the day he died, the number assigned to me now. if mine are not blessed. i want them blessed right quick. if i can't ever go to the bathroom, i won't go. i'll stay right behind these black gates. >> presidential recordings, find it on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> did you know that all of c-span's american history programs are available to watch online? go to c-span.org/history and type in your topic of interest in the search box. thousands of programs looking at the people and places that shaped our nation, all available online at c-span.org/history. good afternoon, i'm carole bucy, and i am the moderator of this session on david zucchino's book, "wilmington's lie, the murderous coup of 1898 and the

rise of white supremacy," it's indeed an honor for us to have this book here at the southern festival, and because david has won the pulitzer prize for 2021 for nonfiction for this book. it is a very important book, and i hope if you haven't read it, you will certainly be inspired to read it after our session today. david zucchino is a contributing writer to the "new york times." 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 reporting after the apartheid in south africa. he's been nominated for journalism four different times in addition to that. so without further ado, i want to introduce you to our author, david zucchino. thank you very much.

>> thank you carole, it's wonderful to be here. i want to thank everybody for coming in. i'm going to talk for 10 or 15 minutes and give you an overview of the book and what it's about and sort of ground you, and then i think we're going to go to some questions from carole and hopefully questions from you in the audience. i would like to begin today to talk about a violent event from 123 years ago that still reverberates in the racism, demagoguery, disinformation, and political violence that we see today. on november 10th, 1898 at least 1,500 heavily armed white supremacists in wilmington, north carolina, carried out the only armed overthrow of an elected government in american history. white vigilantes and state militia men killed 60 black men, and drove more than 2,000 black citizens from the city two days after the 1898 midterm elections. at the time, wilmington had one

of the few multiracial governments in the south with black men in prominent positions but the white mob evicted the city's three black and seven white alderman, the mayor, police chief and other elected leaders at gunpoint and installed coup leaders in their place. they burned the city's black newspaper and tried to lynch the black publisher. they banished black leaders who survived the assault as well as white, quote, race traitors who had served in city government with black men. these black and white leaders were marched at gunpoint to the wilmington train station, thrown aboard departing trains and told don't come back or we will kill you on site. not one of them ever did return. not one came back. the 1898 coup was a pivotal event not just for the north carolina but the entire south. it cemented white supremacy as city and state policy for the next 60 years and inspired whites across the south to use

violence and terror to snuff out the black vote. it also turned a black majority city into a white supremacist citadel. wilmington was 56% black in 1898. in fact, it had the highest black population of any major city in the south at the time. today, wilmington is less than 18% black. after the coup, black citizens in north carolina did not vote in significant numbers for almost 70 years until after passage of the voting rights act in 1965. now, in 1896, two years before the coup, there were 126,000 registered black voters in north carolina. 126,000. by 1902, just four years after the coup, the number had been cut to 6,000. so you can see how effective this coup was in just destroying the ability for black men to vote. in 1898, there was one black man in congress that needed the senate or the house. george henry white from a north

carolina district next to wilmington. white supremacists hounded congressman white and his family so viciously that he left north carolina forever in 1900. white's parting words were, quote, i cannot remain in north carolina and be treated as a man. after the coup no black citizens served in congress in north carolina until 1992. that's almost 100 years later. that's for a century almost this coup prevented or led the effort to prevent black citizens from serving in public office in washington. and from north carolina. three black aldermen were forced from office at gunpoint in 1898, no black citizens served on wilmington city council until 1972, more than 70 years later. the coup also provided a blueprint for terror and intimidation of black men who tried to vote elsewhere in the south, and ushered in the jim crow era in north carolina. wilmington was among the first cities in north carolina to get jim crow laws when they

segregated the street cars. in 1906 white supremacists in georgia planned to steal the midterm election by attacking black voters. first they consulted with wilmington's coup leaders on how to do it. w. hoke smith later elected governor in a stolen election said quote we can handle the blacks the way they handled them in wilmington, where the woods were black with their hanging carcasses, close quote. most of you have probably never heard of the wilmington coup. until i read about centennial events in wilmington in newspaper coverige in 1998, i hadn't either, and i went to high school and college in north carolina. the coup was never mentioned by any professor or any history book in all the classes i took. many people who have read the book have the same two questions i have when i first learned of the coup in 1998. one, how could i not know about this, and two, how could this happen in the united states of america? i think the best answer i can give is this is a forgotten

