>> watch booktv this week and every weekend here on c-span2. >> next, journalist david zucchino on his book "wilmington's lie" covering the 1898 right in wilmington, north carolina, where white supremacists killed 60 like me and displaced hundreds of african-american families. this is an hour. >> good evening. welcome to quail ridge books. it is my honor to introduce to you jim jenkins who was an

editor, editorial writer and columnist on the editorial page of the news and observer for 31 years. he will introduce our special guest lease help me welcome jim jenkins. [applause] >> come on up, zuck. in 1973 i saw him first. across a loud, profane, filthy newsroom in downtown raleigh. he was right out of school. i was still in school. i looked across and is said to someone, whose that? , that's david zucchino. is going to be the new star here. he had long, dark hair over his shoulders, a thick jet black mustache. it was a long time ago.

[laughing] david is a grad of the unc journalism school and a member not of the journalism hall of fame. in raleigh he became famous very quickly in the newsroom when a new young editor came in and sent out a memo to the reporting staff saying each reporter will submit to his editor every morning and itinerary for his plans for the day. david even then impossible to came, sat down at the old manual typewriter. it's a legendary story. many of the people who were there remember it. sad, what i will do today, by david zucchino. 10:15, try to sneak in a little late. 10:40 get a son drop.

11, start talking about where to go to lunch. he's writing all this down. we went to pools diner yesterday but the blue plate special what over four dollars so today we may go to the mecca, all written down. young editor goes crazy. goes into the office of claude, the very severe, series editor who'd been at the "new york times," waiting the memo, waving the zucchino memo. we can't have this kind of insubordination. sit down. sits and looks at it. got a pipe. well, i got to be honest with you. he's one of the best young reporters i've ever seen. in fact, he may be the best i've ever seen, and i did work for the "new york times." so if we have got to fire him or we have to fire you -- [laughing] >> better start packing.

[laughing] zuck was in raleigh, how long? five years in raleigh. then he was on quickly up the ladder, philadelphia, los angeles, all this as a foreign correspondent which he has been a contract correspondent for the "new york times" now. he has been under fire. he has been underwater. it has been quite a career, and you know, the late jimmy bresnan once said of mike royko of the chicago paper when they're doing a some of his columns and they were trying to get flurried quotes and everything, resident said he is the best, isn't he? that's all he said. and that's what they say about david zucchino. [applause]

>> thank thank you, jim, for the stories. were those true? all right. thank everybody for come out tonight. i really appreciate your interest in the book. i would like to ask how many people have been watching the impeachment hearing? i think they are still going so do i hear a motion to call this whole thing off? we will go to bar and turn on tv and watch impeachment. no motion? okay. all right. i usually like to start off by asking people how many of you were aware of the wilmington to or massacre what if you want to call it before you came across this book? so most of you. i have to admit i have not heard about this until about 20 years ago. and i went to high school and college in north carolina, never heard about it, never heard about in history class from any history teacher. when it went to unc many, many years ago i was assigned to the

morrison dorm and i assume many of you lived in morrison torbert i had no idea who morrison was. i knew he was a governor. that's all he knew about him, and years later when i'm researching this book i find out he's one of the leading speakers on the weitzman c campaign that's a subject of this book in 1898. when i was in school i went to king stadium to watch football games. i didn't know who king was and didn't really care but years later as i'm researching this book it turns out he's a a character in the book as well. he was a member of one of the machine gun crews that went through town searching out black men to kill. after i left school, as jim told you, i went to the news and observer whose founding publisher was josephus daniels, who was revered at the paper.

there were tributes to him all around the newsroom. nobody ever mention that he was the, almost the leader of a a white supremacy campaign and led the propaganda campaign during 1898. i had no idea until i started researching this book. i find that recently the student store at chapel hill is named josephus daniels. i'm told it's one of the buildings on the campus that are named after a white supremacist, many of them are active in the what's up as a 98. 98. and i bring all this up just to make the point that this book isn't really ancient history. it's right now. it's about right now. the legacy of this book is all over the state, all over chapel hill. some people manage to read the book, i asked them their impressions, and the usually have two questions. first is, how did i not know

about this? and the second is, how could this happen in the united states of america? the only thing i i can feel its that this is a forgotten chapter in american history, not just north to learn history of american history, that was covered up or mischaracterized for more than a century. i think most of you know the basic story. i'll go through it quickly. in 1898 white supremacist overthrew the multiracial, in wilmington. they kill up to 60 blackman and they wanted dozens more. they burned down the black did a newspaper in the evicted cd leaders at gunpoint. they appointed a mop leaders as mayor, police chief, sheriff in city alderman. and they vanished black and white political leaders. they marched them with militiamen at gunpoint to the train station. they put them on the train and said if you ever come back to wilmington we will shoot you on-site.

