In the middle of October of 2026 I was in Wilmington, North Carolina for my niece Jen’s wedding. Hurricane Isaias had made landfall the day before the nuptials and it rained all day when the wedding took place. Of course it was an outdoor wedding in the middle of a botanic garden set near the Cape Fear River. The next day I went to photograph several scenes connected to the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era in the pouring rain. Regular readers know that about 50% of the time I am photographing, the weather conditions are so bad that no one who is approaching seventy should even be out!
I went to the 1898 Memorial Park at 1018 N. 3rd Street, Wilmington, North Carolina. The monument is dedicated to the memory of the violent overthrow of Wilmington’s biracial government by white supremacists re-establishing a Caucasian regime for the city and to the African Americans who died or were exiled in the violence. While most Americans who have even heard of Reconstruction assumed it ended in 1877 with the deal to install Rutherford B. Hayes as president, it ended at different times throughout the South. Federal forces were withdrawn earlier than 1877, and those parts of the South that were liberated from Federal control promptly fell under the control of white supremacists who began to disenfranchise African Americans. On the other hand, in some states like Virginia, even though the United States army withdrew, local coalitions were able to keep the white supremacists out of office through fusion tickets of African Americans, white Republicans, and white Populists. This Black-White fusion government was still viable in North Carolina until the close of the 1890s, where Daniel Russell, a Republican, was the governor of the state. Wilmington elected fusion candidates for mayor and for the city legislature and it was represented in Congress by an African American. White Supremacists had been plotting to end Reconstruction in North Carolina for years, and 1898 was the perfect chance to end Black participation in governing the city.
By the way, when I speak about White Supremacy people have said that that term is my attempt to impose “Woke” language on a 19th Century phenomena. As you will see in this article on the memorial, the leaders of the white community at that time called themselves White Supremacists and they rallied their followers to have White Supremacy re-established in North Carolina. This does not mean that all whites were White Supremacists. Some Republicans and Populists risked their lives to keep the White Supremacists at bay, but their heavily armed opponents organized in the Democratic Party and in conservative groups would win in 1898 and would remake the city and state.
Below is the small modern park that holds the memorial. You can see the memorial at the top of a small hill. It was dedicated on November 8, 2008, the Centennial of the election that led to the white uprising. It is free to visit and there is parking on the street and in a parking lot behind the memorial.
Wilmington in 1898 had a population of 20,055, the largest of any city in North Carolina. The city had a Black majority with 11,324 African Americans and a population of 8,731 whites. While many whites had Black employees and business associates, a majority of whites were dissatisfied with a government in which Blacks and whites were civilly equal.
In 1898 a representative of the American Baptist Publication Society said that Wilmington was “the freest town for a negro in the country.” Three of the ten aldermen were Black as were ten of the city’s twenty-six policemen. There was a Black superintendent of schools, Black judges, and a Black postmaster. There were Black lawyers and businesspeople as well as teachers, doctors, and other professionals.
Colonel Alfred Moore Waddell, a former Confederate officer, found many working class whites responded to his rhetoric at his speaking engagements in Wilmington where he said that “N*gger lawyers are sassing white men in courts; n*gger root doctors are crowding white physicians out of business.” Waddell was a former Congressman elected on the Conservative Democratic ticket in 1870. He served three terms.
Other activists were spreading similar propaganda. Colonel Roger Moore, also a Confederate veteran, was the leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Wilmington. He became involved in the Klan’s violent operations as early as 1868 and he led the local Klaverns until his death in 1900.
Throughout the months before November 1898, white businessmen had been ordering weapons for the different white supremacist groups throughout the city. While they were clearly planning a coup, an editorial in a Black newspaper provided the proximate cause for the uprising.
Alex Manly, the Black descendant of a North Carolina governor, ran the Daily Record, a local newspaper whose readership was largely African American.