chapter of american history that was covered up or mischaracterized for a century, and it happened at a time when white supremacy went unchallenged. victors indeed write history so after 1898, white supremacist leaders wrote the narrative of the coup, they portrayed as a quote, good government initiative that replaced corrupt and incompetent black leaders with honest white men. and claimed it was black men who not white supremacists who were stockpiling weapons and planning a race riot. in fact, they called the coup a race riot, a black inspired rite, rather than a violent act of domestic terrorism by armed white supremacists. a century later it was being referred to as a race riot. in fact, it was a racial massacre, a planned murder spree and white supremacist's coup. that's why this book is titled "wilmington's lie" for the lie that stood for decades.

it's hard to believe now, but no one was ever held accountable. no one was ever arrested or charged for the murders or for the coup and the federal government did absolutely nothing. now, why was wilmington such a threat to whites? first, it was a black majority city at a time when almost all major southern cities have white majorities. second, wilmington was an outlier, a bold experiment in multiracial government, 30 years after the civil war, black men served in positions of authority. 10 of 26 police officers were black men, the county treasurer the county jailer, and the county coroner were black men, and so were many magistrates, and they presided over cases of white defendants, and there was also a thriving middle class of doctors, lawyers, and teachers. the federal customs collector was a black man who earned more than the white governor. this was intolerable to white supremacists. they vowed to overthrow negro rule and quote negro domination

by the ballot or bullet or both. they had a name for their efforts. they proudly called it the white supremacy campaign, issued a booklet for white voters explaining the tenants of white supremacy and black inferiority. here's one quote for the handbook that's clear about white intentions. quote this is a white man's country, and white men must control and govern it. the book was called the democratic handbook, and you have to remember in 1898, democrats were the party of white supremacy, and the republicans were the party of lincoln and black suffrage. because the coup leaders announced their intentions, in this was a national story, and in fact, a lot of the research i was able do for this book came from newspaper stories, and particularly in the national press as well as the north carolina press. national newspapers, "the new york times," "the washington post," "the philadelphia inquirer," the ”chicago tribune”, many others sent reporters, all white men to

cover the, quote, race war in wilmington. they were met at the train station by white supremacist leaders who arranged their lodging and gave them cigars and whiskey. they were esccourting around by white gunman patrolling neighborhoods to guard against a purported riot. narrative that black men were planning to riot and kill white men, and rape white women, and that's the story northern readers got, and that's the lie that was told for decades afterwards, and just as a side note, i read hundreds of newspaper articles from 1898 and did not find a single instance where a white reporter interviewed a black citizen, which i found just absolutely remarkable. now, there have been many other so called race riots in america, in tulsa, chicago, atlanta, and elsewhere, but these were generally spontaneous outbursts of white rage, usually involving some sort of contact between a black man and a white woman. but wilmington was unique. the violence was premeditated,

the coup was planned for months. it was a carefully orchestrated racial revolution, carried out by armed vigilantes, and it was america's only permanent violent overthrow of an elected government. now you would think this major event would be described in north carolina history books. in fact, it was barely mentioned. and when it was mentioned, it was portrayed as a heroic white response to a black race riot, and a quote good government effort to replace corrupt quote negro rule. in closing, let me read some descriptions of the coup that appeared in north carolina public high school text books that helped keep the lie alive. again, this is from state sanctioned public textbooks for high school students. there's a quote from a public school textbook, 1933. quote, there were many negro office holders, some of who were poorly fitted for their tasks. this naturally aroused ill feelings between the races. end quote.

