page_title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898
section_title: Massacre and coup d'état
hierarchical_section_title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898 / Massacre and coup d'état
caption_attribution_description: English: Wilmington coup, described in the Richmond Planet. Nov. 19, 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: When Waddell and the Committee did not receive a response by 7:30 a.m. on November 10 (it is unclear when Waddell checked his mailbox), about 45 minutes later, he gathered about 500 white businessmen and veterans to the Wilmington's armory. After heavily arming themselves with rifles and the Gatling gun, Waddell then led the group to the two-story publishing office of The Daily Record. They broke into Manly's building, vandalized the premises, doused the wood floors with kerosene, set the building on fire, and gutted the remains.  At the same time, black newspapers all over the state were also being destroyed. In addition, blacks, along with white Republicans, were denied entrance to city centers throughout the state.
  Following the fire, the mob of white vigilantes swelled to about 2,000 men. A rumor circulated that some blacks had fired on a small group of white men a mile away from the printing office. White men then went into black Wilmington neighborhoods, destroying black businesses and property and assaulting black inhabitants with a mentality of killing "every damn nigger in sight".
  As Waddell led a group to disband, and drive out, the elected government of the city, the white mob rioted. Armed with shotguns, the mob attacked blacks throughout Wilmington, but primarily in Brooklyn, the majority-black neighborhood.
  The small patrols were spread out over the city and continued until nightfall. Walker Taylor was authorized by Governor Russell to command the Wilmington Light Infantry troops, just returned from the Spanish–American War, and the federal Naval Reserves, taking them into Brooklyn to quell the "riot". They intimidated both black and white crowds with rapid-fire weapons, shooting and killing several black men. Hundreds of blacks fled the town to take shelter in nearby swamps.
  As the violence spread, Waddell led a group to the Republican Mayor, Silas P. Wright. Waddell forced Wright, the board of aldermen, and the police chief to resign at gunpoint. The mob installed a new city council that elected Waddell to take over as mayor by 4 p.m. that day.
  Once he was declared mayor, "The Secret Nine" gave Waddell a list of prominent Republicans who he was to banish from the city. The next morning Waddell, flanked by George L. Morton and the Wilmington Light Infantry, marched six prominent black people on the list out of Wilmington; the other blacks on the list had already fled. Waddell put them on a train headed north, in a special car with armed guards who were instructed to take them over the state line. Waddell then gathered the whites on the list and paraded them in front of a large crowd, allowing G. Z. French to be dragged on the ground and nearly lynched from a telephone pole, before he was allowed to board the train and leave the city.
caption: The Richmond Planet
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