>> good afternoon, i am carol the moderator of this session on david his book, the murderous to of 1898 in the rise of white

supremacy. it's an honor to have this book here at the southern festival and because david zucchino one the full surprise for nonfiction and this book is a very important book and i hope that if you have not read it you will certainly be inspired to read it after our session today. david zucchino is a contributing writer to the new times in his most recent articles have been about the war in afghanistan, the withdrawal and the overall condition of the country there. he did win a pulitzer back in 1989 for his journalistic of reporting of the south africa and he's been nominated for journalism for different times in addition to that. so without further ado i want to introduce you to our author, david zucchino and thank you

very much. >> owner think everybody for coming in and i am going to talk to maybe for ten or 15 minutes and just give you sort of an overview of the book and what it's about and just sort of grant you and then i will also go to questions from carol and then hopefully you in the audience. so i would like to be in today to talk about an event from 11203 years ago that still reverberates in some of the racism and disinformation and political violence we see today on november 10th of 1898 at least 1500 heavily armed white supremacist in wilmington, north carolina, carried out the only overflow of elected government in american history. white stainless and killed at least 60 black men and drove more than 2000 black citizens from the city, two days after the 1898 midterm election at the

time, he had one of the few multiracial governments in the south with black men in parliament positions the white mob insisted three blocks and seven whites in the mayor the police chief, and other elected leaders is employed and installed 200 cool leaders in their place in a burden the city's black newspaper they try to lunch the black publisher they vanished black leaders who survived the assault as well as the white race traders, was served in city government with black men. in these black and white leaders when march and then point to the train station, aboard the parting train until do not come back or we will kill you incite and not one of them ever did return, no one ever came back. and the 1898 coup was a civil event from north carolina but the entire south, cemented the white supremacy of city and state policies for the next 60 years and inspired white across the south to use violence and

terror and that also turned the black majority into a white supremacist synagogue in wellington was 66 percent black in 1898, in fact he had the highest population black population among any major city in the south of the time and today is less than 18 percent black printed and after the coup the black citizens in north carolina in about an significant numbers for almost 70 years until after the passage of the voting rights act in 1965. now 1996, two years before the coup, there were 126,000 register black voters in north carolina, 126,000 and by 1902, just four years after the coup, the number had been cut down to 6000 so that you can see how effective the scoop was in just destroying the ability for them to vote. in 1998, there is just one black man in congress and he was a senate for the house. jordan george henry white and

white supremacy headed congressman white and his family so viciously that he left forever in 1900 and his parting words work that i cannot remain in north carolina and be treated as a man. and after the coup, the black citizens served in congress in north carolina until 1992, that is almost 100 years later and that is for a century almost, this coup prevented it or lead the effort to prevent black citizens from serving in public office in washington and north carolina. in three black aldermen were forced at gunpoint in 1898, and no black citizen serve in the city council until 1972, more than 70 years later reading in the coup also provided the blueprints for intimidation of black men who try to vote in south. and also the jim crow era in north carolina in fact wilmington was a among diversities north carolina to

segregate the streets in the jim crow, they thought of the steel end midterm election attacking the black voters prefers, wilmington school leaders on how to do it. debbie smith later elected government said that we can handle the blocks away they handled them in wilmington, with their hanging carcasses. in most of you probably never heard of the wilmington coup until i read about it, and wilmington newspaper coverage in 1998, i had not either elwood high school college north carolina and the coup was never mentioned by any professor or by any history book and all the classes that i took and maybe in many people read the book of the same two questions that i had when i first learned of the coup in 1998 pretty one is how can i not know about this and two, how could this happen in the united states of america and i think that the best answer that

i could give this is a forgotten chapter of american history that is covered up or mischaracterized for a century and a happened in a time when white supremacy went unchallenged. and indeed writing history after 1998, by supremacist leaders in wilmington wrote the narrative of this coup they were treated as a government initiative that replaced correct and incompetent black leaders with white men and he claimed that was blackman, not white supremacist who had weapons in planning riots in fact, they called the coup a race riot, a black inspired riot rather than a violent act of domestic terrorism by white supremacist reduce century later, he was still be referred to as a race riot but in fact, is a racial massacre, plan murder spree on the white supremacist coup and that was why this book is titled wilmington's life but the light estate for decades, certainly now but no one was ever held

