carolina, ended up in Wilmington.

He was a wood and coal dealer at the time.

He also chartered a Black-owned bank called the Metropolitan Trust Company.

This was quite significant, that African Americans had not only began to acquire large sums of money, but that they were able to invest them in Black banks.

We see large numbers of Black business owners, large numbers of Black homeowners.

Wilmington is essentially a promised land for African Americans.

WOMAN: The ladies and gentlemen Stroll down the old Broadway Resplendent, transcendent They took your breath away.

UMFLEET: The Sadgwar family in Wilmington went back generations.

SANDERS: They were one of the most prominent Black families in Wilmington.

Frederick Sadgwar was a renowned carpenter, providing cutting-edge construction services to both Black and white residents here in Wilmington.

These are civic-minded people.

They're involved in their churches.

They are raising these extraordinary families of children who go off to be educated as soon as that becomes possible.

There is this deep soil of Black cultural achievement here in Wilmington.

My name is Kieran Haile, and I am the great-great-grandson of Alex Manly, who was the editor and publisher of "The Daily Record," which was the only Black-owned daily newspaper at the time.

KELLEY: It was the main source of Black news for the Black community, not just in Wilmington, but across the state.

ALEX MANLY (dramatized): "In North Carolina, "the Negro holds the balance of power, "which he can use to the advantage of "the race, state, and nation, "if he has the manhood to stand on principles "and contend for the rights of a man.

Alex Manly, 'The Daily Record.'"

He owned an entire platform for media.

Because of that, white business owners, white people around town interacted with him and tried to be in his favor.

And it had white and Black subscribers, which is unusual at this time.

You had white businesses regularly advertising in it.

A.W.

RIVENBARK (dramatized): "The Colored People of Wilmington "buy as good goods as the white people.

"My experience with them for 25 years has taught me so.

"I am making preparations to fill your orders "for the holiday trade.

Respectfully, A.W.

Rivenbark."

SANDERS: Alexander Manly is born immediately after the Civil War, in 1866.

SULLIVAN: His grandfather had been the governor of North Carolina: Governor Charles Manly.

One of the women he had children with was Alex Manly's grandmother, Melinda.

You know, the term "mistress," you know, is what you'll find in the record, but, it was probably something uglier than that.

His mother and father, who had been enslaved by Governor Manly, were emancipated prior to the Civil War.

SANDERS: Alexander Manly could have passed for a white man.

Unless he outright told someone that he was Black, most people would assume that he was white.

He is able to go to Hampton Institute in Virginia, where he receives training in both painting and printing.

And after finishing Hampton, he relocates to Wilmington.

He worked alongside Frederick Sadgwar, helping to paint houses.

And on one particular day, a young woman is walking along the street and looks up and waves, and Alexander Manly turns to his boss and says, "Did you see that young woman?

I would love to get to know her."

And Frederick Sadgwar does not then admit that that's his own daughter, but he essentially just tells Alexander Manly, you know, "Keep working."

And so he keeps trying to run into her at all of these different places, and she's not there.

And after several failed attempts, while attending an event at the Gregory Normal School, the young woman appears on stage.

Carrie Sadgwar attended Fisk University as part of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

He's gonna do this the right way.

So he gets a letter of introduction from a pastor.

PRISCILLA HAILE: Alex was known to be charismatic.

I've heard a lot about his fiery nature.

I've heard a lot about his tenacity.

His confidence was, was borderline arrogance, but he was so well-intentioned that it was okay.

SANDERS: They develop a very strong relationship, and at some point, they get engaged.

He realizes that he's got more going on than being a house painter.

The way that his mind works, the things that he thinks about.

SANDERS: And Alexander Manly, along with his brother, Frank, assume the editorship of the newspaper.

KELLEY: It wasn't considered a radical newspaper, at least not initially.

ZUCCHINO: Alex wrote some exposs.

One was about the treatment of Black patients in horrible conditions in the Black wards of the hospital.

And he also does things about the lack of public services, like paved roads.

And you begin to see improvements in the Black community based on the kinds of agitation that he's doing.

And through his newspaper, Manly is able to advocate for the advancement of African Americans, not just in Wilmington, but the advancement of African Americans across the state of North Carolina, and within the South.

It's during Reconstruction that we get the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing citizenship to African Americans.

And then we have this 15th Amendment that said that one's right to vote could not be abridged on the basis of race.

So it's the 15th Amendment that gives Black men access to the ballot.

During Reconstruction, we see numerous Black men able to hold public office at multiple levels of government.

We see Black men serving in the North Carolina General Assembly.

North Carolina would send Black men to Congress.

We saw African American men not only being able to take part in the political process, but serving in the halls of power.

(crowd shouting) WILLIAMS: What we have during Reconstruction is a lot of white anger at Black people seizing their freedom.

You've got a lot of the white population that is very frustrated with not only losing slavery, but seeing African Americans go from being enslaved people to thriving, to becoming landowners, to serving in office.

The Confederacy felt that it had been overthrown, and it was trying to take power back.

WILLIAMS: That war is still going on.

This war after the Civil War.

This war on African Americans' freedom.

ANDERSON: Black men having the right to vote just angered white supremacists eight ways to Sunday.

And so you had massive intimidation at the polls.

This is where you get the rise of white domestic terrorism in the form of the KKK, the Ku Klux Klan.

WILLIAMS: You've got these organized attacks on Black people, a lot of assassinations on Black voters and Black office holders, home invasions where they're deliberately targeting African Americans who are very successful.

Unfortunately, you know, Reconstruction ends prematurely.

The removal of troops from the South ushered in the end of Reconstruction, and white supremacists are once again able to regain power.

Democrats and Republicans of 1898 are not the Democrats and Republicans of the 21st century.

ANDERSON: Remember, what we had coming out of the Civil War was that Lincoln was a Republican, and the Republican Party was founded on an anti-slavery platform.

UMFLEET: That meant that most African American voters were going to vote for the Republican candidates.

The Democrats were the Klan members, the Democrats were the slave owners, the enslavers.

They were deeply committed to denying citizenship rights to African Americans.

The Democratic Party holds the state in the 1870s throughout the 1880s.

It's really not until the 1890s that you begin to see the Democrats again lose their power.

(crowd shouting) There's a depression that takes place in 1893.

White farmers are suffering.

These white farmers felt that the Democratic Party was beholden to, to the banks and the railroads and the moneyed interests.

And they bolt from the Democrats and join the Populists, which is a third party.

Neither the Republican Party nor the Populist party had the voting power to unseat Democratic Party candidates if they were running in a tri-part election.

ZUCCHINO: So they form an alliance, white Populists and Black and white Republicans.

This became known as Fusion.

We see a political alliance between African Americans and working class white people.

ZUCCHINO: The Populists were as racist as any of the members of the Democratic Party, but their economic interests were so strong that they were able to set that aside.

It's not some kumbaya moment, we've gotta be really clear about that.

It was a pragmatic moment.

So both in 1894 and in 1896, this Fusionist coalition of Black and white men are able to sweep the North Carolina General Assembly.

KELLEY: North Carolina elects a Fusion governor, Daniel Russell.

They send George White to Congress, and they start to pull back all the things that the Democrats did to reduce democracy.

So, for example, the positions that were once appointed, in Wilmington, are now turning into elected positions, which allows Black people to run for office.

It created, uh, really, a situation in Wilmington that was unique.

You had Black men in positions of authority and power.

SANDERS: So we see Black and white men on the Board of Aldermen.

We see Black and white men serving in various municipal offices.

Ten of the 26 policemen were Black men.

The city treasurer, the city jailer, the city coroner.

John C. Dancy was the custom collector at the Port, which is a federally appointed position.

He made $4,000 a year, which was $1,000 more than the governor made.

KELLEY: The mayor of Wilmington is also a Fusion candidate.

It's not the majority Black, it's the majority Fusion that makes a difference.

So with Wilmington, by 1898, African Americans had still held on to a lot of the rights and privileges and the institutions and the power they had enjoyed.

It was a land of possibility, a land of hope, a different vision of what American democracy could be, that it could actually be multiracial and work.

WOMAN: Making a life in a time Hitherto unseen Took your breath away.

MAN (dramatized): "There is one thing "the Democratic Party never has done "and never will do, "and that is to set the Negro up "to rule over white men.

"It is no fault of the Negro that he is here "and he is not to be punished for being here.

"But this is a white man's country, and white men must control and govern it."

Beginning in 1898, the leadership of the Democratic Party at the state level began to push the white supremacy platform as the main tool to break apart Fusion.

This is a campaign that's deliberately put together by three guys: Furnifold Simmons, Josephus Daniels, and Charles Aycock.

There was a midterm election coming up in November of 1898, and they began plotting.

They met in New Bern early in 1898 and came up with a plan.

Furnifold Simmons was the chairman of the state Democratic Party.