Mrs. Rebecca Latimer Felton was a Georgia white feminist. In 1897 there were several Black men lynched for rape. She published a letter in which she said “The black fiend who lays unholy and lustful hands on a white woman in the state of Georgia shall surely die!” Now, of course, the rapes were not proven and the lynch mobs had denied the accused Black men of any chance to disprove the charges. Felton then did a lecture tour of Georgia and the Carolinas calling for the lynching of Black men to protect white womanhood. Alex Manly responded in his newspaper:
A Mrs. Felton from Georgia, made a speech before the Agricultural Society at Tybee Ga., in which she advocates lynching as an extreme measure. This woman makes a strong plea for womanhood and if the alleged crimes of rape were half so frequent as is oft times reported, her plea would be worthy of consideration …
The papers are filled often with reports of rapes of white women, and the subsequent lynching of the alleged rapist. The editors pour forth volumes of aspersions against all Negroes because of the few who may be guilty. If the papers and speakers of the other race would condemn the commission of crime because it is crime and not try to make it appear that the Negroes were the only criminals, they would find their strongest allies in the intelligent Negroes themselves …
We suggest that the whites guard their women more closely, as Mrs. Felton says, thus giving no opportunity for the human fiend be he white or black. You leave your goods out of doors and then complain because they are taken away. Poor white men are careless in the matter of protecting their women, especially on the farms … our experience among poor white people in the country teaches us that the women of that race are not any more particular in the matter of clandestine meetings with colored men than the white men with colored women. Meetings of this kind go on for some time until the womans infatuation or the mans boldness bring attention to them and the man is lynched for rape.
Every Negro lynched is called a “big, burly, black brute,” when in fact many of those who have thus been dealt with had white men for their fathers, and were not only “black” and “burly” but were sufficiently attractive for white girls of culture and refinement to fall in love with them as is very well known to all.
Mrs. Felton must begin at the fountain head if she wishes to purify the stream. Teach your men purity. Let virtue be something more than an excuse for them to intimidate and torture a helpless people. Tell your men that it is no worse for a black man to be intimate with a white woman, than for a white man to be intimate with a colored woman. You set yourselves down as a lot of carping hypocrites in that you cry aloud for the virtue of your women while you seek to destroy the morality of ours.
Don’t think ever that your women will remain pure while you are debauching ours. You sow the seed—the harvest will come in due time.
This contentious editorial was published in August of 1898, but it facilitated the organizing of white men to get revenge on the Black community. It suggested that white women might engage in consensual sex with African American men. Even worse was the charge that white men were sleeping with Black women.
When the editorial was published many white men wanted to lynch Manly, but Furnifold Simmons, the organizer of the White Government Unions, advised to hold off on acts of violence before the November elections since it could mandate Federal intervention in the state. He also believed that keeping Manly free in Wilmington would mobilize the white vote in the election.
Simmons later represented North Carolina in the United States Senate.
Walker Taylor, the commander of a Wilmington militia unit, spoke to Simmons about unleashing his men on Manly. Simmons said he “told us that the article would make an easy victory for us [the Democrats] and urged us to try to prevent any riot until after the election.”
Approaching the monument from the street above.
The Wilmington Messenger, the leading white newspaper, published the hymn of the white supremacy party, “Rise Ye Sons of Carolina”:
Proud Caucasians one and all …
Hear your wives and daughters call …
Rise, defend their spotless virtue With your strong and manly arms …
Rise and drive this Black despoiler from your state.
In front of the sculpture are three panels on walls. I am reprinting the inscriptions from Commemorative Inscriptions. I found it hard to read these, so you may want to read them here.
ON THE MORNING OF NOVEMBER 10, A MOB OF ARMED WHITES BURNED THE RECORD TO THE / GROUND, THEN TURNED ITS FURY AND GUNS ON THE CITY’S AFRICAN-AMERICAN POPULATION. AT / LEAST TEN BLACKS DIED IN THE VIOLENCE, SCORES MORE ACCORDING TO AFRICAN-AMERICAN ORAL / TRADITION. HUNDREDS OF MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN FLED TO SURROUNDING SWAMPS AND FORESTS IN / SEARCH OF SAFETY. WHITES EXPELLED FROM THE CITY BOTH BLACK AND WHITE POLITICAL AND BUSINESS / LEADERS WHO WERE OPPOSED TO DEMOCRATIC RULE AND WHITE SUPREMACY. THE FEDERAL GOVERN- / MENT IGNORED AFRICAN-AMERICAN APPEALS FOR PROTECTION, SIGNALING DEMOCRATS THROUGHOUT / THE SOUTH THAT IT WOULD NO LONGER PROTECT BLACKS FROM WHITE VIOLENCE.