accountable. no one was ever arrested or charged for the murders over the coup and the federal government did absolutely nothing. now why is it such a threat to us, first it was a black majority city, as time when almost all major cities and white majority. and second wilmington was now a bold experiment in multi racial government, 30 years after the civil war blackman in certain positions, and 26 - they were black men in the county treasurer, kenny taylor, the county order were blackman and so were many magistrates and they actually resided over cases involving white and there was also thriving black middle class of doctors lawyers and teachers in federal custom collector at the port was a black man. palos was intolerable to the white supremacist and they mounted to overthrow, the negro rule and the quote negro

domination by the palace or the political - and they even had a name for this, the probably called the white supremacy campaign. the issue to book with white voters explaining the premises of white supremacy and there's one quote from the handbook that is quite clear about white intentions. this is a white man's country and white men must government and thus control the government and the book that was called the democratic and you have to remember that in 1898, democrats with a party of white supremacy and republicans were the party of lincoln and black suffrage meeting because the coup leaders announced their intentions well before hand, this was a national story in fact a lot of the research i was able to do for this book came from newspaper stories vertically in the national press as well as north carolina press printed in the national newspapers the new york times and washington post, and others in the tribune and many others and all white men

reporters to cover the race war in wilmington and they were men of the train station by white supremacist leaders to arrange their lodging and give them cigars and whiskey reporters were escorted around by white gunmen controlling neighborhoods to guard against these reported black riots so the favor stories repeated the white narrative the black men were planning to riot to kill white men and raped white women and that is the story the reader's got a nest the was sold for decades afterwards. just as a side note i read hundreds of newspaper articles from 1898, and single incident where a white reporter interviewed a black citizen which i found absolutely remarkable and there have been many other so-called race riots in america, in tulsa, chicago and elsewhere pretty but these were generally spontaneous outbursts of white rage and usually involving some sort of t between a black man and a white woman but wilmington was unique, the violence was premeditated and the coup was plan for months

and it was a carefully orchestrated racial revolution carried out by armed vigilantes and america's only permit violent overthrow by elected government anything that this major event would be described in north carolina history books, in fact it was barely mentioned. then it was portrayed as a white response in a good government effort to replace corrupt negro rule. in closing let me just review from descriptions of the coup that appears to north carolina high school textbooks pretty in a help keep the lie alive and this is from state sanctioned public textbooks for high school students, here's a quote from a public school in 1933, there were many negro some of whom reportedly fitted for the task and this naturally rows stir feelings between the races.

and here's textbook passage from 1940, massive negros became poor citizens and keep their vote, the beggars and scalawags allow them to do very much as they please, those crimes were not punished. the white people in the south are no longer safe and this is from 1949 textbook pretty a number of blacks were jailed for starting the riots in a new white administration it took over wilmington. and finally from 1940 textbook about the kkk, the clan and the armed vigilantes in 1898, used by the white supremacist to intimidate black people, to put an end to this terrible condition the white people join together which they knew enter name to the clocks clan and they dressed as ghosts and they scared him and these men could be seen on horseback running to bring order back into the lives of the people in such sites stunned the negroes in the

living better lives in the names were listed in the experiment it would move the night and visit these men and punished them according to the wrongs they had done after this lawless man was not to - the crime became less and less. on that note i will stop here and then will answer a few questions. thank you very much for listening. >> that really is a wonderful introduction to what is a very powerful book and it is really gripping to see the what is going on and one of the things that just amaze me so much about this book, with some of your sources were the things that the perpetrators all of this coup, were very probably had written for the rest of the world to see and give them accolades for what they were doing to bring what they believed in their head, was good government.

