Wilmington Insurrection of 1898

The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898, occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina and is considered a turning point in North Carolina politics following Reconstruction. Originally labeled a race riot, it is now also termed a coup d'etat. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93615391] This incident is the only instance of a municipal government being overthrown in US history. [John DeSantis, "Wilmington, N.C., Revisits a Bloody 1898 Day." The New York Times at 1, 33. June 4, 2006] The Wilmington Insurrection was the illegal seizure of power from an elected government by white supremacists, who used, among their many weapons, a Gatling gun mounted on a wagon and photographed themselves in their activities. Governor Daniel Lindsay Russell and President William McKinley, who were well-informed of these events, did nothing in response.

etting and execution

Wilmington, then the largest city in the state, had a majority-black population, large number of black professionals and a strong, biracial Republican Party. A group of white supremacists, planning to reestablish the Democratic Party, led the insurgency. They killed twenty two blacks as well as white RepublicansFact|date=March 2008.

Whites initiated targeted violence on November 10, 1898, just after the general election that brought Democrats back to power in the state legislature. A mob led by Alfred Moore Waddell and others forced white Republican Mayor Silas P. Wright and other members of the city government (both black and white) to resign (they would not be up for re-election until 1899). A new city council elected Waddell to take over as mayor. [http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/1898-wrrc/report/Chapter5.pdf]

Subsequent to usurping power, Democrats (see North Carolina General Assembly of 1899-1900) passed the first Jim Crow laws for North Carolina. The democrats had established martial law for African Americans in North Carolina and had thus forged a template applied far beyond the state's borders for at least fifty years. Many of the rights blacks had secured after the Civil War were cleansed from the law. It would not be until the African-American Civil Rights Movement several generations later that African Americans would regain their civil rights. In 1900, a second "white supremacy" political campaign cemented the Democrats' domination and elected Charles B. Aycock as governor.

In 2000, the North Carolina General Assembly established the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission to develop a historical record of the event and to assess the economic impact of the riot on blacks locally and across the region and state. [ [http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/1898-wrrc/whoweare.htm 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Established by General Assembly] ] The commission was co-chaired by state legislator Thomas E. Wright, whose 2007 campaign finance scandal seemed to damage the prospects of the commission's proposed legislation. [ [http://www.newsobserver.com/news/1898_riots/story/587521.html News & Observer] ]

In January 2007, the North Carolina Democratic Party officially acknowledged and renounced the actions by party leaders during the Wilmington insurrection and the White Supremacy campaigns. [ [http://www.ncdp.org/node/1546 North Carolina Democratic Party] ]

Media involvement

The press at the time of the riots purportedly contributed to them by publicizing the elections and encouraging people from other parts of the state to travel and participate in the upcoming coup d'état. The News & Observer in Raleigh, run at the time by Josephus Daniels, remains today one of the largest papers in the state. There has also been discussion of participation by the Charlotte Observer.

ee also

*Mass racial violence in the United States
*Rosewood Massacre
*Tulsa Race Riot

References

External links

* [http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/page1.cfm?ItemID=19492 Contemporary Editorial from the Cleveland Gazette (1901)]
* [http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/1898-wrrc/ 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission]
* [http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/1898/1898.html NC Election of 1898]
* [http://www.newsobserver.com/news/1898_riots News & Observer: The Ghosts of 1898 (registration required)]
* [http://www.newsobserver.com/1370/story/508767.html News & Observer: 'City confronts a past long buried' (registration required)]
* [http://www.newsobserver.com/1370/story/508595.html News & Observer: 'Group denies state's race riot report' (registration required)]
* [http://www.ibiblio.org/uncpress/features/cecelski/pressrel.html "Democracy Betrayed: The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy"]
* [http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/nc/bio/afro/riot.htm NC State Library]
* [http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/kirk/kirk.html A Statement of Facts Concerning the Bloody Riot in Wilmington, N. C. (Contemporary Account)]