America's Only Coup D'脡tat
In this article
North Carolina honors an elected black government that was violently overthrown by racist whites 120 years ago.
Wilmington, N.C. 鈥� When the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Advisory Committee voted to approve a new highway marker, they were faced with a herculean task: how to summarize one of the most catastrophic events in American history in a few lines of text. The necessary brevity of the statement, 12 lines comprised of 34 spaces each, seems hardly adequate to summarize a massacre led by white supremacists against the African American residents of Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898 鈥� the only time a successful coup has taken place on American soil.
As is often the case when trying to encapsulate history, interpretations of the armed assault led by Confederate soldier and former U.S. congressman Colonel Alfred Moore Waddell against prominent African American businesses in Wilmington vary depending on the telling. Therein lies the challenge in memorializing it on a highway marker.
鈥淎rmed white mob met, Nov. 10,1898, at armory here, marched blocks and burned office of DailyRecord, black-owned newspaper,鈥� reads the latest draft of the text. 鈥淰iolence left untold numbers of African Americans dead. Led to overthrow of city government & installation of coup leader as mayor. Was part of a statewide聽political campaign based on calls聽for white supremacy and the exploitation of racial tensions.鈥�
It tells a story, but not the entire story. The events of November 10, 1898 involved hundreds of white men taking to the streets to reclaim the city from the 鈥渃lutches of Negro domination.鈥� In an armed mob, they marched to the office of the African American newspaper, The Daily Record, and burned it to the ground. They then stormed Wilmington鈥檚 predominantly black neighborhood, and opened fire.
By the end of the day, many were dead, many had fled, and the culprits were left to tell the tale.
In 1896, 87 percent of eligible male black voters participated in the local election, which directly led to a number of African Americans being elected to office, and one of the first mixed-race municipal governments in the United States. Ahead of the November 8, 1898 elections, however, white supremacists openly encouraged people to 鈥渧ote race, not politics鈥� and ran campaign ads on the 鈥淲hite Man鈥檚 Ticket鈥� with supported candidates in each district.
In the months leading up to the elections, one of the local papers,聽The Wilmington Messenger, repeatedly ran articles about real and imagined conflicts between the black and white residents. These articles followed a familiar narrative; that the quality of life of whites in Wilmington was being threatened by African American citizens, and/or that whites could retaliate with impunity.
鈥淣egro Killed at Hamlet,鈥� one headline screamed. 鈥淗e insulted and assaulted a well-known white man who wore a red shirt,鈥� was the subhead.
鈥淣ews was received here yesterday of an incident which occurred in Hamlet Wednesday evening, which is but another illustration of the insolence engendered among negroes by the present Republican-negro regime ....鈥�
Central to this theme was the idea that the black men in town posed a sexual risk to white women, and it was the responsibility of white men to protect them. On August 18, 1898, Alex Manly, the editor-in-chief of聽The Daily Record,聽published an editorial that railed against that hyperbole. 鈥淚f the papers and speakers of the other race would condemn the commission of crime because it is crime and not try to make it appear that the Negroes were the only criminals,鈥� Manly wrote, 鈥渢hey would find their strongest allies in the intelligent Negroes themselves; and聽together the whites and blacks would root the evil out of both races.鈥�
Manly went on to say that white women fall for black men just as white men fall for black women, and that鈥檚 simply how it goes. However rational his argument, it was, at the time, sufficiently incendiary for the white supremacists.
But it was this line that truly set them ablaze: 鈥淲e suggest that the whites guard their women more closely,鈥� Manly wrote, 鈥�... thus giving no opportunity for the human fiend be he white or black. You leave your goods out of doors and then complain because they are taken away.鈥�
In the ensuing months, it would be this editorial to which Waddell and his ilk would return, time and time again. They would use the myth of needing to protect the purity of white聽womanhood,聽and their outrage that Manly would dare use聽TheDaily Record聽to challenge them in such a way, to rouse the rabble.
On October 24, Waddell made a vigorous speech at the town鈥檚 Thalian Hall, in which he declared that he and his brothers 鈥�... wrote with their swords from Bethel to Bentonville the most heroic chapter in American annals and ourselves are men who, inspired by these memories intend to preserve at the cost of our lives if necessary the heritage that is ours.
鈥淟et them understand once and for all that we will have no more of the intolerable conditions under which we live. We are resolved to change聽them,聽if we have to choke the current of the Cape Fear with carcasses,鈥� he proclaimed. 鈥淣egro domination shall henceforth be only a shameful memory to us and an everlasting warning to those who shall ever again seek to revive it.鈥� The speech was run the following day in the local newspaper,聽The Wilmington Messenger.
