The Wilmington Massacre, 1898: The Only Successful Coup in American History

By 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina, was the largest city in the state — a thriving port and rail hub with a population of about 20,000, roughly evenly split between Black and white residents. The city was a living refutation of the claim that Black people could not govern, could not build, could not participate in democratic life. Black Wilmington had doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen, and property owners. The city's Black neighborhoods were not slums — they were communities of homeowners, with churches, schools, and mutual aid societies.

Politically, Wilmington was governed by a Fusionist coalition of Republicans and Populists that had won control of the city government in the 1897 elections. The mayor, Alfred Waddell, was a white Republican, but the board of aldermen included Black members — and Black voters had been decisive in the Fusionist victory. The city had Black police officers. The county had Black deputy sheriffs. The streets were paved. The port was active. The public schools educated Black and white children.

And the city had the Daily Record — the only Black-owned daily newspaper in the United States. Its editor, Alexander Manly, was a 32-year-old mixed-race man who had inherited the paper from his brother. The Record was unapologetically political. It advocated for Black rights, demanded equal treatment, and did not defer to white opinion. In the context of 1898 North Carolina, where the white supremacist campaign was already in full swing, the Record was a provocation simply by existing — proof that Black people had a voice, a platform, and a refusal to be silent.

The statewide "White Supremacy Campaign" of 1898 was not a spontaneous expression of racial animosity — it was a carefully organized political operation. Its architect was Furnifold M. Simmons, a Democratic strategist who would later serve as U.S. Senator from North Carolina for 30 years. Simmons understood that the Democrats could not win a fair election against the Fusionist coalition. So he decided to win by any means necessary.

The campaign had three components. First, propaganda: every Democratic newspaper in the state — led by Josephus Daniels's Raleigh News & Observer — ran daily stories alleging Black "insolence," "savagery," and "lust for white women." The stories were fabricated or wildly exaggerated. Their purpose was to create a climate of fear and justify violence. Second, economic pressure: white landowners and employers threatened Black sharecroppers and workers with eviction and firing if they voted Republican. Third, paramilitary terror: the "Red Shirts" — armed white men, often on horseback, wearing red shirts as a uniform — rode through Black communities at night, firing guns, burning crosses, and warning Black voters to stay away from the polls.

Josephus Daniels's role cannot be overstated. As editor of the News & Observer, he turned the paper into a propaganda machine for the White Supremacy Campaign. He published lists of "Negro criminals," invented stories of Black men assaulting white women, and editorialized in favor of "any means necessary" to end "Negro domination." Daniels would later serve as Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson and as Franklin D. Roosevelt's ambassador to Mexico. The man who helped incite a massacre became a pillar of the Democratic establishment.

In August 1898, Georgia politician and women's rights activist Rebecca Latimer Felton gave a speech in which she argued that lynching was justified to protect white women from Black men. "If it takes lynching to protect woman's dearest possession from drunken, ravening beasts," Felton said, "then I say lynch a thousand a week if it becomes necessary."

Alexander Manly, editor of the Daily Record, responded with an editorial. He did not defend lynching. He did something far more dangerous: he told the truth. White women, Manly wrote, were not always the victims of innocent desire. Consensual relationships between Black men and white women existed. And the obsession with "protecting white womanhood" was a cover for the real issue — the political and economic threat Black success posed to white supremacy.

Manly's editorial was a catastrophe for the white supremacist campaign — not because it was wrong, but because it was perfectly timed. The White Supremacy Campaign had been searching for a single incident that could crystallize its message of Black "savagery" and white victimhood. Manly gave them one. The editorial was reprinted in newspapers across the state, read aloud at political rallies, and used as proof that Black people in North Carolina had become "insolent" and needed to be "put in their place." Manly's life was threatened. He was forced to flee Wilmington before the massacre. The Daily Record offices were marked for destruction.

The Wilmington coup was not a spontaneous eruption of mob violence. It was a meticulously planned military operation. A group of nine wealthy white businessmen — known to history as the "Secret Nine" — organized the coup over several months. They raised money, purchased weapons (including a 1895 Gatling gun), and coordinated with the Red Shirts paramilitary groups that had been terrorizing Black communities across the state.

The Secret Nine included some of the most prominent men in Wilmington: railroad executives, bankers, and industrialists. They were not fringe figures. They were the city's economic elite. Their motivation was clear: the Fusionist coalition had threatened their economic interests. The Black vote had empowered a government that was responsive to the needs of working people and Black citizens. The Secret Nine decided that democracy was incompatible with their interests — and they chose to end democracy.

On November 8, 1898, Election Day, Red Shirts patrolled polling places across the state, preventing Black voters from casting ballots. Despite the intimidation, the Fusionists won enough votes to remain competitive. But the Secret Nine had already decided that the election was irrelevant. The plan was in motion. The coup would happen regardless of the outcome.

On the morning of November 10, 1898, a mob of approximately 2,000 armed white men gathered at the Wilmington Armory. They were organized, armed, and ready. The mob included the city's "best citizens" — businessmen, lawyers, and politicians — as well as Red Shirts and poor white laborers who had been whipped into a frenzy by months of propaganda. They were led by former Confederate officers and members of the Secret Nine.

Their first target was the Daily Record. The mob marched to the newspaper's offices on South Seventh Street, broke down the doors, and set the building on fire. The fire department arrived — but only to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby white-owned buildings. The Record was allowed to burn to the ground. The only Black-owned daily newspaper in the United States was destroyed in a matter of hours.