>> exactly, that was one of the most remarkable things that i came upon that how many newspaper editorials and diaries and letters and memoirs were written it by the arbitrators ultimately bragging about what they had done and really stolen the virtues of the white supremacy and pointing out that this coup was so effective it is basically eliminated the blackman family from voting but from politics and after that first generation died out and it's interesting because it then suddenly, all the information went quiet and people just stop talking about it and i think the next generation realized how painful that must be for the black neighbors and how embarrassing it was to the world to know the truth. so it was sort of varied after that first generation died out.

and it is mentioned in passing but very much a triumph of good government and ordinance. >> and to some degree of human nature that the descendents of the perpetrators may be somewhat embarrassed but they are not going to speak totally openly about what they know about what the grandfather or great-grandfather did. ... i spoke with him and my first job was at the news observer in

raleigh that i worked for mr. daniels and i work for five years and have no idea daniels had been involved in white supremacy it was going around the newsroom but was proceeding editor, they never want mentioned white supremacy but in talking to his grandson and the grandson of another, george, they both said interestingly that their grandfather, the men of their time that they reflected the beliefs of the time and during that. it was accepted that black people were inferior to white people and they were performing a public service bring the best people possible to government. it seemed to me it rationalized the role of their grandfather and they were saying of course it was the standard and nobody

would do anything like that today but you have to understand what the conditions and environment was back then. >> so after the story began to come out around the 100th anniversary of the coup, the state of north carolina then had to appoint a special commission to really throw out some both the african-american population who had some family interest in the story as well as white descendents, how did that commission finally come to grips with all the information you are finding? >> it took them five years. it was a five-year project, their final report was detailed, for 60 some pages. their main conclusion was first

of all, it was not a riot, it was a coop. it did set black voting rights for decades in white supremacy and state policy and all of so they did correct the historical record. finally more than 100 years later we finally get the truth people were really paying attention, there wasn't a whole lot even in north carolina much less nationally so i it kind of slipped by. people didn't know about the coup to begin with so they tend not to think about an explanation for something that happened so long ago they didn't know about it in the first place. >> that's right. we got a question from eric call here, this is the question. charles w chesnutt 1901 historical document, the tradition uses the wilmington massacre as the central cause,

chestnut makes it clear that the white mobs are responsible for the massacre of black americans in his novel. why do you think it took so long to reveal the true narrative? >> that's a great question. that's a terrific book and i use as one of my sources, it was very much fact-based and it was useful for giving the feel of wilmington, the people, the environment but as far as the story coming out, this was a black author and white people back then didn't read black authors so obviously it in mind the black community, they already knew the truth. i think that's white he didn't have a lot of impact 100 years later when the real story comes out. if anybody was really interested, it's worth reading because first of all, the

african-american perspective and talking about the state report a while ago, the report said how difficult it was to get the black perspective because so much of the narrative was told by whites and blacks were running for their lives, they were leaving town and lost everything. they were in no position to write memoirs or diaries, they were running for their lives and of course they didn't dare send black people to cover this but a great resource for me, black press and other cities where people from wilmington went, within days after the coup got real time interviews with survivors describing what happened so it was an excellent source of the black view.

>> i hasten to add after the american african-american community after reading your book, i realized how well educated it was, there is a strong group of teachers there and they were doctors and lawyers who were trained in all sorts of institutions around the country. one of the centerpieces of the book i saw where the newspaper stories and the spark i suppose for starting the decision that we've got to take over here from the white supremacists that are was an editorial in the african-american paper, the daily record by the editor of it, alex manley had written something that provoked the white wilmington. >> he was the grandson of a white governor but he lived his life as a black man and was a

very aggressive journalist and he started daily, black readership newspaper in wilmington in august of 1898, he read a speech from a white congressman in georgia in which she said the solution for so-called race epidemic, which there is no epidemic but she said there was in the solution she said was the lynch group and she said i say lynch if necessary and she was telling the men of georgia they needed to go start glitching blackman. alex manley heard about this and he sat down the day he found out about it in august and wrote an editorial that absolutely shocked the white supremacists and whites across the south and essentially he said most black