He was an incredibly effective strategic thinker.

He had actually lost an election to a Black candidate earlier in his career.

So there's this personal element to his animus.

And he is looking for ways to once again restore the Democratic Party to its glory days.

White supremacy is going to be the rallying cry.

White supremacy is going to be the issue used to chip away at Fusion politics and return North Carolina to white supremacist rule.

And he sees Josephus Daniels as someone who can be essential to their cause.

ZUCCHINO: Josephus Daniels was the publisher of "The News and Observer" in Raleigh.

He posed as a journalist, but he was really a politician who happened to own the most powerful newspaper in the state.

At that time, newspapers were king.

I mean, there was no internet, there was no radio, there was no TV.

So newspapers had really this tremendous power over what people knew and what people believed.

I'm Frank Arthur Daniels III, I'm the great-grandson of Josephus Daniels.

He was born in 1863.

He never met his father, so his mother, who was a single mom, ended up moving to Wilson, North Carolina, and becoming the postmistress there.

He came from really a working class family.

He is active in the Democratic Party, but is not seen as one of the key players or someone who was well-known until the 1890s, when he's able to acquire "The News and Observer" in Raleigh.

DANIELS: He bought it in 1894 off a courthouse auction here in Raleigh.

I guess he wanted to have power, and the way to do that was to find benefactors, and his benefactors happened to be in the Democratic Party.

In the 19th century, newspapers were very partisan, especially when you were looking at state capital newspapers like "The News and Observer" was.

ZUCCHINO: He raised money from other white supremacists and turned it into a propaganda tool.

He called himself the militant voice of white supremacy.

The white supremacists really needed a phrase, a trope to really incite whites, and they used the terms "Negro rule" and "Negro domination."

ANDERSON: The fact that you have one or two in certain positions, or five or six out of 500, 600, and 700... that's Negro domination?

Through this whole Fusion process, there were many, many more white Republicans than there were Blacks in public office.

SANDERS: The fact that they had any modicum of power was a problem to white supremacists, who believed that because of their supremacy, they should not have to share governance with African Americans.

That this was an insult.

While there are these white supremacy campaigns statewide, there was a secret group determining their own ways of promoting a white supremacy agenda here in Wilmington.

JESSE BLAKE (dramatized): "A group of nine citizens "met at the home of Mr. Hugh MacRae "and there decided that "the attitude and actions of the Negroes "made it necessary for them to take some steps "towards protecting their families and homes "in their immediate neighborhood: "Seventh and Market Streets.

"This group of citizens, the Secret Nine, "divided the city into sections, "placing a responsible citizen as captain "in charge of each area.

"The better element planned to gain relief "from Negro impotence and domination, "from grafting, and from immoral conditions.

Jesse Blake, Wilmington resident."

It's a lot sexier to say "the Secret Nine" than it is to say the Chamber of Commerce, but it's really just the white business community that we're talking about.

These were very elite white men.

Hugh MacRae came from one of the more prominent business families in Wilmington.

I'm Meg MacRae.

I'm the great-granddaughter of Hugh MacRae.

You know, there's a certain population of the people here that didn't like what was happening with the Fusionist government.

You know, my understanding of Wilmington at the time at 1898 was that it was sort of like a mecca of sorts, like African American businesses, white businesses, all thriving.

He was part of the population that didn't so much like that.

UMFLEET: These men would meet to discuss problems their businesses were having as a result of the decisions of the Board of Alderman and the mayor.

There is a concern for maintaining their wealth, of wanting to ensure that they remained at the top of the social order.

There could not be biracial forms of government that required them to compete with African Americans for anything.

White people in Wilmington who supported white supremacy still had to figure out a way to get rid of the Fusionist political leaders who controlled the city.

It was really a matter of how they were gonna carry out this plan, not if they were gonna carry out the plan.

GILMORE: They saw themselves really as "New South" men.

As much as they revere their dads who fought in the Civil War and got the South into the Civil War, they're determined not to be their dads.

They're determined to solve this "Negro problem" once and for all, and to do a better job of it than their fathers did.

SULLIVAN: The MacRae Castle, you know, it was a very grand house.

He was the neighbor to the Sadgwars, to one of the oldest, most established, most cultured and sophisticated Black families in, in Wilmington.

It's just the intimacy and proximity.

You know, your neighbor is having a meeting about how to overthrow you and your family and your friends and your whole community.

About how to shut-- to shut that down.

They came together to plan how Wilmington would organize itself within the larger scope of what the Democratic Party was doing.

ZUCCHINO: Josephus Daniels was very clever in how he got this message out.

He realized that almost 25% of the white electorate was illiterate.

So he hired a political cartoonist to draw these harrowing cartoons.

KELLEY: They were very effective in terms of turning successful, dignified, Black middle and working class into caricatures, into sambos.

Making the claim that these cartoon characters were the ones running government.

They used images to help stir up emotion.

This is a cartoon that appeared in "The News and Observer."

Um, they call it the "Incubus cartoon."

GILMORE: A Black incubus is hovering over the state of North Carolina.

An incubus is someone who rapes women while they're asleep.

ANDERSON: You had a paper that was just pumping in this image of African Americans as corrupt, as dangerous to democracy.

You also have: Crime!

Crime!

Crime is Black.

You're seeing the danger of Black men, the threat to white civilization, and the threat to white women.

By the 1890s, you begin to see this spike in lynchings.

ANDERSON: About a lynching every other day was the scale and the scope in America at that time.

And those lynchings are often generated by someone crying rape, by the threat of rape, by rumors of rape.

When I looked at the statistics, rape as a crime is reported in the state government journals every year.

And, uh, there was no increase in rapes.

KELLEY: Lynching and the trope of the Black rapist coincides with the Democratic reaction against Fusion, against interracial movements.

They want to break that alliance in the Fusion Party between Black and white workers.

ZUCCHINO: Charles Aycock was a young lawyer and one of the leaders of the white supremacy campaign in North Carolina.

He was one of these really dynamic stump speakers.

They would just go through eastern North Carolina and he would give these campaign speeches about Negro domination, Black rapes and insolent Black people, and really inciting whites to violence.

CHARLES AYCOCK (dramatized): "No man who loves his state can read the daily occurrences "of crime in North Carolina, "where the Negro is the aggressor, "without trembling for the future of the state.

"There have been more assaults upon white women "by Negro brutes in one year and a half of Republican rule than in 20 years of Democratic rule."

Then they got together and concocted, basically, a fake news campaign, uh, to convince the Populist white men who had voted with the Republicans, many of whom were Black, that by doing so, they had put their wives and daughters in danger.

REBECCA FELTON (dramatized): "Where there is not enough "religion in the pulpit "to organize a crusade against sin, "nor justice in the courthouse to promptly punish crime, "nor manhood enough in the nation to put a sheltering arm "about innocence and virtue, "if it needs lynching "to protect women's dearest possession "from ravening human beasts, "then I say lynch a thousand times a week if necessary!"

ZUCCHINO: Rebecca Felton, she was the wife of a congressman in Georgia.

She gave a speech to the Agricultural Society condemning white men for, in her mind, not doing enough to stop the "Black beast rapist" and this supposed rape epidemic in Georgia.

There was no rape epidemic, but she created one.

White supremacist newspapers in Wilmington realized they could make something of this.

So they reprinted her speech in August of 1898.

And as soon as Alex Manly saw that, he sat down and wrote an editorial in response to Mrs. Felton.

"Mrs. Felton from Georgia makes a speech "before the Agricultural Society at Tybee, Georgia, in which she advocates lynching as an extreme measure."

ALEX MANLY (dramatized): "Experience among "poor white people in the country teaches us "that women of that race are not more particular "in the matter of clandestine meetings "with colored men than are the white men with colored women.

"Meetings of this kind go on for some time "until the women's infatuation "or the man's boldness brings attention to them, "and the man is lynched for rape.

"Every Negro lynched is called a big burly Black brute, "when in fact many of those who have thus been dealt with, "had white men for their fathers and were not only "not Black and burly, but were sufficiently attractive "for the white girls of culture and refinement "to fall in love with them.

"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 18, 1898.

This was blasphemous, you know?

to say that a white woman could actually desire a Black man.

What?

The other point he made was that for generations, white men had been raping Black women with impunity, and that had been going on forever, and nobody talks about that.

Alexander Manly's rebuttal to Rebecca Felton was absolutely courageous.

He didn't say it behind closed doors while he is talking with his friends.

He did it in an editorial published in "The Daily Record" that has white advertisers.

And so he's really putting himself out there.

You had some members of the Black community who were like, "Oh, Manly, Manly doesn't speak for us."

There were many who perhaps, even if they believed it was true, thought that it was, you know, too inflammatory to be printed.

We also see prominent Black men in Wilmington urge Manly to recant the editorial, to apologize in an effort to avoid conflict.