here's a text book passage from 1940. the mass of negros became poor citizens, the keep their vote, they allowed them to do very much as they pleased. the worst crimes were not punished. the white people of the south are no longer safe and this is from the 1949 textbook. quote, a number of blacks were jailed for starting a riot and a new white administration took over wilmington's government. end quote. and finally, this is from a 1940 textbook about the kkk, the klan, and the red shirts who were the armed vigilantes in 1898 used by the white supremacists to intimidate black people, quote, to put an end to this terrible condition white people joined together which they named the ku klux klan, members dressed as ghosts and scared lawless men into acting decently. on moonlit nights they could be seen on horse back riding to bring order back into the lives of people. such sights frightened negros to living better lives.

the names of the men negro or white who had done wrong, they were listed. the next moon lit night, the klan would visit the men and punish them. lawless men were not so bold, and crime became less and less, end quote. on that note, i'll stop here, and answer a few questions from carole, and questions from all of you. thank you very much for listening. >> thanks, david. it really is a wonderful introduction to what is a very powerful book, and it is really gripping to see what is going on and one of the things that just amazed me so much about the book was some of your sources were these things that the perpetrators of this coup had very proudly 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 heads was good government. >> exactly.

i thought that was one of the most remarkable things i came across when i was researching this book is just how many diaries, newspaper editorials, and letters and memoirs were written by the perpetrators openly bragging about what they had done, and really extolling the vrchus of white supremacy and pointing out that this coup was so effective that it's basically eliminated the black man not only from voting but from politics, and after that first generation died out, it was really interesting, then suddenly all the information went quiet and people stopped talking about it. and i think the next generation realized how painful that must be for their black neighbors, and how embarrassing it was for the world to know the truth of it, so it sort of was buied after that, after the first generation died out, and it

really wasn't talked about except in certain occasions, like in the text books where it's mentioned in passing, but very much a triumph of good government and good order. >> and you know, it's, i guess, just a matter of human nature to some degree that the descendants of the perpetrators may be somewhat embarrassed but they are not going to speak totally openly about what they know about what their grandfather or great grandfather did. i was interested that you were able to even get interviews of those descendants. >> yeah, and it was very interesting. a couple were grand sons. one was frank daniels jr., who is the grandson of the editor news and observer, and that was the driver of white supremacy during that summer of 1898 and ran a fake news campaign that incited white men to attack black men. i spoke to him. the first job out of school was at the news and observer in

raleigh. and i worked for mr. daniels, and i worked there five years and had no idea daniels had been involved in white supremacy. there were busts and tributes to him around the newsroom, but as a crusading and wonderful person, and never mentioned white supremacy. in talking to his grandson and the grandson of another leader, they both said interestingly that their grandfathers were men of their time, that they reflected the beliefs and the moras of the time, and during that period, it was accepted that black people were inferior to white people, and they were performing a sort of public service in bringing sort of the best people possible to government. i mean, it seemed to me that they sort of rationalized the roles of their grandfathers even though they're saying, of course it was wrong by today's

standards, and nobody would do anything like that today, but you have to understand what the conditions and the environment was back in 1898. >> and so after this story began to come out around the hundredth anniversary of the coup, the state of north carolina, then, had to appoint a special commission to really ferret out from all of the mythology about it, from the african-american population who had some family interest in the story as well as the white descendants, how did that commission finally come to grips with all the information they were finding? >> well it took them five years. it was a five-year project. their final report was detailed. it was 460-some pages, and their main conclusion was first of all, it was not a riot. this was a coup.

that it did set black voting rights for decades, and it instilled white supremacy, state policy, all of that, and so they did correct the historical record. finally, you know, more than a hundred years later we finally get the truth. i don't think people were really paying attention. there wasn't a whole lot of publicity even in north carolina, much less nationally. i think it kind of slipped by, and people really didn't know. people didn't know about the coup to begin with, so they tended not to read about an explanation for something that happened so long ago that they didn't know about in the first place. >> that's right. now, we've got a question from eric hall here, and this is his question. with a little preface. charles w. chestnut's 1901 historical novel uses the wilmington massacre as the central conflict.