men who were clenched were supposedly raping white women. he pointed out what everyone knew what he wanted in writing that white men had been raping black men for generations with impunity. this absolutely incensed the white community and they wanted a lynching that they put the show you how premeditated the coup was, the coup leaders didn't note it was too early, will have a much better political impact if we wait closer until the election and he said then you can munch manley and then burned on his newspaper. they did but he was warned a couple of days before had. he fled and escaped and never went back. >> rebecca felton is a woman you are talking about and she was on one level, a feminist and then on the other hand she was a white supremacist and you do see

the inside fridge movement was tied with white supremacy and santos temperatures in the people they supported women having the right to vote late the race card quite loudly as they were trying to get their views known across the particularly across the south. there is some version of a lot of this business about lynching and probably every state where slavery was legal at the time of the civil war. not all of those 15 left the union but there is this tremendous fear if you can spread fear, you can capture the attention of almost anybody in there was every african-american male, we have to protect our seven women.

one of the things gives me a bit of a chuckle in the book was when the legislature is scratching the laws and the comment was made it better not go too far because most of the white men in the legislature are probably guilty. [laughter] in one way or another. that did give me a small chuckle, they were going after themselves and all of this about the book. >> it was a white judge who made that comment and it shut down to shut down not law, it just quit after that. the term used in the newspapers to incite the rapists, they find it particularly, all of these funny stories, black men supposedly praying on them but the narrative was you better get your gun and go out and lynch

blackman because they are coming for your women and they are going to write that and that was a strong component of the white supremacy campaign. the other component was black men were not capable enough or intelligent enough to vote and they certainly were not confident enough to serve in public office and that brought home the white leadership and at this time, the newspaper was the source of information, that was the entire news media but they were very effective at disinformation and fake news. >> yes and they did get there points through the people. one of the things you mentioned where the guns and these people are stockpiling weapons and we've seen some stockpiling take place more recently but the people were stockpiling and the

kinds of weapons the whites the purpose supremacists had during the planning was astonishing to me and i can only imagine the terrorism of these african-americans felt when they see all of this because they are already afraid of these folks so one of the most painful parts of the book to me was african-american families who felt like they had to get out of their houses because they were going to be burned out or killed and they went in to the secretary november 9 when it was cold and wet and they hid laying down in this wet cemetery for couple of days, two women gave birth and died in the cemetery and children died and when they finally get brave enough to get

back, thick children are wet, cry it was such a descriptive seems i could visualize what it was like for them afraid to go back knowing we were going to die in that cemetery. >> they left their homes with no warning at all. they knew something was coming but when they see 60 black men murdered in the streets, they ran for their lives. you mentioned the guns, flemington process most part, rifles and pistols in the current source ran out of weapons and ammunition and they had rich men in baltimore to load the weapons. at the same time, gun dealers were white and refused to sell to black men. the black community had very few weapons and the other effective

tactics and white supremacist to make sure, there were two white militias in the national guard of the day, the white infantry and naval reserves, state militias supposedly reporting to the governor but they were committed, made up of white supremacist and basically took orders from the white supremacist leaders of the campaign the summer of 1898 was the summer of the spanish-american war, white militias and black militias from a two pack companies were called up among white supremacist leaders made sure the white units were back in wilmington in time for the coup and they work and they make sure the black units work in georgia on the training base did not get back because that was the only armed young trained men in the city and the make sure they didn't come back in and they unleashed

the two militias on the black population during the summer, the two militias were equipped with they called the first machine guns on the back of a wagon they were paid for to make sure they have enough power down the riot. >> you mentioned the spanish-american war in the african-american had even before november 10, president william mckinley and mckinley was the son of abolitionist, tell us about president mckinley reluctance to get involved, his response as well as the response of others national leaders. >> mckinley was a friend of abolitionist, he was an abolitionist himself. he served in the union army as an officer with very much