not one of them ever came back. and you can imagine during this period what it must've been like for the black families who lived in wilmington. their men were being shot at on the street and gunmen were running through the streets terrorizing people, and hundreds of them fled into the swamps and the cemeteries outside of the city tried to hide on the white gunmen. this was in the literacy can imagine it was called and this happen to be the first day they were there it was raining. there were some reports that babies died of exposure. they with their under terrible conditions and it took them two nights and three days before they felt safe enough to return. and in the days and weeks following the coup 2100 black people fled the city never came back. which would heartedly about all this is no one was ever punished. no one was prosecuted much less convicted for the murders or for

the violent coup. it's also hard to believe that they announced it all ahead of time. they said they would overthrow quote, negro rule by the ballot or the bullet or both. they said they're going to do it and they did it as the whole country watched. because the announced it will before hand, this would be in the spring and summer and the fault of 1898, all the major newspapers of the day set the white reporter reporters tend . the "new york times," the "washington post," "chicago tribune," philadelphia inquirer, baltimore sun, the washington evening star, papers and charlotte and atlanta and, of course, the news and observer, they were all there. when the white report from out of town would arrive at the train station, the leader of the white supremacy movement would meet them there and hand up cigars, give them liquor, arrange their lodging. to modern term it would embed them with the white gunmen were going around patrolling the

city's. these reports would go out with them never interviewed a black person as far as i can tell, but they would go out and they would swallow the stories that he's gunmen and white supremacists were telling them that those ths going to be a black riot, blacks would start having weapons, that blacks are incapable of governing, that they didn't have the right to vote and this was reflected, people believed it in his know the newspapers were reflected in the stories that they sent back. so the nation got this whole story that was basically the talking point of the white supremacists through the white press. now for a century or more this is called a quote race riot. it wasn't. it was a racial massacre. it was a planned murder spree. now in our nation's history in the 19th and early 20th century there had been many, many so-called race riots, and almost all of these were spontaneous outbursts of white

rage. and in many cases it involved real or supposed would contact between a black man and a white woman. but one that was unique, completely different, it was premeditated, carefully orchestrated racial revolution planned well in advance. in fact, it was by far the most successful and permanent violent overthrow of an elected government in u.s. history. there has never been anything like it. why was wilmington such a threat to whites? i think because it was a bold experiment to wilmington was really an outlier in the late 19th century it was a rarity in the south. first of all it was a majority black city. it was 56% black. very, very, very few make cities and stop at a black majority, but more important it had a multiracial government. blacks were in positions of authority. ten of the 26 police officers were black.

three of the ten city alderman would like to ever black magistrates, black lawyers, merchants doctors, lawyers and that with the daily black newspaper. in 1898 a baptist publication called wilmington the frias town for a negro in the country. of course this was intolerable to white supremacist and they were not going to let it stand. now they had a goal, their first goal was to overthrow the government in wilmington but that was just their first goal. a bigger goal and their major goal was to deny black people the right to vote and the right to hold public office forever. by the standards it was an incredibly successful coup. in 1896 there were 126,000 registered black voters in north carolina, 126,000 in 1906, ten years later, 6100. and it went downhill from there.

and, in fact, black citizens in north carolina did not vote in significant numbers for 70 more years until after the voting rights act of 1965. the coup also turn the black majority city into a white supremacist stronghold almost overnight. in 1898 as he said before, wilmington was 56% black anybody have a guess as to what it might be today? take a guess? wow, somebody knows, 18%. in 1898 america had one black congressman in the entire country, one black congressman. his name was george henry whitee and he was from north carolina and represented a district in southeastern part of the state that was adjacent to wilmington. he was harassed, he and his family were harassed and basically run out of office by white supremacists. he said in 1900 he was not going to run for reelection.

he was leaving the state and his parting words were, i cannot live in north carolina and be treated as a man. after george henry white left office in 1900, no black citizens in north carolina serve in congress until 1992, so almost a century later. now after those three black aldermen were evicted at gunpoint in 1898 no black citizens are on the wilmington city council until 1972. it wasn't that long ago. the coup also installed white supremacy and jim crow as official state policy for nearly 50 years. it inspired what supremacists across the south. i'm going to give you one example. in georgia in 1906 there was a statewide election campaign and what supremacists there were 20 figure out a way to deny blacks the votes and steal the election. what do you think they did? they consulted with the leaders of the wilmington coup to find out how to do it.