WILMINGTON’S 1898 RACIAL VIOLENCE WAS NOT ACCIDENTAL. IT BEGAN A SUCCESSFUL STATEWIDE / DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN TO REGAIN CONTROL OF STATE GOVERNMENT, DISENFRANCHISE AFRICAN / AMERICANS, AND CREATE A SYSTEM OF LEGAL SEGREGATION WHICH PERSISTED INTO THE SECOND HALF / OF THE 20TH CENTURY.
THIS MONUMENT SERVES AS A SYMBOL OF WILMINGTON’S COMMITMENT TO AN INCLUSIVE SOCIETY, / A TRIBUTE TO ALL WHO OVER THE YEARS HAVE STRUGGLED TO REVERSE THE TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE / 1898 RACIAL VIOLENCE, AND A MEMORIAL TO THOSE AFRICAN AMERICANS KILLED IN THAT VIOLENCE
IN 1898 WILMINGTON’S AFRICAN-AMERICAN MAJORITY INCLUDED MEMBERS OF A GROWING MIDDLE CLASS / WHO SERVED IN THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT, THE CITY’S CIVIL SERVICE, AND IN STATE AND / FEDERAL GOVERNMENTAL POSITIONS. ON NOVEMBER 10, 1898, AN ARMED MOB OF WHITES LED BY / SOME OF WILMINGTON’S MOST PROMINENT CITIZENS REMOVED FROM OFFICE THE CITY’S DULY ELECTED / BIRACIAL GOVERNMENT IN WHAT HISTORIANS CONSIDER THE ONLY SUCCESSFUL COUP D’ETAT IN THE / HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
BETWEEN 1894 AND 1896, A REPUBLICAN-POPULIST COALITION TOOK CONTROL OF THE STATE / GOVERNMENT AND SEVERAL CITY GOVERNMENTS, IN PART BY APPEALING TO AFRICAN AMERICANS. DEMOCRATS / INITIATED A COUNTERATTACK IN 1898, APPEALING TO WHITE VOTERS’ RACIAL FEARS / AND PORTRAYING WILMINGTON, THEN THE STATE’S LARGEST CITY, AS AN EXAMPLE OF THE DANGERS / OF “NEGRO RULE.” THE DEMOCRATIC PRESS DEPICTED AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALES AS A THREAT TO / “SOUTHERN WOMANHOOD,” A CHARGE DENIED BY ALEXANDER MANLY’S RECORD, THE STATE’S ONLY DAILY BLACK / NEWSPAPER. THE DAY FOLLOWING THE ELECTIONS OF NOVEMBER 8, A WHITE MOB GATHERED AT / THE COURTHOUSE AND ADOPTED THE “WHITE MAN’S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.”
IT DEMANDED THAT THE CITY RETURN TO AN ALL WHITE ADMINISTRATION, THAT THE RECORD CEASE / PUBLICATION AND THAT ALEX MANLY BE BANISHED. WHITE LEADERS PRESENTED THE “DECLARATION” / TO PROMINENT AFRICAN AMERICANS, DEMANDING A RESPONSE WITHIN TWELVE HOURS. MAILED / RATHER THAN HAND DELIVERED, THEIR REPLY ARRIVED TOO LATE.
FOUNDERS CIRCLE: BB&T, BONEY ARCHITECTS-LS3P, DR. JAMES BROWN, HUGH MACRAE II, PROGRESS ENERGY / IN MEMORY OF ALICE MOORE SISSON, SUNTRUST BANK, WACHOVIA FOUNDATION, SARAH LEE WHITE, WILMINGTON STAR-NEWS
The symbolism of the monument are the six paddles. The monument is near the Cape Fear River and the paddles are a symbol of that connection to the water. The paddles also have special meaning in Africa.