White supremacist Democrats continued to stoke tension in the days leading up to the election, urging their compatriots to end the control of the Populist-Republican coalition, also known as Fusion. Two days after the election, Waddell and his gang stormed the town.
The day after the massacre, the local newspaper聽The Morning Star聽proclaimed on its front page, 鈥淏loody Conflict with Negroes. White Men Forced to Take Up Arms For the Preservation of Law and Order. Blacks Provoke Trouble.鈥�
When it was all done, Waddell declared himself mayor and replaced with white supremacists the rightfully elected Board of Aldermen, as well as more than 100 police officers, market clerks, health officers, janitors of public buildings, the city clerk, the treasurer, the city attorney and anyone 鈥渨hose affiliation with the Fusion-negro regime made them obnoxious to the people and the present administration.鈥�
There is no official tally of the number of African Americans killed during the massacre. The North Carolina Office of Archives and History released The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report in 2006, which asserted, 鈥淣o official count of聽dead聽can be ascertained due to a paucity of records from the coroner鈥檚 office, hospital, and churches.鈥� Estimates range from 11 to 250. Hundreds more hid in the woods. The title of the report was problematic: 鈥渞ace riot鈥� is the term Waddell himself used when describing the massacre, although it lacks veracity.
Highway markers are a regular sight in North Carolina, and in Wilmington, they seem to appear every few feet down the city鈥檚 main thoroughfares, many of which are also adorned with memorial Confederate statues. Amid the controversy over Confederate monuments, highway markers have remained largely unscathed, protected by omission from a state law, requiring the approval of the North Carolina Historical Commission before any monument, memorial, plaque or聽other marker聽on public property can be removed, relocated or altered. The law was signed in July 2015, just shy of a month after Dylann Roof killed nine African Americans at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
鈥淭he markers were successfully separated聽out,聽because they鈥檙e not monuments. But people think of them that way, unfortunately,鈥� said Ansley Herring Wegner, the administrator of the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker program at the North Carolina Office of Archives and History at the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
鈥淚 try to encourage people not to think about historical markers as monuments. They鈥檙e more like labels on the聽landscape,聽like a history museum has a label text to point to something and say that鈥檚 what this is,鈥� Wegner said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want people to think about the markers as monuments, because we鈥檙e not making judgment calls on them.鈥�
Unlike in other states, the highway markers program in North Carolina is state-funded; the $1,700 or so each marker costs to create and install comes from the Department of Transportation budget. Any resident can nominate a topic for a marker; a committee of history professors from around the state meets twice a year to vote on whether the proposed topic rises to the level of statewide importance. When he learned there wasn鈥檛 one commemorating 1898, Wilmington resident Rend Smith, a member of Working Narratives, a group that combines social justice and art, drafted a proposal.
The process is coordinated through Wegner鈥檚 office in聽Raleigh,聽and is typically fairly straightforward. The 1898 marker was expected to be, as well. As part of a standard procedure, Wegner emailed the elected representatives in Wilmington to notify them of a proposal in their district. Representative Deb Butler tweeted out the notice, and Wegner began receiving calls with feedback about the text.
鈥淧eople didn鈥檛 like that we聽gave聽an entire line to Waddell. Some other people didn鈥檛 like that we said blacks instead of African Americans,鈥� Wegner said. 鈥淭hat was just a space issue. We also originally had Alex Manly in there again, but since he already had a marker, we took his name out, and that gave us room to change the text again.鈥�
One of the largest points of contention in the language was the line, 鈥淰iolence left up to sixty blacks dead.鈥� Some believe the number is much too high. Others, much too low. The latest draft reads 鈥渦ntold numbers,鈥� which Wegner feels is more appropriate.
鈥淓ssentially what we鈥檝e been hearing, and it鈥檚 absolutely legitimate and I鈥檓 glad it came around, is that this has been a long time聽coming聽and we want it to be right and respectful,鈥� Wegner said.
Deborah Dicks Maxwell is the branch president of the New Hanover County Chapter of the NAACP, which includes Wilmington. She鈥檚 one of the people who objected to the original language of the聽marker,聽and felt that 60 was entirely too low.