now, the white supremacist government governor who got elected was hope smith and here's a direct quote from him. core, we can handle the blacks the way they handled them in wilmington, where the woods were black with her hanging carcasses. carcasses. not all whites in wilmington white supremacist. in fact, white republican officials worked closely with black officials in large part because the black vote was what helped republicans and populace in office under a government that was called fusion at the time. and some whites helped their black neighbors escape the white gunmen on the day of the coup. but that made them targets. during the summer of 1898, white republicans who were prominent and who receive were seen as wo closely with black officials received some postcards in the mail and they were called quote remember the six and they had a skull and cross bones and a pistol on the it was a death threat. and on the card is said these six men, the sixth leading white

republicans of the town, they call them, quote, degenerate sons of the white race and they said the day was coming when they would pay for putting blacks in office, and they would be banished from the town. and as it turned out they were. the mayor, the white mayor, the white police chief, the white federal commission and several white lawyers were marched at gunpoint the day of the coup to the train station, put on the train and said don't come back, we will kill you. i'm not one of them ever came back. the main weapon or one of the main weapons for the white supremacy campaign was a fake news campaign led by none other than josephus daniels who planted phony stories in the observer about blacks who would fight whites who attacked them. and for the nearly 25% of white voters who were literate, daniel hired a cartoonist to draw race baiting cartoons. i'd like to read a brief passage in the book about the propaganda

campaign. more than a century before sophisticated fake news attacks targeted social media websites, daniels manipulation of white readers through phone or misleading newspaper stories was perhaps the most daring and effective disinformation campaign of the era. the most sensational stories focus on what daniels and other democrats claimed was the black east rape is the estimate of the south dangers understood implicitly the sexual insecurities of white southern males. already emasculated by union troops who are occupied the town, they raised for the shame if black men were elevated to something approaching equality. a black man who could vote or hold public office was in an who might buy their logic become a a rival for the affections of white women. daniels escalated fatal incidents on the front page. all that was required was incidental contact between a white women and a black man. with each cartoon and with each

provocative article, daniels hated whites against blacks. the day was coming, daniels wrote, when white men quote, will take the law into own hands and by organizing force take the negroes behave themselves, closed quote. a race war was inevitable, quote, a clash is surely coming between the races, daniels issued his readers here quote, and in such clashes, the white race is always victorious. now, , white supremacists had their own fake news and their media campaign but they also have their own militias, militia. they were called a redshirt and they were basically an outgrowth of the claim. many of the men in red shirts were sons are relatives of confederate veterans or former klan members. they were basically a private militia of the white supremacists.

all summer the red shirts job was to write out to the countryside at night, burst into homes, dragged out black men and be thin and with them and tell them they would be killed if the registry vote or dare to vote on election day. and on election day, which is in november of 1898, the intercepted any black man who is trying to get to the polling station and intimidated them and beat them. and by doing so they crashed black turnout that they and stole the election. in addition to the red shirts, there were two state militias in wilmington. the first was the wilmington light infantry and the other was the wilmington naval reserve. these were basically the national guard of the day. they were supposed to report to the governor in probably, but they were, in fact, commanded by what supremacists and reported to the coup leaders. the militiamen served that summer in the spanish-american war if you remember the war played out that summer.

but the white leaders make sure that they were back in wilmington from the war from the time of the tragic and they plan the coup for two days after the election and then during the coup entering the right that unleashed them on black citizens. on the day of the coup these militiamen were still in federal service. they were federal soldiers because they wouldn't be mustered out for another week or two. so that meant federal soldiers murdered american citizens on the pretext of putting down a black riot. now, black soldiers also served in the spanish-american war in segregated units, but white leaders make sure that they were far from wilmington on the day of the coup at a training camp in georgia hundreds of miles away. so the left the black community defenseless. here you have all these young men trained as soldiers, trained in weapons but they were miles away. now there were defenders of the black immunity and one was named

alex who was the black publisher of the daily record. and as a journalist i was really drawn to him. i thought he was a fascinating character. he was a courageous man, just an amazing character. he challenged whites and he demanded civil rights for blacks. essentially demanded that the country live up to its promises to its black citizens. in august of 1898 he wrote incendiary editorial about race and sex that almost got him lynched. he had to flee the city. he wrote that many black men lynched for supposedly raping white women were, in fact, were consensual levers. and he also pointed out that wightman raped black women with impunity. this editorial is him was in response to a speech by a white woman in georgia who said the only solution to rape was the lynch rope here quote, a thousand times the week if necessary. i'd like to read now briefly from the editorial, it was a fairly long editorial and i will

