The continuation 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 descendants of Alexander Manly (a target of the Massacre and the editor of the only Black daily newspaper at the time), including Kieran Haile as well as Leila Haile. Listeners will also hear from North Carolina Central University Law Professor Irving Joyner.
Guests In This Episode
Descendants of Alexander Manly, Kieran Haile (top right third from left) and Leila Haile (top right first from left.
NCCU Law Professor Irving Joyner.
“...if I have looked like I looked during the Wilmington massacre, I wouldn't have survived that. Right. , I'd be here today because my Laskin ancestor was able to use his white privilege to survive that massacre. So I know, I think about, you know, where that place is me as a darker skinned black person, who is the descendant of, you know, a lighter skinned black person." ~Leila Haile
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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.