He refuses.

He sees himself as someone who has done nothing wrong.

He has spoken a truth that he believes has gone unspoken for too long.

Manly publishes his editorial in August of 1898.

So this is only a few months before the election in November 1898.

The leaders of the white supremacy campaign said, we can use this editorial as a campaign tool to incite whites.

SANDERS: He essentially hands Simmons a smoking gun for white supremacists.

Alexander Manly proves what is wrong with Fusionist politics.

That not only are African Americans holding elected offices, but an African American newspaper editor could so boldly speak against white womanhood that there needed to be a change in governance in the state.

ZUCCHINO: The white newspapers reprinted this editorial, not only in Wilmington, not only in North Carolina, but across the South.

And the white supremacists just let this rage build.

MAN (dramatized): "Alex Manly, editor of the Colored Daily, "complained to the mayor and chief of police "that he received a letter threatening his life.

"Manly has been staying in the office at night with some friends to protect the office."

The owner of the building where "The Daily Record" was housed told Alexander Manly he needed to find a new location for his newspaper.

MANLY (dramatized): "Our removal.

"The dispatch a few days since advised "the white property owners not to rent us a home for our paper.

"We thought their idea a good one ourselves "and set about at once to find someplace owned "by colored people, where we might print our paper.

"We have found it and will hereafter use a Negro home for a Negro paper."

Alexander Manly and his supporters are able to secure a building known as the Love and Charity Hall.

It was essentially a community center in Wilmington for African Americans.

Through the summer and fall of 1898, the white supremacists perpetuated this myth that it was Black citizens who were arming themselves and preparing for a takeover.

DANIELS: It was a fabrication of "The News and Observer" and of others to foment fear and make people react.

When, in fact, it was the whites buying guns and arming themselves.

White men and boys in Wilmington were armed with multiple weapons each.

Sales of Winchester rifles are skyrocketing.

All these white people are buying these rifles.

Meanwhile, uh, stores that sell ammunition are not selling to Black people, deliberately.

They're told not to.

They had units patrolling every single ward in Wilmington.

It was sending the signal to the white community, as well as to the Black community.

The white people had been told the Negroes are gonna start a race riot.

My great-grandfather was an Episcopal minister.

They lived downtown, about a block from the courthouse.

During 1898, my great-grandmother wrote a letter to her son, who's my grandfather, who was off at school.

"It is now nearly 11:00.

Perfect quiet rains in the streets."

WOMAN (dramatized): "Henry and Bradley, the uncles, "are sitting downstairs in the dining room with arms.

"The town is to be guarded by four or eight men "at each corner.

"Bradley has a beautiful pistol, "Henry, a gun and pistol, then ours, your father has.

"That leaves none for Lucy and me, but I saw that the hatchets were handy."

In our own family documents, it was written down: the Black population was going to rise up, and all the white people were arming themselves.

And my great-grandfather was one of the people doing that.

My name is Lucy McCauley, and my great-grandfather was William Berry McKoy.

He had gone to Princeton.

He was a lawyer.

He later became the grandmaster of the Masons in town, the Masonic Lodge.

He was one of the heads of these White Government Unions.

UMFLEET: The White Government Union was created by the Democratic Party, almost like a political action committee.

MAN (dramatized): "The White Government Union Constitution.

"The purpose of the organization shall be to re-establish in North Carolina the supremacy of the white race."

MCCAULEY: They would use these unions to gather white people, get them all stirred up about voting, talking about how the elections should go and what they needed to do to make sure they go that way.

UMFLEET: Parallel to the White Government Union, we have the Red Shirts.

ZUCCHINO: Josephus Daniels said the white supremacy campaign needed three types of men-- men who could write, men who could speak, and men who could ride.

The men who could ride were the Red Shirts.

The Red Shirts came out of South Carolina.

Ben "Pitchfork" Tillman, he looked up at North Carolina, he's like, "What, you haven't handled your Negro problem yet?

Let me help you with that."

MANLY (dramatized): "Senator Tillman came to North Carolina "and made a speech in which he said "he heard that they had a big Black Negro editor "who had insulted the women of the South.

"He asserted that if I were in his state, "I would be lynched before the ink was dry on my paper.

"'Bullets,' he said, 'Were better than ballots, in the case of Negroes.'"

Alex Manly.

And he basically sent the Red Shirts up to North Carolina.

ZUCCHINO: These guys would ride out at night and go into Black homes and yank out Black men and whip them and beat them and say, "If you register to vote, we'll come back and kill you."

I mean, the Democratic Party was run by former plantation owners, the elites, lawyers, politicians, businessmen, the well-to-do.

But the shock troops were workers.

Lower class, working class, blue collar people.

Men across all economic spectrums were members of the White Government Union and the Red Shirts.

It was a badge of honor to be a part of this campaign.

The White Government Union had multiple rallies here in North Carolina and Wilmington.

These rallies included huge parades of Red Shirts, and oftentimes it was finished off with barbecue.

MCCAULEY: What I think about with my great-grandfather is that he was at a picnic, white man's rally is what it was.

And he gave this very stirring speech to kind of help whip up the Red Shirts into a frenzy around defending the white woman's honor.

And part of it was printed in the newspaper.

(papers rustling) See, I've got something called "the evidence" 'cause that helps remind me.

Anybody in my family starts doubting.

"You appear here now to demand vengeance "in behalf of the women of our race.

MCKOY (dramatized): "It is the cry of the women of our land "that has aroused you.

"And I am proud that you are equal to the occasion.

"We have demanded of our officials "that they shall abandon this riot "and misrule in North Carolina, and by you, we have won the victory."

(clicks teeth, mutters) By late October of 1898, um, the leaders of the white supremacy campaign in Wilmington became alarmed.

They didn't think, um, white people were aroused enough.

GILMORE: Alfred Waddell, who's an older man, who was a Civil War veteran, that makes him a little outside this group of the others.

ZUCCHINO: Lieutenant Colonel during the Confederacy, he admitted to himself that he had a terrible career.

He, uh, basically washed out and was sent home during the war.

He had kind of faded by 1898, and he didn't have a job.

He was resented, uh, by a lot of the white supremacy leaders in Wilmington because he was pretty obnoxious, he was very sure of himself.

But he saw his opportunity.

He volunteered to start giving these blood-curdling speeches on the stump.

ANDERSON: That speech that Alfred Waddell gave in Thalian Hall, where we are right now, that holds 600, but there were over a thousand people in here.

This is what he said.

This is a portion of what he said.

"Shall we surrender it "to a ragged rabble of Negroes, "led by a handful of white cowards, "who at the first sound of conflict "will seek to hide themselves from the righteous vengeance, which they shall not escape?"

WADDELL (dramatized): No!

A thousand times, no!

Let them understand once and for all, we will have no more of the intolerable conditions under which we live.

We are resolved to change them, if we have to choke the current of the Cape Fear with carcasses.

The time for smooth words has gone by.

The extremist limit of forbearance has been reached.

Negro domination shall henceforth be only a shameful memory to us and an everlasting warning to those who shall ever again seek to revive it.

And Waddell got a massive standing ovation.

Applause was ringing throughout this hall.

(cheers and applause) The white supremacy campaign also had two militias at their disposal, the Wilmington Light Infantry and the Naval Reserves.

They were supposed to report to the governor in Raleigh, who was a Republican.

But, in fact, the commanders of these two militias were leaders of the white supremacy campaign.

In the summer of 1898, both militias, all white, were called up for federal service in the Spanish American War, but the leaders of the white supremacy campaign made sure they were back in Wilmington before the midterm election.

SANDERS: There is a statewide regiment of Black soldiers that is also deployed.

The white regiments are sent home, but the Black regiment is still held in reserve far from Wilmington.

This leaves the Black community unprotected.

The city's merchants wanted to make sure they had enough firepower, um, to overwhelm the majority Black population.

So they brought a Colt rapid fire gun, which was a new weapon then.

It was basically one of the first machine guns.

The merchants also bought something called a Hotchkiss gun and provided it to the Naval Reserves and they mounted that as well on a wagon.

So they're preparing for war.

That's what this period is: preparation for war.

I am Anne Kenan.

And William R. Kenan was my great-grandfather's uncle.

He was a captain of the Wilmington Light Infantry.

He had lost his position as customs collector in Wilmington to John Dancy.

He was put in charge of one of the Colt rapid fire machine guns.

They take a couple of members of the Black leadership out on this boat just to show them what this gun can do.

"Before Election Day, "business leaders rounded up "several of Wilmington's leading Black citizens "and brought them on a tugboat next to Eagles Island, "where Captain Kenan and his fellow Light Infantry soldiers "demonstrated the power of the Colt gun "by lacing the opposite river bank with 500 rounds of gunfire, "ripping through the brush and gouging out holes in the soft earth."