just read a short selection from it. quote, every negro lynched is called quote a big burly black brute come close quote when, in fact, many of those who have thus been dealt with at white men for the fathers and were not only black and burly but was officially attracted from white girls of culture and refinement to fall in love with them as very well known to all. let virtue be something more than an excuse for them to intimidate and torture a helpless people. tell your meant that it is no worse for a black man to be intimate with a white woman and for a white man to the intimate with a colored woman. you set yourself down as a lot of hypocrites in that you cry aloud for the virtue of your women while you seek to destroy the morale of the of hours. you can imagine what courage it took for a black man under these conditions in 1898 to write something like that. people often ask me how i

researched this book. i'm a journalist as jim mentioned, and i'm used to interviewing people about events that they witnessed witness ore experienced. obviously in this case there were no witnesses left from 1898, so everything that's in this book and from documents. i've got piles and piles and piles of papers in my office from all the documents i collected. i spent a lot of time in libraries most scientifically at wilson library at unc and southern historical collection and the north carolina collection which are amazing repositories of history. i really recommend that you go. but there was a problem. the whites were proud of their accomplishments and they boasted about it in memoirs and in diaries and letters in newspaper columns. there was a really rich and detailed white record, but

blacks left behind far fewer documents. you could imagine, they were running for the life. the daily record was burned. all back copies were destroyed although some people are finding back copies now. what i was able to do thankfully is there were black newspapers around the country who obviously did not send black reporters to limited to cover these events because at the very least they would've been beaten and run out of town and probably killed. but after the coup with all these black families spread around the country, mostly on the eastern seaboard, black newspapers would interview them and did some very rich and detailed stories, fresh stories about what it happened. so that was a great research for me. in addition there were black ministers and black lawyers who left very, very interesting memoirs and letters with incredible detail. one of the great sources i had

was the wife of alex who wrote these beautiful series of letters to her sons in the 1950s that are just poignant to read, and i quote some of them in the book. so with all of this i was able to balance the white narrative with the black experience. and what a tragedy also was to put myself in wilmington as a journalist in 1898. 1898. and also tried to use the tools of a novelist, characters and scenes and dialogue to create a narrative that's built entirely from documents. now, this is not a historical fiction book. this is a nonfiction book. everything in this book come from documents. it's the work of journalism and is not fake news, to use a popular term of the day. before closing i want to read to short passages from the book show the scope of this tragedy. first is an election speech given to the red shirts by a

former congressman and newspaper editor and former confederate colonel who led the mob and installed himself as mayor. and again this is at the night before the election when he gave the speech to a huge crowd at red shirts in wilmington. quote, men, , the crisis is upon us. you must do your duty. the city, county and state shall be rid of negro domination once and forever. you have the courage. you operate. you are the sense of noble ancestry. you are anglo-saxons. you are armed and prepared and you will do your duty. go to the polls tomorrow, and if you find a negro at voting, tell him to leave the polls. and if he refuses, killed him, shooting down in his tracks. to show how the richards responded i like to read another passage, this is about a black man named carter who is a very

fascinating character. he had spent the summer encouraging blacks to register vote and, of course, this make him a target. but on the day of the right, three white leaders of the coup persuaded him to go with them door-to-door in black neighborhood called brooklyn to plead with black residents not to resist black gunmen. he made a a great public show f urging blacks to vote but early in the day of november 10, which is the day of the coup, he concluded for the resistance would only get him killed. he had gone from house to house in brooklyn accompanied by three white men pleading with black residents not to oppose the white gunmen. at one point a group of enraged blackman sees the three white men and held them hostage. it was the sortable and desperate act that might be expected of clayton itself is a project on my pleading with the blackman to release their captors.

