Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
David Zucchino, 2020
Grove/Atlantic
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802128386
Summary
From Pulitzer Prize-winner David Zucchino comes a searing account of the Wilmington riot and coup of 1898, an extraordinary event unknown to most Americans.
By the 1890s, Wilmington was North Carolina’s largest city and a shining example of a mixed-race community.
It was a bustling port city with a burgeoning African American middle class and a Fusionist government of Republicans and Populists that included black aldermen, police officers and magistrates.
There were successful black-owned businesses and an African American newspaper, The Record. But across the state—and the South—white supremacist Democrats were working to reverse the advances made by former slaves and their progeny.
In 1898, in response to a speech calling for white men to rise to the defense of Southern womanhood against the supposed threat of black predators, Alexander Manly, the outspoken young Record editor, wrote that some relationships between black men and white women were consensual. His editorial ignited outrage across the South, with calls to lynch Manly.
But North Carolina’s white supremacist Democrats had a different strategy. They were plotting to take back the state legislature in November “by the ballot or bullet or both,” and then use the Manly editorial to trigger a “race riot” to overthrow Wilmington’s multi-racial government.
Led by prominent citizens including Josephus Daniels, publisher of the state’s largest newspaper, and former Confederate Colonel Alfred Moore Waddell, white supremacists rolled out a carefully orchestrated campaign that included raucous rallies, race-baiting editorials and newspaper cartoons, and sensational, fabricated news stories.
With intimidation and violence, the Democrats suppressed the black vote and stuffed ballot boxes (or threw them out), to win control of the state legislature on November eighth.
Two days later, more than 2,000 heavily armed Red Shirts swarmed through Wilmington, torching the Record office, terrorizing women and children, and shooting at least sixty black men dead in the streets. The rioters forced city officials to resign at gunpoint and replaced them with mob leaders. Prominent blacks—and sympathetic whites—were banished. Hundreds of terrified black families took refuge in surrounding swamps and forests.
This brutal insurrection is a rare instance of a violent overthrow of an elected government in the U.S. It halted gains made by blacks and restored racism as official government policy, cementing white rule for another half century.
It was not a "race riot," as the events of November 1898 came to be known, but rather a racially motivated rebellion launched by white supremacists.
In Wilmington’s Lie, Pulitzer Prize-winner David Zucchino uses contemporary newspaper accounts, diaries, letters and official communications to create a gripping and compelling narrative that weaves together individual stories of hate and fear and brutality. This is a dramatic and definitive account of a remarkable but forgotten chapter of American history. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
David Zucchino is a contributing writer for The New York Times. He has covered wars and civil conflicts in more than three dozen countries. Zucchino was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his dispatches from apartheid South Africa and is a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for his reporting from Iraq, Lebanon, Africa, and inner-city Philadelphia. He is the author of Wilmington's Lie (2020) Thunder Run (2004), and Myth of the Welfare Queen. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
David Zucchino is one of the finest foreign correspondents I have ever worked with in 40 years of journalism. Now imagine you take someone with David’s reporting skills and transport him back in history to 1898 and Wilmington, North Carolina. And you tell him to tell us the story of the only violent overthrow of an elected government in American history. It was perpetrated by white supremacists seeking to reverse the remarkable advances in racial pluralism in Wilmington of that day—a positive example that was primed to spread throughout the state, and beyond. What you end up with is a gripping, cannot-put-down book that is both history and a distant mirror on just how much can go wrong in this great country of ours when populist politicians play the race card without restraint.
Thomas L. Friedman - New York Times
Brilliant…. Zucchino, a contributing writer for the New York Times, does not overwrite the scenes. His moral judgement stands at a distance. He simply describes what happened and the lies told to justify it all…. The details contained in the last part of the book are heart-wrenching. With economy and a cinematic touch, Zucchino recounts the brutal assault on black Wilmington.
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. - New York Times Book Review
David Zucchino offers a gripping account of one of the most disturbing, though virtually unknown, political events in American history…. Thanks to Mr. Zucchino’s unflinching account, we now have the full, appalling story. As befits a serious journalist, he avoids polemics and lets events speak for themselves. Wilmington’s Lie joins a growing shelf of works that unpeel the brutal realities of the post-Civil War South…. [I]t is books such as these, not least Wilmington’s Lie, that have redeemed the truth of post-Civil War history from the tenacious mythology of racism.
Wall Street Journal
In Wilmington’s Lie, David Zucchino, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has covered conflicts around the world, punctures the myths surrounding the insurrection and provides a dynamic and detailed account of the lives of perpetrators and victims…. Deeply researched and profoundly relevant, Wilmington’s Lie explains how [the coup] happened and suggests how much work remains to be done to come to terms with what took place.
Washington Post
This is an amazing story.
Dave Davies - NPR Fresh Air
David Zucchino offers a gripping account of one of the most disturbing, though virtually unknown, political events in American history…. Thanks to Mr. Zucchino’s unflinching account, we now have the full, appalling story. As befits a serious journalist, he avoids polemics and lets events speak for themselves. Wilmington’s Lie joins a growing shelf of works that unpeel the brutal realities of the post-Civil War South…it is books such as these, not least Wilmington’s Lie, that have redeemed the truth of post-Civil War history from the tenacious mythology of racism.
Wall Street Journal
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Zucchino cuts through a century of propaganda, myth, and big white lies to unmask the stunning history of the Wilmington coup, its origins in the political climate of the era, and its far-reaching implications for North Carolina and the rest of the resurgent Confederacy in the decades that followed.
New York Journal of Books
(Starred review) [S]earing…. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, Zucchino paints a disturbing portrait of the massacre and how it was covered up by being described as a "race riot" sparked by African-Americans.… [M]asterful.
Publishers Weekly
[A] tragic story of denied civil rights…. Even astute readers of history and civil rights will be alarmed by this story, which is why it should be read. For fans of American history, politics, and civil rights. —Keith Klang, Port Washington P.L., NY
Library Journal
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Zucchino shines his reporter's spotlight on what he aptly calls a murderous coup as well as exploring its background and longterm consequences…The result is both a page-turner and a sobering reminder of democracy's fragility.
Booklist
(Starred review) A searing and still-relevant tale of racial injustice at the turn of the 20th century.… Zucchino's narrative is clear and appropriately outraged without being strident. A book that does history a service by uncovering a shameful episode, one that resonates strongly today.
Kirkus Reviews
Pierces layers of myth and invented history…. Wilmington's Lie reconstructs the only violent overthrow of an elected government in U.S. history, tying the white supremacist bloodshed to political goals that are still relevant today.
Shelf Awareness
Wilmington’s Lie is a riveting and mesmerizing page turner, with lessons about racial violence that echo loudly today.
BookPage
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for WILMINGTON'S LIE … then take off on your own:
1. Had you known of the Wilmington massacre before reading David Zucchino's book? If so, what was your understanding of the events recounted in the book?
2. Does Wilmington's Lie challenge your view of who we are as a nation? Have we changed over the past 120+ years? How or how not?
3. Why do white people have difficulties with black peoples' self-assertion? To what extent does white anger still exist in the 21st century? What is or was the source of white anger? What about black anger?
4. Josephus Daniels, publisher of the Record, and Furnifold Simmons of the state's Democratic Party were able to exploit the anger and fears of the white population through an intentional campaign of disinformation. Is today's public as gullible as it was at the turn of the 20th century? Or, given the impact of social media, are we perhaps more so?
5. Talk about the response of the governor of North Carolina, as well as that of President William McKinley? What prevented both men from intervening?
6. Overall, what parallels, if any, does Wilmington's Lie have to today? What lessons, if any, can we learn?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)