(inhales) SANDERS: White people are already beginning to patrol places where African Americans are gonna be voting on Election Day.

They are visiting these areas with guns in their hands.

The hope is that African American men will stay home.

That African American men will not even attempt to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

What was happening among white employers, if they found out a Black employee had registered to vote, they were being fired.

SANDERS: Many began to say, "Well, perhaps we should stay home.

Perhaps if we stay home, we can avoid conflict."

When African American women began to learn that Black men are even considering not participating in the election, they are outraged.

They see this as a problem because African American men are the representatives for Black families.

WOMAN (dramatized): "Resolved that every Negro "who refuses to register his name next Saturday "that he may vote, we shall make it our business "to deal with him in a way that will not be pleasant.

"He shall be branded a white-livered coward who would "sell his liberty and the liberty of our whole race "to the demons who are even now seeking to take away "the most sacred rights vouchsafed to any people.

"Resolved further that we have these resolutions published "in our 'Daily Record,' the one medium "that has stood up for our rights "when others have forsaken us.

Respectfully submitted, an Organization of Colored Ladies."

SULLIVAN: In this copy of "The Record" from October 20, 1898, you have Alex Manly speaking to the Black community in a very direct way about what's happening in the city.

ANDERSON: He published a piece that said, look, you know, I know they're talking violence.

You know, we're seeing all the guns around, we're seeing all of the patrols, but white folks aren't that crazy.

KIERAN: "We say now, as we have said, "that there is no danger of this sort of thing.

"If Wilmington was the half-civilized town "some try to make it appear, there might indeed be danger, "but such is not the case.

"Ask yourself, what have I against my neighbor that I would seek to destroy his life or happiness?"

MANLY (dramatized): "Sober, honorable white people in this city "are not at all responsible for these threats.

"And happily they constitute the large majority "of our white citizens.

"The danger is as great to them as it is to ourselves, "for they know that if lawlessness ever begins, "it will never stop at the point at which it was aimed, but like an avalanche will sweep all before it."

Alex Manly, October 20, 1898.

He is not taking the bait.

He's not engaging in counter-propaganda.

He urges calm and, and, uh, he's, he's telling his community not to overreact and to vote.

Most importantly, he's saying, you know, the whole point of all of this fear mongering is to keep you at home, to keep you from voting.

Don't, don't do it.

Don't let them do it.

They're not gonna murder you.

These are our friends and our neighbors.

You know, he represented the idea of Fusionism in a lot of ways.

So it's, it's painful, really to know that, that he was wrong here, that there was danger.

ZUCCHINO: A delegation of Black ministers went to President McKinley in Washington and warned him.

MINISTER (dramatized): "The present situation "in the state of North Carolina "is but an act in the series of reign of terror "inaugurated in the year 1873 "to wrest from the legitimate electors, the state government.

"The present situation is a grave one, "and the attitude of lawless men in the state of North Carolina "will be far reaching in its effects "unless it is counteracted by the strong arm of the government."

ZUCCHINO: The president was put in a very, very difficult position.

He had been a union officer, he was an abolitionist, but he was gonna run for reelection in 1900, and he needed the white vote as much or more as he needed the Black vote.

And McKinley absolutely refused to send federal troops in.

The attorney general made the point, well, we can't send any troops in because Governor Russell has to request the troops.

SANDERS: The Black community had an interesting relationship with Governor Daniel Russell.

His commitment to Black civil rights, you know, was questioned early on.

He had grown up in Wilmington.

He knew all the white supremacists.

Some were his relatives, a lot were his school friends, and they knew how to manipulate him.

And the white supremacists said, "Listen, we will promise to keep the peace "and won't cause any trouble, if you will promise not to run any Republican candidates in the county."

Russell and the leadership of the Republican Party went along with it because they were so intimidated and so afraid of violence.

So all the Fusion candidates who were running for office at that time end up withdrawing.

And just as that's a sign to African Americans about where the governor stands, that's a sign to white supremacists.

They hold all the cards.

UMFLEET: At one last rally, Alfred Moore Waddell takes an opportunity to give one last speech at the county courthouse.

WADDELL (dramatized): Men, the crisis is upon us.

You must do your duty.

This city, county, and state shall be rid of Negro domination once and forever.

You are the sons of noble ancestry.

You are Anglo-Saxons.

Go to the polls tomorrow and if you find a Negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls.

And if he refuses, kill him.

Shoot him down in his tracks.

ZUCCHINO: On the morning of the election on November 8, armed whites are out in the streets in force to prevent Black men from voting.

ANDERSON: You've got all of these Red Shirts by the voting booth, and they went into Black precincts and they tossed out the Republican ballots.

Waddell had given them the instructions on how to do this.

They'd send more than a hundred armed white men crashing into the polls, create a diversion by knocking over a lamp and starting a small fire.

And in the confusion, they would take the Republican votes out and replace them with phony democratic ballots, just stuffing the ballot boxes.

Governor Russell, a Wilmington native, comes home to cast his vote and on his way back to Raleigh, multiple Red Shirts board the train searching for the governor.

The security forces around the governor shuffle him to the back of the train into the mail car.

And he barely made it back to Raleigh in the middle of the night.

And then when he got to the governor's mansion, it was surrounded by a mob.

And then he holed up there for several days because this mob wouldn't leave.

DANIELS (dramatized): If you have never seen 300 red-shirted men towards sunset with the sky red, you cannot conceive what an impression it makes.

Their appearance was the signal for the Negroes to get out of the way.

The result, of course, was that many Negroes either did not vote or made no fight in the affected counties on Election Day.

Josephus Daniels.

SANDERS: White supremacists win in a landslide statewide.

They are able to take back the North Carolina General Assembly.

They are able to win key races in every county in the state.

UMFLEET: November 9, Wilmington wakes up to a complete change in representation in Raleigh and in Washington D.C. SANDERS: Even though they had been quite successful in stealing an election, in Wilmington, white supremacists are not satisfied.

They don't even spend time really celebrating their successes at the ballot box because there was still work to be done.

There wasn't a municipal election.

There was a state election and a county election.

So you still had this Fusionist mayor, you still had Black aldermen.

So they had to figure out a way to make these people disappear.

And not only these Black men, but their white allies, white men who had supported Fusionist politics also had to disappear.

There was a mass meeting called that morning.

MAN (dramatized): "There will be a meeting "of the white men of Wilmington "this morning at 11:00 at the courthouse.

"A full attendance is desired, "as business in the furtherance of white supremacy will be transacted."

Hundreds of white supremacists, both the rank-and-file and the white leadership, met and declared a White Wilmington Declaration of Independence.

MAN (dramatized): "Believing that the Constitution of the United States "contemplated a government to be carried on "by an enlightened people; "believing that its framers did not anticipate "the enfranchisement of an ignorant population "of African origin, and believing that those men "of the state of North Carolina, "who joined in forming the union, "did not contemplate for their descendants "subjugation to an inferior race.

"We, the undersigned, citizens of the city of Wilmington "and County of New Hanover, "do hereby declare that we will no longer be ruled and will never again be ruled by men of African origin."

KELLEY: They're saying that in order to have good government, it has to be run by white people.

That white supremacy is a way to save the state, if not save the South, and ultimately save the nation.

SANDERS: Hugh MacRae played a key role in this document.

These upper class white men, it aired their grievances in many ways.

"From now on, all jobs will be reserved for whites.

"We're gonna run the city.

"And Alex Manly must leave town and his newspaper must shut down."

JESSIE BLAKE (dramatized): "These resolutions were "unanimously approved by the meeting.

"Followed by a wonderful demonstration, "the assemblage rising to its feet and cheering, "'Right, right, right!'

"And there were cries of "'Fumigate the city with a Record!'

"And 'Lynch Manly!'

Jessie Blake, Wilmington Resident."

UMFLEET: The Committee of 25 was selected to implement these demands.

Alfred Moore Waddell was made chair because he had made himself the face of the white supremacy campaign in Wilmington.

They came up with a list of the 30 leading Black citizens in the community.

WADDELL (dramatized): "The following named colored citizens of Wilmington are requested to meet a committee of citizens appointed by the authority of "the meeting of businessmen and taxpayers held this morning "at 6:00 this evening "at the merchant's rooms on Front Street "to consider a matter of grave consequence "to the Negroes of Wilmington.

"By order of the committee, A.M. Waddell, Chairman."

SANDERS: So they are summoning Black men who they believe hold stature in Black communities and will be able to convince African Americans to accept the demands in the declaration.

William Henderson was one of the most prominent Black attorneys.

He had had to leave Salisbury for his own safety, because he had represented a Black man who was accused of murdering a white man.

He had only come to Wilmington the year before.

HENDERSON (dramatized): "I was on the street "when two men drove by in a buggy.