after a series of negotiations the three whites were set free. he escorts into a nearby gathering of white gunmen expecting a round of thanks. instead, several white man in the crowd attempted to lynch him. they were intercepted by two of the three hostages who plunged into the mob and pulled him free. his daring intercession on behalf of the white hostages did not spare him from the banishment campaign. just before dark the infantry detachment quote arrested him and escorted him to the city jail. a short time later the infantry soldiers took him from jail and marched him at gunpoint to the train depot where he was placed aboard the departing train. he was terrified. just before the train departed, two autobus developers made the situation even more dire. first it was one but the soldiers that you would be killed on site if he ever return to wilmington. second, a gang of richards boarded the train just before it rolled out of the depot. the infantry detachment departed

leaving him alone with the red shirts here a few hours later his body riddled with bullets discovered in the woods near hilton park on wilmington northern outskirts. what a guess that you jump from the moving train and was shot by the richards. it is more likely that is executed on board and his body flung from the speeding train. finally you think this major event in north carolina history and in american history would be mentioned in the north carolina public history books and schools. in fact, it was barely mentioned. and if that was it was portrayed as this heroic white response to a black race right and a quote, good government effort to replace corrupt quote negro rule. here's a a public school textbk from 1933, quote, the remaining negro office soldier some of whom were poorly fitted for the task. this naturally arouse ill feelings between the races,

close quote. here's some textbook from 1940, quote, the massive negroes became -- to keep their vote they were allowed to do very much as he pleased the work crimes were not punished. the white people of the south were no longer safe, close quote. here's from a 1940 textbook quote, a number of blacks were jailed for starting a right and a new white administration took over wellingtons government. and finally this is from a 1940 textbook about the kkk and the richard. remember this is a public school textbook that children are reading. quote, to put it into this terrible condition, white people join together in a sort of club which they named the ku klux klan. [laughing] members dressed as ghosts that certain members dressed as ghosts and scared low spin into acting decently. on moonlit nights these men could be seen on horseback riding to rank order back into

the lives of the people. such fights frighten negroes into living better lives. the names of these men negro or wife who it done wrong were lifted. the next moonlit night the klan would visit these men and punish them according to the wrongs they had done. after this, lawless men were not so bold and crime became less and less. again, public school textbook 1940. so you can see out the white mythology kept the false narrative of wilmington alive for so long. i wrote this book to correct the historical record. i truly believe we have to confront the ugliest chapters of our history to understand the roots of racism and hate and to learn from it. today politicians are using social media to scapegoat and even as people of color, especially with white nationalism on the rise. in fact, some of the white nationalists chanted jews will not replace us in charlottesville would probably have felt right home in

wilmington in trento. white voters to their being told by some extremists that america is a white country. and people of color are portrayed as outsiders and threats to the additional american way of life. a few politicians are just some of the same tactics as a white premises in 1898 1898 ld-1 exhr alex man and addition to the many death threats he received was told many times to quote go back to africa. just the sum of three congressman of color were told to quote a back to their home country. one more example. in 1898 whites were told blacks were raping their women and student their jobs. today white voters are told mexican rapists are pouring across the border to steal their jobs. so if we don't learn from tragedies like bloomington, demagogues can play the race card again and again to incite the sort of hate and violence that was so destructive when hundred 22 years ago. so if there's one thing i hope that you do take from this book, this is it. so thank you very much.

you have been very patient, and thank you for listening. [applause] >> and i think were going to open it up to questions now. >> first is, i had heard on npr that there were some difficulty in even obtained information that you researched going forward today in some of the library's have kept this off the shelves or test question number. number two, was there any realization from the federal government, politicians in other states at the time that this is going on and did he do anything? >> the first question, i did not have any trouble getting documents. there's plenty of them. they are very well catalogued. i mention the willful library, also the public library in wilmington, the museum library at duke and the national

archives. there was no trouble. there were more documents that i could have. your second question was the federal government. i write in the book about how the mckinley administration was warned repeatedly before hand, during the summer and fall of 1898. georgia knew what the cost that i mentioned met personally in the white house with mckinley and warned him about what was going to happen. a group of black clergyman also met with mckinley and warned him about the same thing, as did the white republican congressman from north carolina the sedative, , sorry. they all warned him. after the riot in the trinity george henry white went back and asked -- in the coup, as president mckinley to send troops. other black ministers did the same. as far as i can tell in the records, mckinley did not make one single public statement

about the situation in wilmington. you have to remember this is in the aftermath of spanish-american war, and the peace negotiations with the spanish were going very poorly. his administration was being accused of not taking care of the troops, the troops in cuba and puerto rico where it died of yellow fever. it was a huge controversy. that was surprising that mckinley reacted that way because he was an abolitionist. he had been a union officer and, in fact, he campaigned for the black vote and supported lack suffrage. but he's also trying to bring the nation together. during his campaign he met with confederate veterans and gave them each a knife that was ingrained union forever, and yet remember in 1898, 30 years after the civil war and white southerners and northerners are fighting together in the war.