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, and in fact, that's a terrific book and i used it as one of my sources even though it was fiction, it was very much fact based. and it was useful for sort of getting the feel for wilmington, the people, the environment, but as far as the story coming out, you have to remember, this was a black author and white people back then didn't read black authors, so it obviously enlightened the black community, the black people who read it but they already knew the truth. i think that's why it didn't have a whole lot of impact, and it wasn't until a hundred years later that the real story starts to come out. if anybody is interested in this period of history, it's worth it to get the african-american perspective, and when we were

talking about the state report a little while ago, the report made a big point of how difficult it was to get the black perspective because so much of the narrative was told by whites, and you have to remember that black citizens of by whites and you have to remember that black citizens of wilmington were in fear of their lives, running for their lives, leaving town. they had lost everything, so really were in no position to write memoirs or diaries, really were running for their lives, and the white precedent, the black press didn't send white people to cover this but where black people fled, they got real time events and interviews with survivors describing what happened so that was an excellent source describing the

black point of view. >> i hasten to add that the african american community, after reading your book, i realize how well-educated it was. there was a strong group of teachers there, there also were doctors and lawyers who had been trained in all sorts of institutions around the country. and one of the central pieces of the book that i saw were these competing newspaper stories. and the spark, i suppose, for starting the decision that we got to take over here from the white supremacists there was an editorial in the african american paper, "the daily record" by manly, the editor of it, alex manly, that really provoked the whites of wilmington. >> yes, alex manly was actually the grandson of a white governor

but lived his live of life as a black man. he was a very aggressive journalist and started a daily black readership news paper in wilmington in august 1898 read the speech of a white congressman in georgia where he said the solution for a so called rape epidemic of white women from black men which there was no epidemic but she said there was, she said, quote, i say lynch a thousand times a week if necessary, telling the men of georgia they need to go out and start lynching black men to stop the rape epidemic. alex was upset about this and wrote a very incendiary editorial that shocked the white supremacists and across the south, was reprinted across the south, and essentially said that

most black men who were lynched were supposedly raping black women were in fact consensual lovers and put in fact what everybody knew but put in writing that white men had been raping black women for generations with impunity and this insensed the white community and the vigilante, the red shirts, put in action that day but the coup leader said no, this is too early, this will have a better political impact if we wait until closer to the election, in november, then you can lynch manly and burn down his newspaper and they did burn down the newspaper but was warned a lynch mob was look for him, he fled, escaped and never went back. >> rebecca feldman was the lady

you're talking about, a sufferagist, and on the one hand, on the other a white supremacist. you see the suffrage movement tied with white supremacy on both sides, the antisuffragists and people supporting the women with the right to vote played the race card getting their views across the country but particularly across the south. there's some version of a lot of this business about lynching in probably every state in the 15 where slavery was legal in the civil war, not all of those 15 left the union. but there was this tremendous fear, and if you can spread fear, you can capture the attention of almost anybody. and it was every african american male is a potential

rapist, we have to protect our southern women. and one of the things that gave me a little bit of a chuckle in this book was when the legislature of north carolina discussing massagination law and said they better not go too far into this one because most of the white members of legislature are probably guilty in one way or another and that did give me just a small chuckle. that they were going after themselves in all of this about the book. >> right. it was a white judge who made that comment and it shut down all attempts to pass that law. they just quit after that. but the term they used in the newspapers to incite whites was the black rapist all these claims that were false, but the

claim was you better get your gun and go out, and lynch black men because they're coming for your white women and that was the whole component of the white supremacy campaign. the other component was that black men were not capable enough or intelligent enough to vote and they certainly weren't competent enough to serve in public office and that message was just drummed home to the white readership of the news papers and you have to remember at this time, the newspaper was the source of the information. that was the entire news media but they were very effective at disinformation and fake news. >> yes, and, you know, it did -- they did get their point through to the people. one of the things that you mention were the guns and these people are stock-piling weapons and we've seen some stock-piling taking place in more recent times as well but the people were stock-piling, and the kinds