'There's going to be a meeting this evening at 7:00 "at which prominent citizens are to be present.'

"I appeared at the hall in the evening.

"Colonel Waddell was presiding.

"He proceeded to inform us "that we had been called there "not for the purpose of consultation, but to receive an ultimatum."

Both groups of men would've been familiar with each other.

They knew each other because they were all leaders in the city.

When they invite the Committee of Colored Citizens, there's posturing in that gesture.

"We're going to allow you into the sanctum very briefly.

You know, you're not allowed to speak."

HENDERSON (dramatized): The resolution set forth that editor Manly's paper must cease publication, and the press must be packed up and shipped out of the city.

We were given until noon the following day for our answer.

You know, the men didn't really have an option.

They understood the writing on the wall.

KIERAN: "A meeting was held "and some colored men, among myself, "were picked out as good persons to be rid of.

"A friend came to me to tell me to leave, for they had decided to put a bullet through me."

Alexander Manly had a few white friends in Wilmington, and one in particular, who was a German grocer, you know, came to him secretly and said, "Look, your life is at stake.

"You have upset a lot of people.

You need to get out of town."

"His friend gave him $25 and said, "'This is the password, "'and may God be with you, my boy.

You are too fine to be swung up to a tree.'"

WOMAN (dramatized): "He used the password and escaped in the woods "and over Fulton Bridge.

"The guards at the bridge said, 'Halt.'

"He used the password again and they said, "'We are having a necktie party in Wilmington.

"Where are you gentlemen going?'

Carrie Sadgwar Manly."

SANDERS: Alexander Manly and his brother, who look white, are, you know, able to pretend to be white men who are out conducting business.

Essentially, they tell the patrolmen that they are on their way to an auction to buy horses.

One of the patrolmen said, "If you see that Manly, make sure you kill him."

And they gave him a rifle on the way out of town.

And the only reason he wasn't caught was 'cause he was so light-skinned and he could pass.

(choir vocalizing) ZUCCHINO: Alex Manly's fiance, Carrie Sadgwar, she was on tour in London with the Fisk Jubilee Singers and read a newspaper account that said, "A burly Negro was being pursued by bloodhounds in the swamps."

CARRIE SADGWAR (dramatized): "I read in 'The London Chronicle' that "trouble was brewing as he had escaped to the swamps, "and the bloodhounds were on his trail.

"I stood on a stage that night to sing my solo, "and my voice quivered and stopped.

"A doctor came backstage and said, 'This child has had a shock.'"

"I thought that after a few days of my absence, "that there would be no cause for any crimes, then I could come back."

Then I could come back... (sniffs) KELLEY: So Manly had already left.

He's out of the state, and this group of 32 Black leaders, they're terrified.

Alfred Waddell had given the men a deadline.

It was like a 12-hour deadline to have a response, a written response, to the White Man's Declaration of Independence.

ZUCCHINO: They went to a barbershop and met and wrote a letter in response.

MAN (dramatized): "Dear sir, "we the colored citizens to whom was referred "the matter of expulsion from this community, "of the person and press of A.L.

Manly, "beg most respectfully "to say that we are in no ways responsible "nor in any way endorse the obnoxious article "that called forth your activities.

"Neither are we authorized "to act for him in this matter; "but in the interest of peace, "we will most willingly use our influence "to have your wishes carried out.

Very respectfully, The Committee of Colored Citizens."

KELLEY: They were afraid of losing a lot more than just their lives.

Losing property, losing all the political capital they built up in Wilmington.

They decided that Armond Scott, who was the youngest of this group; he was a lawyer.

They said, "You're the guy who's gonna go deliver this to Waddell's house."

ANDERSON: So, that Black man is headed to Waddell's house and there are Red Shirts there as sentry post.

So he puts it in the mail.

There's this huge gathering in the morning, awaiting the answer from the Committee of Colored Citizens.

Now, Waddell had been told of this letter and that it had been mailed, but he made a pretense of waiting.

Even though Waddell had verbal agreement from the Black leadership, Waddell says, "Well, I never got the memo on that."

People were in, just a sense of rage and resentment because they had been built up all summer.

So they were ready.

Ready and primed for violence.

They meet right outside the building we're in right now at the Wilmington Light Infantry Armory.

UMFLEET: Waddell arranges the Red Shirts that are in place and the other armed members of the White Government Union all in good skirmish lines because, remember, he's a Confederate officer, and they marched down Market Street to go to where Alex Manly's printing press had moved.

ZUCCHINO: They're looking for Alex Manly to lynch him, not aware that he has already left town.

And this mob just gets larger and larger.

As people hear about it, they're firing in the air.

People hear gunshots.

(gun shots, shouting) It starts at 500 people, ends up 2,000 armed white men.

(booming, glass breaking) UMFLEET: The men proceed to destroy the printing press.

Lanterns are turned over and a fire breaks out.

SANDERS: It would be Black firefighters in the city who respond to that fire.

UMFLEET: They're held at the intersection until the white men clear the way for them to put the fire out.

ANDERSON: And there is one of those historic photographs where you see all of these white men and white boys smiling at what they had done.

ZUCCHINO: If you look at their faces, they are so proud.

And this is very reminiscent of the lynching photos that were very popular at the time that were turned into postcards.

They wanted to lynch somebody, and they didn't get to lynch anybody.

So they start looking for other targets and they hear there's a commotion at Sprunt's Cotton Compress on the waterfront.

There are 800 Black men working there.

SULLIVAN: There were rumors going around town that the Black laborers were going to march en masse and fight back.

The mob wheels one of the machine guns to the cotton compress.

James Sprunt, who runs this compress, is very concerned 'cause he needs to load these ships.

These ships are waiting.

For him, this is a nightmare, because this is his whole labor force.

If these men are killed, it's going to shut down his operation.

He asks the Black men who work there to lift him up onto a bale of uncompressed cotton.

They put him on top of it, this little man.

And there's a confrontation there with this white mob gathering outside the compress, wanting to kill the Black men, with the white leadership trying to hold them back after they'd been stoking all this violence all summer.

Sprunt was one of the businessmen who contributed to the purchase of that gun.

He was one of the wealthiest men in the city.

Yet when that gun was aimed at his workers, he put himself between the gun and his workers.

ZUCCHINO: The only thing that diffused this confrontation was rumors that another crowd of Black men was gathering at Fourth and Harnett, a few blocks away.

A group of Black workers who had seen the smoke, heard the fire bells, and celebratory gunshots being fired in the direction of the printing press building, they had left their jobs on the wharves and the docks to check on their families and to find out what had happened.

ZUCCHINO: They're assuming these white mobs are gonna descend on their neighborhood and attack their homes and burn their homes, and they had a few old guns that they managed to put together.

(crowd shouting) There was this standoff with insults being yelled back and forth, taunts.

And the temperature just starts rising and rising and rising.

And that's where the actual shooting and killing begins.

(gunfire) Most witnesses say the whites fired first.

I believe that.

Would've been no advantage to the Black men to start a fight when they're completely outgunned.

25 Black men who are standing outside as they're being confronted by 400 to 500 armed white men with Winchester rifles, and they shoot back.

These Black men shoot back, and many of them get killed as a result.

There's chaos.

The Black men disperse and start running through the streets, and the white gunmen chase them through the streets and every Black man they see, they shoot.

There were reports of, of men just walking home from work being shot dead.

Men just standing on a corner being shot dead.

J. ALLEN KIRK (dramatized): "Men stood at their labor, "wringing their hands and weeping, "but they dare not move to the protection of their homes.

"And then, when they passed through the streets, "had to hold up their hands and be searched.

"Little white boys of the city searched them "and took from them every means of defense, "and if they resisted, they were shot down."

Reverend J. Allen Kirk.

UMFLEET: Once word was received at the Wilmington Light Infantry Headquarters that shots were being fired in Brooklyn, in the north end of town, Walker Taylor sends a telegram to Governor Russell.

ZUCCHINO: Colonel Walker Taylor, one of the leaders of the white supremacy campaign, duped the governor, saying, "The Blacks are rioting."

And so he authorized Walker Taylor to bring out the militia, declare martial law, and that unleashed the militia against the Black population.

The Wilmington Light Infantry marched throughout the blocks of the Black community to suppress any sort of attempts at retaliation.

ZUCCHINO: They truly believed the lie that Black men were stockpiling weapons in churches.

So they would go to churches, and point these rapid-fire machine guns at the door and force the pastors to open up for a search.

And, of course, they never found a single weapon.

At a place called Manhattan Park, which was a community center where special events would happen, a dance hall.

In their mind, it was a place where Black troublemakers went to get drunk and cause trouble.

So they shot it up, shot up the clapboard fence that is around, and went inside.

And this man named Josh Halsey panics, and bolts, and runs away.

They fire at him, they don't hit him.

He makes it back to his home.