so i think in this mind he did not want to risk antagonizing southern whites. he had to run for reelection. i think for all these reasons he didn't intercede, but in answer to your question, though, there was no intercession by the federal government. i'm sorry. back here with your hand up. >> i'd like to know about the reaction of governor daniel russell on the coup, and the reaction from barnett. >> have governor russell was a republican and, in fact, he was put in office with the help of the black vote. he was from wilmington. he was from a slave owning family, was part of the white gentry in wilmington, but he was

under threat by the white supremacist they completely intimidated him. they threatened him with a fascination. he carried again with him, he was so afraid. they threatened him with impeachment, and he tried to go to wilmington on the date of the election. he managed to vote but he barely made over he almost killed on the way because he had to go through red shirt towns on the way to get back to volley on the train, and he had to hide him in the baggage car. and at every stop drunken redshirt would board the train and try to lynch him and screen lynch the fat son of a met. he made it to raleigh only find that the governor's mansion in while he was surrounded by a mop and he barely got inside and he and his wife had to stay there. that was his reaction. in order for federal troops to come down and restore order do anything about the right that governor ross would have to request him, and he was about to because he was terrified. next. yes, ma'am.

>> i'm wondering if the red shirts have been so successful in suppressing the vote vote wy felt it was necessary to go ahead the coup? >> because the municipal offices were not part of the election. there was a municipal election scheduled for the next march and they didn't want to wait that long. they knew once they sold election and were in power they would be in position to do whatever they wanted because nobody in the city, nobody in raleigh was going to stop the because they've taken over the state government. so they planned the coup for two days after the election and they forcibly removed the officeholders rather than waiting for the march election. let me go over here if anybody has any questions. nope. just sarah. >> -- yes, sir. wait for the mic. >> appreciate the fact that you are sounding the alarm, bringing the bill, in essence being a

toxin for awareness of this issue. obviously, our local newspaper has on its masthead the hope to be the toxin for misdeeds. .. when they marked the 100th year anniversary, there was a debate in the city over reparation and that debate is going on. i wonder how you could compensate all of these families who had their lives ripped apart and members of

their family run out of town? i think it's an important issue, i think it needs to be discussed. i don't have the answer to it, but, again, in wilmington, it is a big issue. and you mentioned judge daniels, ironic quote at that runs on the editorial page every single day and if you read the words, you might burst out laughing. yes. rob? >> well, as you mentioned in the epilogue, silent sam has come down from the unc campus, a complicated story in itself. is it time to perhaps topple the statue of josephus in time square? >> that's not for me to say. i did anticipate a question for silent sam. when the statue was put up the

main speaker was julian carr, carrboro, the tobacco company. he was a very, very vocal supporter of the white supremacy campaign and championed white supremacy. in 1913 did a speech inaugurating silent sam. let me read you a couple of quotes. it was portrayed as a tribute to the students who left the university and it was because a lot of students died in the war. but he made it clear, it was also a tribute to white supremacy and carr said the students had, quote, fought to save the very lives of the anglo saxon race in the south, closed quote and the purist strain of the and glow saxton. and he talked with flogging a woman. >> i horse whipped a negro

wench until her skirt was in shreds because she had maligned a lady, and he called an a pleasing duty. this isn't ancient history. there's a building named after carr that still stands. yes, sir. >> wilmington happened, you mentioned georgia, and then we had rosewood, and we had tulsa. can you comment about the interrelationship of wilmington happening and setting the standard for subsequent white supremacist massacres? >> i don't know. i can only assume those riots, so-called riots would have happened regardless of wilmington, but as i pointed out before, wilmington was absolutely unique in that it wasn't a spontaneous outburst of rage on behalf of whites.

it was planned. it was premeditated over a period of months and that's the distinction. to say what effect they had, because a lot of the so-called riots happened before 1898. whether it had an effect or somehow contributed to the ones after, i really couldn't say. yes, ma'am. >> hi, david. so i was wondering if you could talk more about the role of the north carolina democratic party and in insighting the militia. the democratic party today is different than 1898. could you talk more about that and i guess any subsequent things to overturn it or not overturn the documentation that was spread out among the white militia? >> i think as most of you know, the democratic party in 1898

was the party of white suppressy and the republicans were party of lincoln and black suffrage. now, josephus was on the democratic party. in fact, in my mind, he was a politician who opened to own the biggest and most powerful newspaper in the state and he met regularly in his office with the democratic executive committee, in the offices of the news and observer to plan strategy to deprive blacks of the vote and to malign plaques wi with-- malign blacks in this phony news campaign, and he did it with the chair of the democratic party after the coup whites had to figure out-- the democrat party had to figure out how to permanently by legislation to keep blacks from voting. there were poll taxes and