against slavery and segregation. in fact, when he was running for president, was the first presidential candidate to address all black audience on the campaign trail so to me, his response was minimal. as you mentioned, here's warned product congressman ed missus from wilmington who traveled and met with him in the white house and want him from mr. president, there is a coup being planned, white people are beating, intimidating, terrorizing black men in planning a coup. he did nothing. after the coup, congressman white and the minister went back and met with him and sent troops to protect the voting rights of black men, he made no comment that i could find publicly about the coup, was discussed in one cabinet meeting the topic of

sending federal troops or marshals to north carolina first brought up but nothing ever happened. nobody was ever held accountable. there is a grand jury set up but white witnesses refused to cooperate so no one was indicted and no one was arrested and certainly no one was jailed or convicted, for completely got away with it. >> it is interesting to me that mckinley as a republican politician would have cared much about the south north carolina, eastern product tennessee so i can't understand why president mckinley couldn't take up a strong position about it because it surely wasn't

because he was afraid he would lose the south in the 1900 election. >> that perplexed me, to. he's running for reelection but i think he made a calculation with his coup and he figured there would be no black votes. he realized that in black helped put him in office and was important in getting him elected but he realized now because of the intimidation of the white supremacy movement across the south, there weren't that many black voters and he didn't want to antagonize the white leadership which he needed which he was going to need them in congress, not necessarily to get elected because as you mentioned, republicans didn't care the soft anyway but he made a calculation he needed them so i think for whatever reason, he just kept quiet. i could find nowhere in any public records he ever made a public comment about wilmington there is talks after the

american war and a lot of political pressure and another front so i don't think is a big issue. >> i don't think it was a big issue. the whole subject of voting rights was integral to all of us racial tension coming up with jim crow politics and whatnot across the south what was interesting to me to learn in your book, the extent of the communication between these white supremacists in north carolina with white supremacists in louisiana, for example. the idea that they came up with these grandfather clauses and other ways to prevent african-american voting. can you say a little bit about the grandfather closet and some of the other tactics they were swapping ideas about? >> exactly. it was a lot of newspaper coverage but you mentioned the grandfather closet in louisiana, daniels from his editor of the news observer was actually not a

journalist, he's a politician, is on the executive committee of the democratic party held meetings in his newsroom. the white supremacists realized they had a problem, first of all with all taxes, there are a lot of poor whites who couldn't afford so they would be harmed by the taxes and the literacy test, almost 25% of the white electorate right in north carolina at the time were illiterate so they had to get around that problem. what they did was probably to a certain extent of louisiana's grandfather closet, in north carolina that if your ancestor voted before 1868 and you are eligible to vote in 1868 was figure black men got the vote. of course no black men would have an ancestor who voted because black men didn't felt so completely disqualified all black voters except maybe those

who their grandfather was white to some extent but that was a minority so basically eliminated black men from voting but poor white and illiterate white, is an effective piece of legislation that passed in 1900 and that played a big role black citizens not voting more than 70 years in north carolina in the south as well. >> it definitely suppressed the boat across the south, you're right about that one thing with this momentum getting started, one thing i shouldn't have been surprised of was that groups of men started coming to wilmington. they wanted to get in on the fight, and on the action there and that was very surprising to me. >> the real shocking thing was governor daniel russell wasn't republican, he was from wilmington, here's part, his

grandfather was a slave owner, agrippina plantation but a moderate by the standards of the time and absolutely the black voters reporting in office but he gave the order that day, the day of the coup, the two white supremacists alisha to go out into the streets start putting down the rights and that was a pivotal moment. i think he was completely intimidated and he was related to a lot of them, they knew him, they threatened his life and threatened to impeach him so i think he was so intimidated he did whatever they wanted but he stood by and did nothing as black citizens were murdered in the streets. indirectly, his orders, the two militias to put down this report black right. >> in north carolina, had that republicans and democrats but

this other more fluid fusion, tell us about the fusion. >> the fusion is what about, i guess you could call them the regressive's of the day to take over the city government in 1897. the people's party, which was mainly poor white farmers had become disenchanted with the democratic leadership, they had voted democratic but they felt they were being ignored by the bankers, railroads and lawyers and these were poor white farmers who had more basic issues like education for their children, support for farmers and allegiance to the republican party which meant they were because almost all blacks at that time, black men voted republican party so this was called fusion, the white farmers