Because Halsey lived just around the corner, his family was in proximity to all of this violence.

ELAINE BROWN: My name is Elaine Brown.

I'm Joshua Halsey's second-great-granddaughter.

One of his daughters came running through to warn him that the militia was coming, so when they entered the home, Joshua runs out the back way, running for his life.

"He's coming out."

Joshua took 14 shots to the back of the head.

He's been reduced to this corpse in the street.

Women and children witnessed him being mowed down by multiple bullets and were not allowed to go anywhere near him.

Until nightfall, Josh Halsey lies in the street, and his family retrieves his body under cover of darkness.

SULLIVAN: One thing about Josh is his wife-- she had gotten hurt crossing a bridge.

She sued.

It helps to explain the strangeness of that moment, that they singled this person out.

KELLEY: When you begin to see bodies falling, left and right, the rest of the Black community is terrified.

And that's when they realize, they can't win this one.

KIRK (dramatized): "Firing began, "and it seemed like a mighty battle in wartime.

"The shrieks and screams of children, "of mothers, of wives were heard, such as caused the blood of the most inhuman person to creep."

Reverend J. Allen Kirk.

Families are grabbing whatever they can, and getting out of their houses and they're running, because they're assuming their houses are gonna be torched, they're all gonna be killed.

And 2,000 people start going through the streets, stepping over or around these bodies.

Many of them go to Pine Forest Cemetery, which is the Black cemetery, on the assumption that maybe the white gunmen wouldn't go there.

They go into the swamps and into the forests, any place they can hide from the white gunmen.

(thunder rumbling) A sunny mild day had suddenly turned into a gray, rainy, cold day.

They didn't have enough time to bring blankets or heavy coats 'cause earlier in the day, it had been mild, so they're completely exposed to the elements in a driving cold November rain, huddled.

PRISCILLA: Felice Sadgwar, who was one of the Sadgwar sisters, she remembers being young and held in the rushes of the Cape Fear River, hiding out that night, that November 10.

And her father had to hold her mouth down... Mm-hmm.

From screaming, as dead bodies passed them... PRISCILLA: Mm-hmm.

KIERAN: ...through the water.

ANDERSON: So, think about that.

You're running for safety into a swamp, because it's safer in a swamp... than it is in your home.

ZUCCHINO: By mid-afternoon on November 10, the shooting had started to die down because so many people had fled.

Waddell and the other leaders of the conspiracy turned to actually taking over the city government.

They met at Thalian Hall, and all these gunmen from the streets course in there, in just a high state of rage and anticipation.

They call the sitting government in-- the mayor, the police chief, the aldermen-- and, at gunpoint, they tell them that there is a white revolution, their jobs no longer exist, and they have to resign.

Then the mob leaders installed Waddell as mayor.

They replaced the police chief with a former Confederate officer.

Following the rule of law that said if a member of the Board of Aldermen resigns his seat, the existing board then votes to fill the vacancy.

Waddell conveniently had a list of pre-approved white supremacy candidates for the Board of Aldermen seats for each precinct.

And one by one, members of the Board of Aldermen resigned their seats.

And one by one, new people were put in place.

MEG MACRAE: "Alderman Keith and C.D.

Morrell, "having tendered their resignations "as member of the board from the third ward, "Hugh MacRae and J. Alan Taylor "were elected aldermen in their stead.

"They were sworn in by the mayor and took their seats."

This is a transition of government under duress.

A definition of a coup d'tat is an armed overthrow of a legally elected government, which is what happened on this day in Wilmington.

Makes it really, like... um, palpable.

Like that's how he did that, or they did that.

Yeah.

MAN: "Banished by Whites, "Leaders of the Negro Element Are Forced to Leave "Wilmington, North Carolina.

"Men of both races who are held responsible "for inciting the Negroes "were forced to leave the city today.

"These men are regarded as a menace to the peace of the community."

ANDERSON: After Waddell and the white supremacists have taken over the municipal government, then it is, "Okay, we can't have these rabble-rousers among us."

And so basically they order the Black leadership to leave.

Many of these Black individuals and their white allies received visits from white supremacists, and they are escorted to the train station and essentially saying, "You are banished from ever living in Wilmington again."

They're not really given time to, to really pack up their goods.

Their... some of them are able to take basically a day's worth of clothing with them.

HENDERSON (dramatized): "40 or 50 men, "each armed with a rifle and wearing "a white handkerchief about his left arm, entered, "filling my parlor, the hall, and the porch outside.

(hard knock on door) "I called my wife to bring a light.

"When I was dressed, I seated myself and said, "'Well, gentlemen, what do you want?'

"'We have come to tell you you must leave.

"You are not the sort of man we want here.'

"The next day, I went about "trying to settle my business.

"Every man I met looked at me suspiciously.

"At 5:00, I went to the station to leave town "and sent for my family.

"They were in a deathly fear "as the train rolled on through the state, "as every station were mobs ready to lynch "any Negro who had been deported from Wilmington, who might attempt to leave the train."

William Henderson.

SANDERS: T.C.

Miller was one of the most prominent Black businessmen in Wilmington.

He had amassed a pretty significant fortune through his real estate dealings.

He had convinced himself that because he was on good terms with some of the white leaders and he did business, he felt that that would insulate him and he would be okay, and he was completely wrong, because a mob came to his house.

He was on the banishment list, and they dragged him out, his young daughter clinging to him, begging them not to take her father.

They put him on a gun truck and took him to the jail.

The next day, he was put on a train and banished forever from Wilmington.

T.C.

MILLER (dramatized): "I have been treated not like a human, "but worse than a dog.

"And someday the Lord will punish them "that punished me without a cause.

"When I think about it all, knowing I'm not guilty, "it almost drives me mad-- "just to think how my own people could "treat me as they have without a cause, knowingly.

Oh, my god."

T. C. Miller.

There would be several instances after 1900 where he would attempt to come back to Wilmington.

And every time, he's told, "You're no longer welcomed here."

CAMPBELL-EASON: "Wilmington, N.C. "November 13, 1898.

"William McKinley, "President of the United States of America.

"Honorable Sir, "I, a Negro woman of this city, "appeal to you from the depths of my heart to do something in the Negro behalf."

WOMAN (dramatized): "I call on you, "the head of the American nation, "to help these humble subjects.

"We are loyal.

"We go when duty calls us, "and are we to die like rats in a trap?

"With no place to seek redress "or to go with our grievances?

"Why do you forsake the Negro, "who is not to blame for being here?

"How can the Negroes sing "'My Country, 'Tis of Thee'?

"Today we are mourners "in a strange land, "with no protection near.

God help us."

"I cannot say my name and live, "but every word of this is true.

"Yours, in much distress.

Wilmington, North Carolina."

Anonymous Woman.

MAN 1 (dramatized): "A Day of Blood at Wilmington.

Negroes Precipitate Conflict by Firing on the Whites.'"

MAN 2 (dramatized): "Bloody Conflict with Negroes.

"White Men Forced to Take Up Arms "for the Preservation of Law and Order.

Blacks Provoke Trouble."

MAN 3 (dramatized): "Negroes, It is Said, Fired First."

You had newspapers like "The New York Times," "The Washington Post," every major paper in the country sent their white correspondents down.

When they came into town, the white supremacists would meet them at the train station and give them cigars and whiskey and arrange for their lodging.

And these white reporters repeated these lies word for word.

WILLIAMS: A lot of white newspapers used the language of "race riot," which suggests that Black people are the aggressors.

Or they will reframe it as violence between Black and white people, as though Black people were instigating the violence and white people were only defending themselves, which we know is absolutely not happening here.

ZUCCHINO: Colonel Waddell arranges for an article in "Collier's Weekly," which was a very, very prominent national magazine then, and it was a complete lie, a complete whitewash.

He writes a story that he was reluctantly asked to lead this quiet revolution for good government to overthrow a corrupt and incompetent Black government.

Which became the standard treatment of what happened.

WILLIAMS: Black newspapers, on the other hand, tell a very different story.

They're very familiar with these larger patterns of racist violence.

Black newspapers are more likely to interview survivors, so you'll have people who live through the massacre and coup, who will tell their stories.

MAN 1 (dramatized): "Murder will out.

"The race war was proposed by professional politicians whose names are known."

MAN 2 (dramatized): "The record of those days "immediately following November 8 makes me wonder if, in fact, we are living in the Middle Ages."

MAN 3 (dramatized): "The massacre of the defenseless colored people "by the brutes calling themselves white men "at Wilmington, North Carolina, should be regarded "by every honest American as one of the worst outrageous crimes that was ever perpetrated in a civilized country."

HOGE (dramatized): "Since we last met in these walls, we have taken a city.

"This city we have taken "not by investment and siege, "not by shot and shell, but as thoroughly, "as completely, as if captured in battle.