of weapons the white supremacists had amassed during the planning of this was just astonishing to me and i can only imagine the terror that some of these african americans felt when they see all of this because they're already afraid of these folks and so one of the most painful parts of the book to me was that african american families who just felt like they had to get out of their houses that day because they were going to be burned out or killed and went into the swamps and into the cemetery on a november night when it's cold and wet and they hid, laying down in this wet cemetery for a couple of days, two women, weren't, two women gave birth and died in the cemetery? >> yes. >> and the children died and then when they finally get brave

enough to get back, i mean the children are wet, the children are crying. it was such a descriptive scene that i could visualize what it was like for those people, afraid to go back, but knowing they were all going to die out there in that cemetery. >> i mean they left their homes with no warning at all, i mean they knew something was coming but then when they see 60 black men just murderered in the streets, all fleeing for their lives and you mention the guns. there were several newspaper correspondents saying wilmington was probably the best armed city in america, winchester rifles, in fact the gun stores ran out of ammunition and had to tell men in baltimore to load the ammunition in trains and send it to wilmington, at the same time, all the gun dealers of course were white and refused to sell to black men. so the black community had very

few weapons and the other very effective tactic the white supremacists used was to make sure the white, well there were two white militias who were basically the national guard of the day, the infantry and the reserve, reportedly reporting to the governor but in fact were commanded, made up of white supremacists, and basically took orders from the white supremacist leaders of this campaign and this summer of 1898 was the summer of the spanish/american war, the white and black militias, two companies called out to war, the white supremacists units made sure the white units were back in wilmington in time for the coup and they were and made sure the black units were in georgia on a training base and did not get back because that was the only armed, young, trained black men in the city were out of the city and made sure they didn't come back in and they unleashed

the two militias on the black population. and, actually, during the summer, the two militias were equipped with what they call rapid-fire guns, the first machine guns they put on back of a wagon and two horses and paid for by white supremacists merchants to make sure they had enough fire power to put down the so called black riot. >> you mention the spanish/american war, before november 10th they had made pleas to president mckinley who was the son of abolitionist and tell us about president mckinley's reluctance to get involved, his response as well as that of national leader said. >> as you mention, mckinley was the son of abolitionist, served

union army as an officer, very much was against slavery and when running as a candidate for president was the first candidate to address an all black audience on the campaign trail. so it's baffling to me that his response was minimal. as you mentioned, he was warned by george henry white, the congressman and by black ministers in wilmington, travelled to washington, met with him in the white house and warned him, mr. president, there's a coup being planned. already, white people are beating and intimidating and terrorizing black men and planning a coup. he did nothing. after the coup, congressman white and these same ministers met with him again and asked him to send federal troops to protect the voting right of black men. he made no comment ever that i could find publicly about the coup. it was discussed in one cabinet

meeting and the topic of sending federal troops or federal marshalls to north carolina was brought up but nothing ever happens. no one, as i mentioned earlier was ever held accountable. there was a grand jury put up but white witnesses refused to cooperate. no one was indicted, no one certainly arrested and no one jailed or convicted. they completely got away with it. >> you know, it's really interesting to me that mckinley as a republican politician would of really cared much about the south because republicans in those days were not carrying any southern states anyways. north carolina and tennessee and some of the border states had populations of republicans in the mountains, more or less, the western part of north carolina, eastern part of tennessee, and yet, there, so i can't understand why president mckinley couldn't take up a strong position about this

because it surely wasn't because he was afraid he was going to lose the south in the 1900 election. >> yeah, that perplexed me too. as you say he was running for re-election but i think he made a calculation with this coup and figured it would spread that there would be no black vote. he realized that, blacked helped put him in office. the black vote was very important to him in being elected but i think he realized now, because of the voter intimidation and the white supremacy movement across the south there wouldn't be black voters and didn't want to antagonize the white leadership which he needed, he was going to need them in congress, not necessarily elected because as you mentioned republicans didn't carry the south anyway but i think he mod a calculation he needed them. so i think for whatever reason, he just kept quiet. i can find nowhere in his memoirs or public records that he ever made a public comment about wilmington. and he had a lot on mind because of the peace talks after the