in the white and black republicans and strong enough to take the state legislature, i think in 1896 and in 1897 the selection they took over, took power in wilmington and there was a presence of black men office, people in the coup. >> it was interesting to me from my perspective, the main leader -- well, the coup was offered and yet somewhere in the middle of the coup, he said no lynching, no lynching. they were looking for alex mama, they had checkpoints around the state he says no lynching and one of the many silly things, he almost crowned himself mayor after they get the fusionist mayor out of office so all of the government officials, even

the white ones which were the majority of the government officials all got sent home and he has control of the whole city. >> yeah, and that's why he was put into this position. his role in the summer was to give these incendiary speeches, really exciting white men to terrorize them and keep them from voting. before the election, he told them if they went out and saw black men trying to vote, or them to go home, shoot them down, that was his direct quote. in fact, they remove the previous counsel as police chief, they had an election, a fake election and he was quote elected as mayor so you have the leader of the coup named as mayor and he was put in the position of having now provide security and protect citizens,

black and white so he started giving speeches saint everybody, go home and put down your grand but the violence he incited got out of control by the he finds himself in this awkward position of saint lynching is not a great idea now that i am in charge, we have to protect everyone so everybody go home he was ignored for. >> they controlled the narrative how it was going to be told. we were saving wilmington, saving north carolina, we were saving the south. white women especially. one of the things you said in the book, i will have to paraphrase it but it was something that even though slavery had ended with the civil war and white people understood slavery did not exist, white people were still there and that's what made all the difference to these folks and it was totally racially motivated

so i am a little curious to find out more about what happened in wilmington after world war i when we have the riot in tulsa and rejuvenation of the client in georgia and 1925 client convention in washington where they proudly marched pennsylvania avenue so i was interested in learning more about that because this was only one of these massacres that took place and there were lots of these kinds of things across the south. so, tell us in the two minutes we've got left, what do you hope your readers will take away from this book? >> one reason i wrote the book was to correct the historical

record and tell the true story of what happened and i hope what people take from this book is that the danger in the power of demagogues, misinformation, using of violence for political ends is dangerous, is it deep embedded part of our history as is institutionalized racism and learn to recognize the signals that tell you this is happening again and i see it a lot today, particularly when trump was president, the demagogue misinformation, i see this being repeated so i hope the lesson from the book is to be alert and aware, democracy is very fragile and once you start inciting people to violence for whatever reason, it's hard to stop it. i see us in that position today particularly with the january 6 insurrection was very similar to

what happened in 1898 where people essentially equated patriotism vigilantism thought they were pulled their way of life and country was being taken from them 1898 and january 6, people responded with violence protecting what they thought was their way of life. >> and certainly the price of autocracy as we have to be vigilant. we live in this wonderful place and we have to be vigilant and voting is power and we need to make sure the franchise there for people to be able to use that power they have to have a say in government. i want to say thank you to you for writing this book. thank you to all our viewers for participating and watching this session encourage you to get this book from your local public library or purchase the book and read it, is a very important

book that i think every american needs to read to understand many of the things taking place from time to time across the country. actually indeed across the world so i want to close with a quote from james who passed away a few weeks ago and this is what he said about american history and how american history taught a course which is a debate across the country right now, what should be taught and what should be omitted from the teaching of american history. this is what he said. the antidote to feel good history is not feel bad history but honest and inclusive history. he goes on in that passage of one of his books that honest history teaches that the good and bad come together and that

is part of our collective identity we have to kind of pay attention to our collective identity so we can help our country grow more thoughtful, more tolerant rather than being ethnocentric nation. i do think was included in the history books is very important to all of us today so i hope you will enjoy coming to grips with this story, learning about it and then learning about the history of your community or your estate that perhaps is not as well-known either. thank you very much for coming your program right c-span.org/history. >> today we're going to talk about the tomb of the unknown soldier.