literacy then used to keep blacks from voting. they affected white voters because as i said nearly a quarter of the whites were illiteracy, and they had to figure out a way to keep them and from the poll taxes because they were poor. there was a so-called grandfather clause which was a brilliant piece of legislation. that law in louisiana said, any person whose father or grandfather had voted before 1867 would be exempt from the poll tax and the literatesy and josephus thought that was wonderful. the democratic party went him down there to do what they portrayed as a journalistic investigation on this, but in fact, daniels didn't want to

pay for it, he got the democratic party to pay for it and he went and wrote these amazing stories about how wonderful the grandfather clause was and how it had completely snuffed out the black vote and said, we've really got to try this in north carolina. in 1900 they passed an amendment and it was passed into law and that was used up until 1915 when several other-- by the way that inspired four other southern states to do the same thing. 1915, the supreme court outlawed it, but by that time, black voting had been snuffed out in north carolina and across the south until as i said at least 1965. front row. >> on the flip side, did you find in wilmington that people look at some of the heroic characters that you found like manley and galloway, you didn't talk about much tonight, earlier as period as they being

honored in wilmington? >> yeah, alex has a marker on third street in wilmington, but it calls what happened in 1898 a quote, race riot. there is a real movement in wilmington now to have abraham galloway get some sort of recognition, a statue or something. if you haven't read the book, he was an amazing character, an escaped slave he was from just outside wilmington. he soed-- soed away on a ship to philadelphia and he came back and was a spy during the war. and he was one of the first black senators after the constitution was rewritten. there is a movement to have some sort of tribute or monument to him.

nobody-- let's go here in the back. >> speaking of reparations, is there any documentation of african-american property that was confiscated and the current value of it? >> right. that has been an issue for many, many years and among the black community there was a conviction that whites confiscated their property after they fled and took it over. there was a researcher named, i think sue ann cody at unc wilmington who did a study of all the property records at the time. surprisingly, and this is in the 2006 state commission wright report, she found that there was very, very few examples of this and the conclusion i came of is that the white supremacists wanted to deprive blacks of their

civil rights, not of their property, and i think according to this analysis, what had happened is even when black families left, they would leave the property and have it taken over by either black friends or black relatives, so, according to this study, most of the property stayed in black hands. anybody else? way, way, way in the back. >> the first thing, did not hear any questions being asked on this side and secondly, you of course know this probably, but a united states senator they're after for the state of-- excuse me, yeah, 1901 to 1931. >> yeah-- >> okay. >> i was voicing, the boom mic not working. >> the question was about simmons the head of the democratic party and one of the

leaders of the white supremacy campaign. he catapulted to fame in 1898 and he served 30 years as a u.s. senator and rob christianson right here in the back wrote a terrific book that includes simmons and politics in north carolina. i recommend it highly. josephus daniels rose to fame, he became secretary of the navy under woodrow wilson who was a segregationist who spent eight years as a young man in wilmington, also ambassador to mexico, became a well-known man, a nationally known figure. many other-- well, there was three speakers during the white supremacy campaign and had a role in the campaign. right here. >> i have a couple of comments and a question.

you mentioned earlier something about brooklyn. i grew up in brooklyn, new york. >> host: w wow i thought you meant north carolina. >> first of all, the story is an absolutely outrageous story and is it possible-- oh, first my comment. this sounds almost like a blueprint for the holocaust, almost. there is a lot of similarities. >> on a small scale. >> a lot of similarities, i'm sure it wasn't though. is it possible that mckinley didn't get involved in the actions in wilmington because of states rights and because he felt that there are good people on both sides? [laughter] >> well, he may have thought that. i know he never said it to my knowledge, but i think that's a good point and it's entirely possible, but i really do think he did not want to antagonize white voters, not only in north carolina, but across the south. he was a politician, he was

running for reelection, i think that had a lot to do with it. oh, sorry. >> i was working with young people-- >> mic. >> we did a pilgrimage to wilmington this past summer, i wonder if you've heard of the community in wilmington, the black community, particularly, and two members of the red coats apologized with what their ancestors had done, you might want to contact st. marks. have you seen how the impact of 1898 played on the wilmington 10 in the 1970's? >> i got asked that question in wilmington last week about the wilmington 10. i'm not an expert on the wilmington 10, i remember it and i know the outlines of the story. i don't know, i'm sure most people here are familiar with the wilmington 10 from '71 or