"It has been redeemed for civilization, "redeemed for law and order, "redeemed for decency and respectability.

"No possible question can be raised as to the lawfulness of the result."

Reverend Payton Hoge.

DANIELS (dramatized): "Following the white supremacy victory, "there were celebrations all over the state.

"'The News and Observer' took the ground "that the celebration ought to be held "and that it meant no harm to the Negroes.

"That the Democrats were their friends and not enemies, "and that the whole celebration would serve to bring about a kindly feeling between the races."

Josephus Daniels.

In the days after the insurrection, African Americans are truly terrorized and fearing for their lives.

UMFLEET: We really don't know how many people were murdered that day.

I believe it was between 40 and 60, but many of those, who they are, we'll never know.

There were several Black men who crawled under houses, and their bodies weren't found for days.

KELLEY: It's not as if families of the victims are going to the coroner saying, "Could you investigate?"

It's probably more reasonable to think of hundreds who were killed.

(insects chirping) SANDERS: There are men, women, and children hiding in swamps all around Wilmington.

UMFLEET: They slowly filter back into Wilmington.

Some never come back.

The consequences of the massacre is this mass exodus where Black people leave the city of Wilmington in droves.

The Black middle class, the entrepreneurial class, they leave in large numbers.

They realize that there was no way for them to put the pieces back together.

Wilmington, which had been 56% Black, suddenly becomes a white majority city.

WADDELL (dramatized): "The race war is ended.

"The race question is settled.

"White supremacy has been established, "and I believe the Blacks will be better for it.

Never again will they be in control of this state."

Alfred Moore Waddell.

ELAINE BROWN: After Josh was murdered, my thoughts go to my second-great-grandmother, Sallie.

'Cause shortly after leaving, you know, Grandma shows up in newspapers, uh, as a shoplifter.

So we know what her life was like after she had left, uh, Wilmington.

You know, she was reduced to stealing to feed her family.

SANDERS: When Manly leaves Wilmington, he goes to Washington D.C., where he first has housing with North Carolina congressman George Henry White.

It would be in Congressman White's house that he marries Carrie Sadgwar in 1899.

His properties were stolen.

(stammering): He had owned two houses in town.

He did send a proxy... Mm-hmm.

...to pay the taxes on his properties and try to make sure that they still owned them.

His proxy was chased out of town with a shot... with a shotgun.

SANDERS: Seeking employment that would allow him to take care of their growing family, the couple leaves Washington and relocates to Philadelphia, where Alexander Manly would work as a painter for the rest of his life.

ZUCCHINO: He rarely talked about it.

There was only one time he actually let go in public.

Um, he was asked to give a speech in Providence to, uh, an African American audience.

"Whole families have broken up and scattered, "some going one way and some another.

"The homes representing their savings are deserted, "and many who were in good circumstances "are now forced to beg for their bread.

"Do you think that God will allow these things to go unavenged?

Never."

Alex Manly, January 31, 1899.

AYCOCK (dramatized): "Life and property and liberty from the mountains to the sea "shall rest secure in the guardianship of the law.

"But to do this, we must disenfranchise the Negro.

"The great mass of white men in the state are now demanding, "and have demanded, that the matter be settled once and for all."

Charles Aycock.

Once the white supremacists stole the election and took control of the state legislature, one of the first things they did was to try to come up with a legislation that would prevent Black men from ever voting again.

Massive disfranchisement with poll taxes and literacy test and a grandfather clause.

The grandfather clause says, if your grandfather could vote before 1867, you too can vote.

ZUCCHINO: Of course, this eliminated just about every Black man because they didn't have the vote before 1867.

But it meant that, uh, white men who couldn't afford to pay the poll tax and illiterate white men didn't have to pass those two tests and could vote.

And just to show how effective this, this campaign had been, in 1896, just two years before the coup, 126,000 Black men had registered to vote in North Carolina.

126,000.

And by 1902, four years after the coup, that number had been whittled down to 6,100.

SANDERS: When George Henry White leaves Congress in 1901, there would not be another African American in Congress until 1992.

So for almost a century, African Americans in the state are void of representation at the federal level.

KELLEY: What happened in Wilmington had the effect of putting the final nail in the coffin of democracy in North Carolina.

1898 was the culmination of a process that had begun in many states throughout the South.

That is the end of Black voting rights, Black civil rights, until 1960s.

The lack of a response from state or federal officials gave white supremacists in other places license to do as they pleased when it came to taking away the civil rights of African Americans.

No one was ever held accountable or held responsible.

And that really sent a message to the rest of the South.

These influential white supremacist businessmen in Wilmington, who really planned and executed the coup d'tat at the local level, they all wind up more powerful on the other side.

The architects and key players are rewarded quite handsomely for their involvement.

ZUCCHINO: Charles Aycock was elected governor, and he was one of three speakers on the white supremacy campaign who later became governors of North Carolina.

SANDERS: We see Furnifold Simmons go to the United States Senate and serve for the next 30 years.

SULLIVAN: And Josephus Daniels became the Secretary of the Navy.

SANDERS: He later goes on to be an ambassador to Mexico.

GILMORE: These people capitalized on what they had done.

I think it's really hard for us to grasp how openly proud these people were of installing white government.

It was told as this glorious story of restoring good government, and that continues.

Thomas Dixon writes "The Leopard's Spots," which is a fictional account of Wilmington.

He's the same author who wrote "The Clansman."

And that play and book became "Birth of a Nation."

(film music playing) D.W. Griffith's so-called masterpiece.

And we have to see how "Birth of a Nation" in many ways is the cinematic, monumental version of Wilmington.

(film music playing) The myth of bad Black government running the nation into the ground.

And being saved and redeemed by the Klan.

Whether it's the Klan or whether it's the Red Shirts, the idea that good government is implemented through undemocratic means... ...and white government is the only legitimate government we can have in the United States.

(film music playing) The ways that the history appears in things like textbooks is very revealing in terms of how they want to be seen and how they want this event remembered by any readers, Black or white.

So there is a strategic campaign of telling a very distorted version of its history.

MAN 1 (dramatized): "There were many Negro office holders "in the eastern part of the state, "some of who were poorly fitted for their task.

This naturally aroused ill-feeling between the races."

MAN 2 (dramatized): "The mass of Negroes became poor citizens.

"To keep their vote, "the carpetbaggers and scalawags allowed them "to do very much as they pleased.

The white people of the South were no longer safe."

WOMAN (dramatized): "A number of Blacks were jailed for starting a riot, "and a new white administration took over Wilmington's government."

The perpetrators, during their lifetimes, bragged openly about it.

But once that generation died out, people realized that, wow, this is a real stain on Wilmington.

So it was buried.

It just disappeared as if it had never happened.

Both sides of my family are eighth generation North Carolinians.

I had never heard of the Wilmington Racial Massacre until I was, um, in my late 30s.

As a North Carolina native, I took several courses on North Carolina history throughout my middle school and high school career.

And I never recall, um, hearing about the Wilmington Insurrection as a part of any social studies or history class that I took.

I didn't know about it, like everybody else in Wilmington, for a very long time.

When I was growing up here in high school and even into college, I was drinking the Kool-Aid.

I learned all this about my great-grandfather in 2018, and it was just a physical blow to my body.

'Cause it was such a, a departure from everything I'd been told about my family and everything I had believed.

None of this stuff was talked about, never, ever.

You get told what you get told about your history, so you don't think, oh, I should go look to see if that's not true, you know what I mean?

Especially if it's coming from your family members.

How would I know to ask something that is essentially not talked about, not in the history books, not... you can't find it.

Like, how would you know to ask a question that isn't really tangibly there to ask, right?

WILLIAMS: For African Americans, you will also have people who just cannot talk about it because they're too hurt by what happened, by the betrayal.

Those Black survivors and their descendants are understandably cautious.

They're very clear in their understanding of their ongoing vulnerabilities to reprisal for even talking about what happened.

It was pretty much taboo for anyone to talk about.

And so my grandmother didn't talk about it.

Her sister didn't talk about it.

My dad and his siblings, they were all of the stance, uh, do not go back to Wilmington.

Just leave alone and move forward.

They were still running.

They were, they were still trying to survive.

The community of Wilmington didn't really discuss amongst themselves what happened to the city.

(drumming) UMFLEET: Not until the centennial observances in 1998, did the white and Black community finally come together in a grassroots kind of way to discuss what happened.

WOMAN: May we combine our energies to work towards peace and understanding.

CROWD: Let's move forward together.

(applause) HUGH MCRAE II: Well, good afternoon everybody.

It really is wonderful to be here for this picnic in the park, uh, afternoon of good fellowship and good fun.

The events of 1898 were very unfortunate.

They were sort of typical of the times.

No one living today had anything to do with any of these things that happened in the past.

And I've been delighted that the whole celebration could be so positive and a lot of good's gonna come out of it.

