page_title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898
section_title: Wilmington
hierarchical_section_title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898 / Aftermath / Wilmington
caption_attribution_description: English: Winston-Salem Journal blames blacks. Nov. 11, 1898.
context_page_description: The Wilmington insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington coup of 1898, occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Thursday, November 10, 1898. It is considered a turning point in post-Reconstruction North Carolina politics. The event initiated an era of more severe racial segregation and effective disenfranchisement of African Americans throughout the South, a shift already underway since passage by Mississippi of a new constitution in 1890, raising barriers to voter registration. Laura Edwards wrote in Democracy Betrayed: "What happened in Wilmington became an affirmation of white supremacy not just in that one city, but in the South and in the nation as a whole", as it affirmed that invoking "whiteness" eclipsed the legal citizenship, individual rights, and equal protection under the law that blacks were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.
  The white press in Wilmington originally described the event as a race riot caused by blacks. However, over time, with more facts publicized, the event has come to be seen as a coup d'état, the
  violent overthrow of a duly elected government, by a group of white supremacists.
context_section_description: The coup was deemed a "success" for the business elite, with The Charlotte Observer quoting a prominent lawyer who said:
  ... the business men of the State are largely responsible for the victory ... We have tried to win them [the Populists] back by coaxing.  In doing this, we have insulted some of the best businessmen in the state ... But not so this year.  Not before in years have the bank men, the mill men, and the business men in general—the backbone of the property interest of the State—taken such sincere interest.  They worked from start to finish, and furthermore they spent large bits of money on behalf of the cause.  For several years, this class of men has been almost ignored.
  It is estimated that by the end of the day (November 10), Waddell's orders led to the killing of between 60 and 300 black people, and to the banishment of about 20 more. The Rev. J. Allen Kirk gave this statement about the experience:
  It was a great sight to see them marching from death, and the colored women, colored men, colored children, colored enterprises and colored people all exposed to death. Firing began, and it seemed like a mighty battle in war time. The shrieks and screams of children, of mothers, of wives were heard, such as caused the blood of the most inhuman person to creep. Thousands of women, children and men rushed to the swamps and there lay upon the earth in the cold to freeze and starve. The woods were filled with colored people. The streets were dotted with their dead bodies. A white gentleman said that he saw ten bodies lying in the undertakers office at one time. Some of their bodies were left lying in the streets until up in the next day following the riot. Some were found by the stench and miasma that came forth from their decaying bodies under their houses. Every colored man who passed through the streets had either to be guarded by one of the crowd or have a paper (pass) giving him the right to pass. All colored men at the cotton press and oil mills were ordered not to leave their labor but stop there, while their wives and children were shrieking and crying in the midst of the flying balls and in sight of the cannons and Gatling gun. All the white people had gone out of that part of the City, this army of men marched through the streets, sword buckled to their sides, giving the command to fire. Men stood at their labor wringing their hands and weeping, but they dare not move to the protection of their homes. And then when they passed through the streets had to hold up their hands and be searched. The little white boys of the city searched them and took from them every means of defence, and if they resisted, they were shot down ... The city was under military rule; no Negro was allowed to come  into the city without being examined or without passing through with his boss, for whom he labored. Colored women were examined and their hats taken off and search was made even under their clothing. They went from house to house looking for Negroes that they considered offensive; took arms they had hidden and killed them for the least expression of manhood. They gathered around colored homes, firing like great sportsmen firing at rabbits in an open field and when one would jump his man, from sixty to one hundred shots would be turned loose upon him. His escape was impossible. One fellow was walking along a railroad and they shot him down without any provocation. It is said by an eye witness that men lay upon the street dead and dying, while members of their race walked by helpless and unable to do them any good or their families. Negro stores were closed and the owners thereof driven out of the city and even shipped away at the point of the gun. Some of the churches were searched for ammunition, and cannons turned toward the door in the attitude of blowing up the church if the pastor or officers did not open them that they might go through.
  Along with Alex and Frank G. Manly, brothers who had owned the Daily Record, more than 2,000 blacks left Wilmington permanently, forced to abandon their businesses and properties. Thi
caption: Winston-Salem Journal blames blacks. November 11, 1898.
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