spanish/american war and a lot of political pressure on other fronts so i don't think this was a big issue for him. >> no, i don't think it was a big issue, and the whole subject of voting rights was integral to all of this whole racial tensions coming up with jim crow politics and what not across the south. what was interesting to me to learn in your book was the extent of the communication between these white supremacists in north carolina with white supremacists in louisiana for example, the grandfather clauses they came up with and other ways to prevent african american voting. can you say a little about the grandfather clause and some other tactics they were swapping ideas about? >> exactly, and done largely through news paper coverage. you mention the grandfather clause used in louisiana,

josef daniels, editor was actually on the committee of democratic party and held democratic party meetings in his newsroom and the white supremacists realized they had a problem, first, with poll taxes. a lot of poor whites couldn't afford the poll taxes, and then the literacy test, almost 25% of the white electorate in north carolina at that time were illiterate so they had to get around that problem and what they did was copy to a certain extent louisiana's grandfather clause. in north carolina it's said if your ancestor voted before 1868 then you were eligible to vote and 1868 was a pivotal year because then black men got the vote so of course no black men would have an ancestor that voted then, because black men

didn't vote so completely disqualified black voters except maybe those where their grandfather was white to some extent but that was a minority so basically it eliminated black men from voting but gave an out to poor whites and illiterate whites. a very effective pass of legislation, passed in 1900 and that played a big role in the black citizens not voting for more than 70 years in north carolina and elsewhere in the south as well. >> definitely suppressed the vote elsewhere in the south, you're right about that. and one thing, as this riot, this momentum gets started, one thing i shouldn't have been surprised of was that just groups of men started coming to wilmington. you know, they wanted to get in on the action and that was very surprising to me. >> yeah, the real shocking thing was that governor daniel rustle was a republican.

he was from wilmington. he was part, his grandfather was a slave-owner, grew up on plantation, but a moderate by the standards of the time and absolutely owed the black voters for putting him in office and yet he gave the order that day, the day of the coup for the two white supremacist militia to go out into the streets and start, quote, putting down the riot. that was a pivotal moment and i think he was completely intimidated by the white supremacists. they threatened his life. he carried a pistol with him and threatened to impeach him. i think he was so intimidated he did whatever they wanted but stood by and did nothing as black citizens were murderered in the streets, indirectly on his measures to put down the

reported black riot. >> in in north carolina, had republicans and democrats but also this more fluid group, the fusionists. tell us more about the fusionists. >> yeah, actually, the fusionists is what allowed, i guess you could call the progressives of the day to take over the wilmington city government for re-election in 1897. the peoples' party, which was mainly poor white farmers had become disenchanted with the democratic leadership, had voted democratic but felt they were being ignored by the bankers, railroads and lawyers and were poor white farmers who had more basic issues like education for their children, crop prices, support for farmers so they through their allegiance to the republican party which meant they were aligned with black voters because almost all blacks at that time, black men, voted with the republican party and so this was called fusion.

it's the white farmers and white and black republicans and was strong enough to take the state legislature, i think in 1896 and 1897 this a disputed election, took power in wilmington, and was very present to black men in office that enraged the white supremacist so much they put in the coup. >> and, you know, it was very interesting to me that from my perspective, the main leader of the, well the coup, was alfred wardel and yet somewhere in the middle of the coup he says no lynching, no lynching, and, you know, they were looking for alex manly. they had check points all around the city, and then he says no lynching and the most silly thing, i suppose, one of the many silly things is he almost crowns himself mayor after they get the fusionist mayor out of

office and so all of the government officials, even the white ones which were the majority of the government officials all got sent home and wydel has control of the whole city. >> yeah, and that's why, he was put in this awkward position. all summer, i mean his role during the summer was to give these incendiary speeches inciting white men to attack and terrorize black men and keep them from voting and the night before the election, told them if they went out and saw a black man going to vote, order him to go home and if he didn't, shoot him in his tracks, his direct quote. once, in fact, at gunpoint they removed the previous city counsel, mayor and police chief, they held a, quote, election, fake election, and he was quote, elected as mayor, here a leader of the coup named as mayor and