Thank you very much for inviting me.

I'm glad to be here.

(applause) For some reason, even when you're trying to heal, the first step or process to healing, you know, you're gonna be angry.

And for some reason, uh, the white, the white society, just, um, they don't collectively want a lot of Black people angry at the same time.

The problem that I had with 1898 was, uh, that my family lost a legacy.

My, uh, great-grandfather Isham Quick was on the board of directors for the Metropolitan Trust Company, um, which I presume was a Black-owned bank.

Basically, um, the business that he had, you know, no longer existed after that massacre.

I feel that, that there was a great deal taken from my, my mother and from his daughters, um, my grandmother, um, and from my children.

MAN: Thank you.

CAMPBELL-EASON: Mm-hmm.

(voiceover): As a descendant, it wasn't what I envisioned.

It was a kumbaya type of an agenda instead of repair.

I was really angry.

For a long time, I couldn't even talk about it without my eyes, like, just burning with angry tears.

I'll tell you, back in the '80s, it was an eerie feeling when you came in, and it was a whole lot of "why" questions.

And when you start going into certain areas, historically, asking questions, you can get tagged as a difficult person.

FINLAY: You're always welcome to come hang out with us, 'cause we wanna help.

Okay.

Here's an annual meeting of the Metropolitan Trust Company.

Hey, wow.

"Annual meeting of the Metropolitan Trust Company, "colored, was held at the city hall last night.

"The amount paid by the stockholders for dues is $5,526 and 45 cents."

Shoot, I don't know if I have that today.

You know, I always wondered what happened to the bank, how the impact of the massacre affected their income.

FINLAY: And then this is the People's Perpetual Building and Loan Association.

Hm!

So, and we have the directors and they're...

So I found all of that.

Never knew about the second bank.

Yeah.

Not just one bank, but two banks.

Two banks.

ANDERSON (voiceover): You think about the loss of wealth that this mass exile creates.

And then what we say is like, "Well, I don't know why Black folks can't make it.

"You know, everybody else who comes here does.

I don't know what's wrong with Black people."

What we have to acknowledge is the stealing of their wealth, the stealing of their generational legacies.

Wilmington is one of many, many sites of, uh, racist violence and dispossession where people are demanding, and rightfully so, reparations.

An accounting of the dead, the injured, the maimed, of loss of economic opportunity by being forced away.

Repair is a part of the healing process.

Because you can sing and go to church and hold hands, but at the end of the day, people are still struggling to pay their bills.

You know, they're still losing their properties.

There's still been a steady removal of African Americans from the city.

Most people when they relocate to Wilmington, they always say, "This is a beautiful place, "but there's just something, something in the atmosphere.

"You know, something's going on.

(panelists murmuring agreement) You know, something is like really weird about this place."

And, you know, those spirits are still here.

It's important for white people in this town to talk about, to acknowledge, you know, what happened, what our blood, what our ancestors did.

(voiceover): I think it would be very healing and very helpful for, you know, a restorative justice process in this town to take place.

But it, you know, it's gotta have more people who will come forward who are descendants.

When I read this plaque now, I feel like the most important thing to me is "Alfred Howe: carpenter."

He was the master carpenter.

You could basically say he built this house.

(voiceover): He was part of a Black family of builders.

They had a hand in so many buildings in this town.

It made perfect sense to me that with my portion of the inheritance from that house, that, um, some kind of scholarship would be established.

Um, and we call it the Howe Scholarship.

It's for African American high school students who want to pursue an education in the building arts of any kind.

Honestly, I, you know, they're my ancestors, I believe they're, they're in me.

They're coming through me.

And the big thing for me is that, you know, the truth begins here, in my generation.

And, um, and the lies stop in my generation.

(women vocalizing) (vocalizing continues) BROWN: I've always felt like this story was always meant to be told.

Not just Joshua's story, but the whole Wilmington story, told honestly.

SULLIVAN: As most of you know, 123 years ago this month, a white supremacist mob massacred an unknown number of Black citizens in this town.

Why, despite the fact that so many people were murdered in the city that day, were there no graves?

Zero.

There was no place in town where a person or a family or a descendant could go and stand and say, "Here lies a victim of the massacre of 1898."

Many of the bodies we know were pushed into the river.

Others were buried privately in backyards.

There may be a mass grave somewhere.

This research has only begun.

Joshua was murdered by a system, and others like him were murdered by a system.

It was not some insane folk.

It was very sane people.

Who plotted and planned, and we cannot have a normal funeral as though he and others died a normal death ordained by God.

These were violent deaths.

We commit this dust and this dirt in remembrance of Joshua-- say his name.

CROWD: Halsey.

Our legacy can't be in the swamps.

It can't be that Josh was murdered.

I feel like this should have been a story of how prominent my grandparents were.

People who could read and write, own homes, and knew their rights as citizens.

Where is our legacy?

Where is it?

DANIELS: I used to be the editor of "The News and Observer."

I was the fourth editor under the family ownership.

Josephus Daniels, his son, Jonathan Daniels, Claude Sitton, and then me.

Then we sold the newspaper in 1995.

That's Jonathan Daniels, when he was press secretary to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

My dad was chairman of the Associated Press for almost nine years.

This is a picture of when my father and grandfather had this statue commissioned, and it's the statue that my cousin, David Woronoff, and I had taken down in 2020.

"The News and 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.

I can't apologize for him, but, you know, I feel remorse.

Part of the legacy that I have is that we were the worst of it for a period of time.

CEDRIC HARRISON: We're going to stop and we're going to get out and spend some time here with some sacred ground.

For those that don't know, we are standing at what used to be "The Daily Record" when it was burned down during 1898.

Of course, the angry mob was very successful with burning down this Black voice, this Black business, this Black media publication... KIERAN (voiceover): His businesses, his properties, to this day, they're all still burned down, vacant lots.

Someone could have built something else there.

There's scars that have not healed or, you know, not recovered.

They're still kind of, uh, gaping wounds.

MATT JOHNSON: Hello, welcome everyone.

- Hi.

- Hi.

How you doing?

I'm Matt Johnson, I'm director of conservation.

We're very glad to finally have, "The Daily Record" ready to come back.

So when it came to us, the newspaper was fragmented, very brittle, and it was folded in here with another newspaper.

They were commingled, actually.

Someone has written, probably Carrie herself, has written on the outside of the envelope, um, "1898.

Do Not Destroy."

That's all it said.

We started "The Daily Record" Project, which is about locating as many surviving copies of that newspaper as, as can be found, and also as much surviving text.

"The Daily Record" existed for four years?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, at least.

And there are only seven copies remaining in existence of a daily newspaper.

So now it is a solid piece.

It will be probably, you know, 125 years since a Manly, uh, family member actually physically held one of these pieces of paper.

Feel free to hold it.

Feel free to touch it.

Oh God... Yeah.

Oh God...

It's, it's solid.

Yeah.

Here, I'll, I'll grab the other side And turn it over.

and then we can flip it back over.

...was a page.

Yeah.

Yeah... Yeah.

That's fantastic.

Part of me was just kind of afraid that, uh, none of this would ever get seen by anybody and that I... it would just all exist in my mind and, you know what I mean?

So this is proof.

(chuckles) It's very nice to, to actually have something here.

That's, that's... it's a new feeling to be honest.

I mean, thank you all for this work.

Absolutely.

This is fantastic.

And I'm glad we have it.

But a part of me is, uh... You feel the loss of the other copies.

I feel...

I feel, yeah, the tragedy of all the, everything that we don't have here.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

How many more stories do we not get to read or talk about or think about?

Mm.

(indistinct chatter) Hey, how you been?

There's so many people here, I wasn't prepared.

(laughter) (indistinct chatter) In an act of remediation, in an act of reclaiming the land and beginning, uh, one very small, uh, step of attending to these scars on the land, we're gonna be planting these daffodil bulbs.

Places remember us.

I still feel the energy, uh, of that day when I come here.

This place is not done with me.

This place is not done with us.

We are the descendants of great people.

All of the descendants, come stand by me.

I want you to stand by me.

I want you all to look.

We are still here.

We are a family.

(applause) We are still here.

Look at us.

Look at how beautiful we are.

(applause continues) Look at how strong we are.

ANDERSON: The tragedy of Wilmington is that you see what people had worked so hard to create just a few decades out of slavery.

And then to have white supremacy destroy all of that.

We have to understand the conditions that allowed a duly elected government to be overthrown in a democracy.

The only way that we can deal with this is not to slough it off as "This is not who we are, this is not what we do."

But is to understand, yes, we did this.

And that we will never do this again.

WOMAN: You can take my body, you can take my bones You can take my blood, but not my soul You can take my body, you can take my bones Take my blood, but not my soul.

ANNOUNCER: "American Experience: American Coup: Wilmington 1898" is available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.