On November 8, 1898 the election was held. George Rountree, the head of Wilmington’s Democratic Party, and his associates were circulating in the days before the election. Rountree later recalled; “I started to endeavor to inflame the white men’s sentiment, and discovered that they were already willing to kill all of the office holders and all the negroes.” The Democratic Party was looking to win the election in 1898, but local officials were not up for election until 1899 so they began planning a coup after the election to remove the Fusion office holders.
Wealthy white supremacist formed The Secret Nine funded the “vigilance committees” to keep Blacks from voting and to overthrow the existing city government. The white supremacists turned to Colonel Roger Moore to lead the Vigilance Committee. Moore was a former Confederate officer who had made his name as the head of the Ku Klux Klan in Wilmington. Many of the Klan members had served under Moore in the 3rd North Carolina Infantry Regiment. Moore was also a former official of the local Conservative Party. By 1898 the former Klansmen had stopped wearing their white sheets and had become Red Shirts.
Their message was also spread by Colonel Alfred Moore Waddell, another former Confederate officer. Waddell had served eight years in the United States Congress during the 1870s. On October 24, 1898, Waddell spoke at a mass meeting of over 1,000 white citizens in Wilmington. Waddell said:
“It is just, and right, and absolutely best and wisest for both races that the white people who settled this country, and civilized it … and who have done more for the Negro race than all the other peoples who have ever lived upon the earth, should alone govern it … It is their country and they have a right to rule it. It will be absolutely suicidal for the Negroes to continue to resist this inevitable result … The Negro was a slave and was brought here as such.”
“Is this his country? For 3,000 years the Negro has had a whole continent to himself, and it is in the same condition now as it was at the beginning, except where white settlements have been made. He has never, during all these 30 centuries, exhibited any capacity for self-government … Whenever he has been civilized by white men and then left to himself, he has invariably reverted to a condition of savagery.”
“Here, in the most quiet and conservative of the original 13 states and at the end of the 19th century, we are reduced to the pitiful necessity of choosing whether we will live under the domination of Negroes led by a few unprincipled white men, and see the ruin of all that we hold dear—or prove ourselves worthy of the respect of mankind by restoring good government at all hazards or any cost.”
“The people are aroused! Shall we surrender to a ragged rabble of Negroes, led by a handful of white cowards … No! A thousand times no! … We will have no more of the intolerable conditions under which we live. We are resolved to change them if we have to choke the Cape Fear with carcasses!”
The Red Shirts had their first public mobilization the next week in which they were instructed to give “Three Cheers for White Supremacy!”
The day before Election Day, Waddell gave another speech to more than a thousand Red Shirt supporters:
“Men, the crisis is upon us…You must do your duty. This city, county and state shall be rid of negro domination, once and forever. You have the courage. You are brave. You are the sons of noble ancestry. You are Anglo-Saxons. You are armed and prepared, and you will do your duty. Be ready at a moment’s notice. Go to the polls tomorrow and if you find the negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls. And if he refuses, kill him! Shoot him down in his tracks!”
On Election Day, mounted and armed Red Shirts rode down the streets of the city threatening Blacks coming to vote.
In the Fifth Precinct of the First Ward 313 blacks and 30 whites had registered to vote, Red Shirts rode up after the polls had closed and they stuffed the ballot box so that the results showed that the Democrat got 456 votes, more than a hundred votes more than the number of registered voters. Similar actions occurred at other wards with heavily Black populations. The next day came the news that the Democrats had swept the election.
