The beginning of a deep dive into the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D'Etat. The massacre was part of a larger white supremacy campaign organized by Democratic leaders in North Carolina. It resulted in the deaths of potentially hundreds of African Americans who lived in Wilmington's Black community, which is where its thriving Black middle class resided. Property owned by African Americans was destroyed. The city's duly elected multi-racial local government - made up of Blacks and whites - was ousted from office and white supremacists were installed through methods of violence, coercion and fraud. In a period of months, Wilmington went from being North Carolina's largest city that was made up of a majority of African American residents to a majority white city that would see its Black population continue to dwindle and lose much of the wealth it had previously amassed in the coming years. Listeners will hear from Pulitzer Prize-winner, contributing writer for the New York Times and author of Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, David Zucchino.
Guests In This Episode
Pulitzer Prize-winner, contributing writer for the New York Times and author of Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, David Zucchino.
“There was also a Reverend William Kirk who was an outspoken religious leader and preach from the pulpit of preached Black advancement and Black empowerment. He too was run out of town, but he left some, very good description, a written description of what had happened that day...those are just a few examples of Black men who stood up, spoke the truth, and made themselves targets and were definitely punished in one way or the other. Alex manly was almost lynched and he escaped. And Reverend Kirk escaped as well. But they were both under threat of lynching. ~David Zucchino
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Musical Attribution:
1. Title: African Moon by John Bartmann. License, disclaimer and copyright information: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Link to Music: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/african-moon
2. Title: Window Sparrows by Axletree. Licensed under a Attribution License. License, disclaimer and copyright information: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
3. Several musical selections are also provided by the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.