'72. well, i won't go into the whole story, but you can only assume that some of the hate and the racism from 1898 bled over into what whites pulled in 1971 by falsely accusing 10 people, who were later exonerated. you also had the klan marching in 1971 and the rights of white people organization, as i say, i don't know the details. so, yeah, i see a straight line of that hate and racism going right into 1971. >> one of the things they said to me was that when the 10 young people, they were 19, nine of whom were black and one a white woman. and they wanted to meet and discuss and none of the churches would open and they said they were afraid to because of what happened in

1898. >> i imagine that's true and in wilmington, i tried hard and went all over the city doing the book trying to get people talk to me, few would. i did talk to interesting defendants and put them in the book, but now when i went down there, all of these people were coming forward and telling me incredible stories i wish i had for the book. but i think there's a part of that working there, people didn't want to talk about it. the black newspaper that replaced the record, i went several times there in person, phone calls, e-mails, they completely ignored me did not want to talk to me and i think it was the legacy of a white person coming to tell their story and i don't think they wanted that, but they never talked to me. yes, ma'am, way back here. >> [inaudible] >> our students have been researching only documented lynching in george taylor for three years now. and our research keeps taking

us us to thomas dixon, and josephus and thomas dixon was one of the leaders in the klan and in raleigh when george was arrested. and klan waiting for him. the woman accused him of rape, and said it wasn't him. and he was murdered, lynched with a 300 person mob in the town of 20. and what do you think now that you've done this work and know the pieces later. when does the white supremacy campaign decline in the timeline? i look around this room and i have to say, i just got called out by a senior in high school in roseville who is african-american and he said i'm glad white people are getting involved, finally and i thought, well, here we are. when is it declining in your-- >> well, it certainly peaked in 1898, but as you know, the klan

sort of went underground after reconstruction and came back in a big way and i would think the 1920's, not only in wilmington, but around the state and around the south. so, and today, obviously, there's not the overt racism and the violence that we had in 1898, but you have a state legislature here that just passed recently, a few years ago, a voter i.d. law that the federal courts ruled were specific-- was specifically designed to depress and suppress black turnout and one judge said it targeted african-americans with surgical precision. so that's one example. obviously this is not the same level of racism and hate, but still an attempt to keep black citizens from voting. >> we have time for one more question. >> okay. oh, it's the pressure. yes, ma'am.

>> i might not need a mic, can everybody hear you? >> i can hear you. >> this is more on a personal level. when i moved to raleigh about 40 years ago i joined the jay sees and the daniels had been a member of the jaycees previously. and everything i heard was how liberal, when i moved to raleigh, the raleigh observer was. having you here talking about the past and things done in the past, hoping the daniels family has seen some light with their generation offspring, have you had a pd happened to run into any of the daniels as of late, the younger ones. if you have, hopefully they'd read your book. i want to know on a personal basis, do you see any difference in the writing in the paper as a journalist and have you run into any of the family? >> well, the paper-- when i worked there and today, i worked there in the '70s and today was a very progressive

and liberal paper and still is on the editorial page. when i worked there, i thought it was a terrific paper. it was a force and particularly covering government, state government, covering and exposing fraud by republicans and democrats. it remained a democratic paper, but today's democrat. and i think the editorial page over the years has hued to pretty much traditional mainstream liberal democratic opinions and values. yes, you have a follow-up? >> one more question, why do you think that changed? is it more conservative-- because you got there you felt that it had changed. >> yeah. >> what do you think caused that change? >> josephus daniels died in the 40's. his family did take it over and there was a period when it was still conservative in the 50's,

but i think once the democratic party changed when the segregationist wing and the states rights wing of the democratic party bolted for the republican party and the democratic party became now the voice of progressives and liberals and at the same time, african-american voters abandoned the republicans and came over to the democratic party. and i think the news and object ser have-- observer had a chase to go with the republicans or democrats and stayed with the democrats. as i say from the time i worked there until this morning the paper is, i think most people would agree, editorial is mainstream liberal progressive. and you asked about the daniels. i worked for frank daniels, jr., who is the grandson of josephus, he was very gracious and i met him in his office and he took all the time i needed and i talked to him and you can read about it in the book and he's mentioned in the epilogue.

>> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you all very, very much. [applause] >> great questions. ♪ >> television has changed since c-span began 41 years ago, but our mission continues, to provide a unfiltered view of government. already this year we've brought you primary election coverage, the presidential impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of c-span's public affairs programming on television, on-line or listen on our free radio app. and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily washington journal program, or through our social media feeds. c-span, created by private sfri industry. america's cable television service and brought to you by

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