then put in a position to provide public security, protect citizens black and white so says go home everybody, put down your guns, but this violence he incited had gotten out of control by then so then finds himself in an awkward position saying you know, lynching is not such a great idea now that i'm in charge. we have to protect everyone so everyone go home and he was completely ignored of course. >> so they control the narrative of how this story is going to be told. we were saving wilmington, saving north carolina. we were saving the south. >> white women, yeah. >> yeah, white women especially. and, you know, one of the things you said in had the book and i will have to paraphrase it but it was something that even though the slavery had ended with the civil war and white people understood that slavery did not exist, that black people were still black, and that was what made all the difference to

these folks. and it was so totally racially motivated so i am a little curious to find out a little more about what happened in wilmington after world war i when we have the riot in tulsa and the rejuvenation of the clan at stones mountain in georgia, the 1925 klan convention in washington where they proudly marched down pennsylvania avenue so i'm very interesting 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 here in the two minutes we got left, what do you hope your readers will take away from this book? >> well, one big reason i wrote this book was to correct the

historical record and tell the true story of what really happened and i hope what people take from this book is that the danger and the power of demagogues, disinformation, using violence for political ends is dangerous, it's a real deep and embedded part of our history, as it institutionalized racism and learn to recognize those, the signals that tell you that this is happening again and i say it a lot today, particularly when trump was president, the whole demagogue, the misinformation, i see this being repeated, so i hope the lesson from this book is to be alert, be aware. democracy is very fragile, and once you start inciting people to violence for whatever reasons, it's hard to stop it. as colonel wadell found out and

i see that in our position today, particularly with the january 6 insurrection, very similar to what happened in 1898 where people essentially equated patriotism with vigilanteism, told their way of life and country was being taken from them, both in 1898 and on january 6, people responded with violence in protecting what they thought was their way of life. >> and certainly, the price of democracy is that 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 that the franchise is there for people to be able to use that power that they have to have a say in government. so i want to say thank you to you, david, for writing this book. i want to say thank you to all our viewers for participating and watching this session, and encourage you to get this book from your local public library or purchase the book and read

it. it is a very important book that i think every american needs to read to understand many of the things that are taking place from time to time across the country, and actually, indeed, across the world. and so, i want to close with a quote from james lowen who passed away a few weeks ago. and this was what he said about american history and how american history is taught, which, of course, is a debate across the country right now. what should be taught, and what should be omitted from the teaching of american history? and this is what he said. the antidote to feel-good history is not feel-bad history but honest and inclusive history. and he goes on there in the 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 and we have to kind of pay attention to our collective identity so that we can help our country grow more thoughtful, more tolerant, rather than being an ethnocenteric nation and i do think what is 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 state, that perhaps is not as well known either. thank you very much for coming today, i hope we will see you again next year. >> thank you carol, thanks everybody. >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span 2, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. 2:00 p.m. eastern on the

presidency, historian allen gelzo and other scholars examine whether the united states needs a president, then 8:00 p.m. eastern on lectures and history, southern utah history professor laura june davis, talks about federal guerilla attacks on water ways and pro confederate sympathizers that sabotaged union vessels. watch american history tv, saturdays on c-span 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> so how exactly did america get up to its neck in debt? >> we believe one of the greatest characteristics of being american is we're striving to provide equal opportunity for all citizens. >> c-spans video documentary competition 2022, students around the country giving

behind-the-scenes looks, using the hash-tag students can, if middle or high school student, you can enter the competition. create a 5 to 6 minute documentary using c-span video clips that answer the question, how does the federal government impact your life? >> be passionate about what you're discussing, to express your view no matter how large or small you think the audience will receive it to be. and know that in the greatest country in the history of the earth, your view does matter. >> to all the filmmakers out there, remember the content is king and just remember to be as neutral and impartial as possible in your portrayal of both sides of an issue. >> c span awards $100,000 in total cash prizes and you have a shot at winning the grand prize of $5,000. entries must be received before january 20th, 2022, for competition rules, tutorials or how to get