Then the killing began. The mob spread through the city's Black neighborhoods — Brooklyn, Dry Pond, and others — firing at anyone in sight. Black men, women, and children were shot in the streets, dragged from their homes, and killed in the yards where they had taken shelter. The mob was not discriminating. The goal was not to kill specific individuals. The goal was to terrorize the entire Black population into submission — and to drive as many as possible out of the city permanently.

Thousands of Black Wilmingtonians fled into the surrounding swamps and forests, where many remained for days, hiding from the mob. The death toll has never been definitively established. Official reports claimed 12 to 25 deaths, but nearly every historian who has studied the massacre agrees that the true number is far higher — estimates range from 60 to over 300. The bodies were buried in unmarked graves, dumped in the Cape Fear River, or simply left where they fell. The mob was not interested in record-keeping.

By 4 PM, the coup was complete. The mob presented a document — the "White Declaration of Independence" — to the elected city government, demanding the resignations of the mayor and the board of aldermen. The document was signed by the city's most prominent white businessmen. The mayor and aldermen, facing armed men who had already demonstrated their willingness to kill, resigned at gunpoint. The mob immediately installed Alfred Waddell — the same man who had been elected mayor by the Fusionist coalition — as the new mayor under the coup government. The same man had led the mob. That afternoon, he became the mayor of the city he had helped overthrow.

The immediate aftermath of the coup was a systematic destruction of Black Wilmington. The new government fired every Black city employee — police officers, street cleaners, clerks. Black-owned businesses were shuttered. Black professionals — doctors, lawyers, teachers — were told to leave the city or face worse. Thousands of Black residents fled Wilmington in the weeks and months after November 10, many never to return. The city's Black population, which had been roughly 50% of the total before the massacre, dropped to 40% by 1900 and continued to decline.

But the coup's most lasting effect was political. In 1900, the North Carolina Democratic Party, emboldened by the success of the Wilmington coup, passed a new state constitution that included a literacy test, a poll tax, and a grandfather clause — all designed to eliminate Black voters. The effect was immediate and devastating. In 1896, more than 120,000 Black men were registered to vote in North Carolina. By 1904, the number had fallen to fewer than 6,000. Black political participation in North Carolina was effectively eliminated for the next 65 years.

Nationally, the Wilmington coup sent a message that was received clearly by every Black community in the South: if you build political power, it will be destroyed by violence, and the federal government will not protect you. The message was reinforced by the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Cruikshank (1876), which had already ruled that the federal government could not prosecute private individuals for civil rights violations. Wilmington was the living proof of what that ruling meant in practice: the federal government had the power to protect Black citizens from a coup, and it chose not to use it.

For most of the 20th century, the Wilmington massacre was buried — not just from public memory but from the historical record. The event was described as a "race riot" in which Black people had "provoked" white violence. This framing was not accidental. It was the story told by the perpetrators themselves, repeated by the newspapers that had incited the massacre, and accepted by the historians who relied on those newspapers as sources.

It was not until the 1990s that a new generation of historians — including Leon Prather, David S. Cecelski, and Timothy B. Tyson — began to re-examine the event. Their research uncovered the truth: the Wilmington massacre was not a riot. It was a planned, coordinated coup d'état. The book Democracy Betrayed: The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy (1998), edited by Cecelski and Tyson, was the first major scholarly work to name the event for what it was.

In 2000, the North Carolina General Assembly created the Wilmington Race Riot Commission to investigate the events of 1898. The commission's 2006 report — the first official government investigation — confirmed the basic facts of the coup: the Secret Nine, the Red Shirts, the planned overthrow of the elected government, the murder of hundreds of Black citizens. The report recommended reparations, a memorial, and school curriculum changes. Most of the recommendations were not implemented.

In 2022, the Wilmington Memorial Park was dedicated on the site of the Daily Record — the first public memorial to the victims of the massacre. The park includes a memorial wall with the names of known victims, a reflection pool, and interpretive panels that tell the true story of the coup. It is a start. But the broader work of accountability — reparations, curriculum reform, and the restoration of what was lost — remains undone.

Wilmington was not an isolated event. It was a link in a chain of white supremacist violence that stretches from the end of Reconstruction through the present day. The pattern is consistent: when Black political or economic power threatens white control, organized violence is deployed to destroy it — and the state does nothing to stop it or punish the perpetrators.

The chain includes Colfax (1873), where 100+ Black men were killed after surrendering and the Supreme Court gutted federal civil rights enforcement. Hamburg (1876), where a Black militia was massacred and South Carolina's governor called for federal troops who never came. Wilmington (1898), where a legally elected government was overthrown in the only successful coup in American history. Atlanta (1906), where a white mob killed dozens and destroyed Black businesses. Tulsa (1921), where 35 blocks of Black Wall Street were burned to the ground. Rosewood (1923), where a Black town was erased from the map. Ocoee (1920), where Black voters were massacred for trying to vote.

Each of these events was a message. The message was addressed to every Black person in America: your vote can be taken, your property can be destroyed, your life can be ended — and nothing will happen to the people who do it. The message was received. The message persisted for generations. The message is still being sent today.

For Chain, Wilmington is the clearest single example of the caste system's willingness to destroy democracy itself in order to maintain hierarchy. The Wilmington coup was not a failure of democracy. It was a choice — a conscious decision by white elites that they would rather live in a dictatorship that preserved their supremacy than in a democracy that threatened it. That choice has been repeated, in different forms, in every generation since. The question Wilmington asks is whether we have made a different choice yet.