鈥淲e know there was more than 14 because we know no one kept accurate records of black folks back then because no one cared about black folks back then,鈥� she told the聽Intelligence Report聽in March, sitting in a sunny park outside the main branch of the Wilmington public library where a room devoted to North Carolina history contains archives of the original newspapers from 1898. 鈥淭here were hundreds of people killed, hundreds more forced to flee Wilmington. Their land was stolen. You go downtown now and you see all these developments, and that鈥檚 all land that belonged to the black community.鈥�
Dr. Melton McLaurin is a professor emeritus聽in聽the University of North Carolina at Wilmington鈥檚 history department. He has taught and written about the South and race relations for more than 50 years and thinks the number of dead has been 鈥渨illfully exaggerated鈥� over the years, and there were generally fewer than the 60 originally proposed for the marker. But, he says the number of actual聽dead聽is not as important as what he sees are the two defining factors of the coup.
鈥�1898 is so terribly important because it clearly said the federal government is not going to protect the rights of African Americans, even if whites use violence against them,鈥� McLaurin said. 鈥淚t was part of an ongoing drive toward disenfranchisement of African Americans in the pre-Jim Crow era. Fear and violence were used to achieve this. And Wilmington signaled that the federal government isn鈥檛 going help.鈥�
As for the size and scope of the massacre, that might never be completely聽knowable,聽or agreed upon. 鈥淎t this point, it鈥檚 become a legend, powerful and emotionally true,鈥� McLaurin said. 鈥淏ut as a聽historian聽I can鈥檛 teach in the classroom what I heard as a legend.鈥�
McLaurin was part of the commission that established the 1898 Monument and Memorial Park in downtown Wilmington. Designed by Ayokunle Odeleye, it features six elongated, 16-foot-tall freestanding bronze paddles, and a curved bronze wall in a small park immediately off the highway. It was dedicated on November 8, 2008.
Maxwell thinks the park, like the marker, was a nice start, but there is a long way to go before the events of 1898 are properly addressed. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not enough. As far as they鈥檙e concerned, they built that park and it鈥檚 a done deal,鈥� Maxwell said. 鈥淲e dropped the ball in Wilmington. We still have a long way to go.鈥�
Both McLaurin and Maxwell want to see more education on the events of 1898, and how they helped set in motion a chain of events that still聽shapes聽race relations today. And there鈥檚 clearly a need. When asked, several local high-school and college-aged students said they had never learned of it. One librarian said she had only learned Wilmington鈥檚 history when she, a native North Carolinian, moved to Wilmington to study history at the university. She was amazed it wasn鈥檛 something she had learned in grade school, or in any of the years following.
鈥淭his city is beautiful but it has a lot of problems. The past impacts the future. You鈥檝e got to acknowledge your past,鈥� Maxwell said about the lack of education about 1898. 鈥淭his city had a vibrant African American community, artisans, craftsman, fishermen, shop owners. We鈥檙e still vibrant but not as much.鈥�
A highway marker isn鈥檛 likely to change that gap in knowledge anytime soon. Nor will all of the highway markers in North Carolina, lined from end to end. Some are far shorter than the long-form one for 1898. The marker for Thalian Hall, for instance, doesn鈥檛 mention that it was the site of the聽uprising,聽or any of the other historical events that occurred there. Nor does the marker for Alex Manly, which was recently knocked down in a traffic accident and is scheduled to be replaced this year. Wegner worries a similar fate will befall the 1898 marker.
鈥淚鈥檓 having more and more [markers] vandalized. They鈥檙e vandalized, or they鈥檙e stolen for聽fun,聽because people want to have them in their home or over a bar,鈥� Wegner said. 鈥淥r they鈥檙e stolen or vandalized because people don鈥檛 like the topics. They鈥檙e knocked over, they鈥檙e broken, they鈥檙e painted on.鈥�
Wegner said the DOT has to occasionally break out the sandblaster, like when somebody painted KKK on the Thomas marker in December 2015. Wilmington鈥檚 Confederate statues, including those in the vicinity of the uprising, have also been vandalized.
On May 22, the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker committee held their bi-annual meeting in Raleigh. Maxwell and Smith attended via conference line from Wilmington to discuss the proposed language, as did Bertha Todd, a member of the 1898 Commission that oversaw the creation of the existing memorial.
Rend said he believed that the phrase 鈥渞acial tensions鈥� did not adequately reflect the role of the coup as a precursor to the Jim Crow era, and suggested 鈥渞acial violence鈥� or 鈥渞acial hatred.鈥� The committee settled on 鈥渞acial prejudice.鈥� Maxwell suggested the word 鈥渃rowd鈥� be changed to 鈥渕ob鈥� and reminded the committee of the importance of accurate language to Wilmington residents, who will pass the marker daily.聽
The marker was approved with the amended language.