During Election Day the white supremacists told the local newspapers to publish this notice of a mass meeting to be held at which people could sign the White Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence said:
The White Declaration of Independence
[Printed in the Raleigh News and Observer, November 10, 1898]
Believing that the Constitution of the United States contemplated a government to be carried on by an enlightened people; believing that its framers did not anticipate the enfranchisement of an ignorant population of African origin; and believing that the men of the State of North Carolina who joined in forming the Union did not contemplate for their descendants a subjection to an inferior race;
We, the undersigned citizens of the city of Wilmington and county of New Hanover, do hereby declare that we will no longer be ruled, and will never again be ruled, by men of African origin. This condition we have in part endured because we felt that the consequences of the war of secession were such to deprive us of the fair consideration of many of our countrymen.
We believe that, after more than thirty years, this is no longer the case.
The stand we now pledge ourselves to is forced upon us suddenly by a crisis, and our eyes are open to the fact that we must act now or leave our descendants to a fate too gloomy to be borne.
While we recognize the authority of the United Sates and will yield to it if exerted, we would not for a moment believe that it is the purpose of more than 60,000,000 of our own race to subject us permanently to a fate to which no Anglo-Saxon has ever been forced to submit.
We, therefore, believing that we represent unequivocally the sentiment of the white people of this county and city, hereby for ourselves, and representing them, proclaim:
1. That the time has passed for the intelligent citizens of this community, owning 95 per cent of the property and paying taxes in like proportion, to be ruled by negroes.
2. That we will not tolerate the action of unscrupulous white men in affiliating with the negroes so that by means of their votes they can dominate the intelligent and thrifty element in the community, thus causing business to stagnate and progress to be out of the question.
3. That the negro has demonstrated, by antagonizing our interest in every way, and especially by his ballot, that he is incapable of realizing that his interests are and should be identical with those of the community.
4. That the progressive element in any community is the white population, and that the giving of nearly all of the employment to negro laborers has been against the best interests of this county and city, and is sufficient reason why the city of Wilmington with its natural advantages has not become a city of at least 50,000 inhabitants.
5. That we propose in the future to give the white men a large part of the employment heretofore given to negroes, because we realize that white families cannot thrive here unless there are more opportunities for the different members of said family.
6. That the white men expect to live in this community peaceably, to have and provide absolute protection for their families, who shall be safe from insult for all persons whomsoever. We are prepared to treat the negroes with justice and consideration in all matters which do not involve sacrifices of the interest of the intelligent and progressive portion of the community. But we are equally prepared now and immediately to enforce what we know to be our rights.
7. That we have been, in our desire for harmony and peace, blinded to our best interests and our rights. A climax was reached when the negro paper of this city published an article so vile and slanderous that it would in most communities have resulted in the lynching of the editor. We deprecate lynching, and yet there is no punishment provided by the laws adequate for this offense. We therefore owe it to the people of this community and of this city, as a protection against such license in the future, that the paper known as the Record cease to be published, and that its editor be banished from this community.
We demand that he leave this city within twenty-four hours after the issuance of this proclamation; second, that the printing press from which the Record has been issued be packed and shipped from the city without delay; that we be notified within twelve hours of the acceptance or rejection of this demand. If it is agreed to within twelve hours, we counsel forbearance on the part of all white men. If the demand is refused, or if no answer is given within the time mentioned, then the editor, Manly, will be expelled by force.
8. It is the sense of this meeting that Mayor S.P. Wright and Chief of Police J.R. Melton, having demonstrated their utter incapacity to give the city a decent government and keep order therein, their continuance in office being a constant menace to the peace of this community, ought forthwith to resign.
On November 10, five hundred Red Shirts again assembled. Col. Waddell led the men to the Record office where they hoped to find Manly and lynch him. Manly had already fled. Not finding Manly, the Red Shirts looted and burned the newspaper office. When Black fireman tried to put out the fire, they were met by rifle fire from the Red Shirts.
Other buildings were threatened by the fire and the firemen risked their lives to save them.
The Red Shirts then attacked other Black neighborhoods. One was Brooklyn. They rode street cars into the neighborhood shooting at homes. Some Black men told the Red Shirts to stop outside of Brunjes’ Saloon. The Red Shirts opened fire on them, killing three. This opened up the carnage as Red shirts began firing at Blacks and Black businesses. When Blacks tried to defend themselves rumors soon circulated that Blacks intended to kill all white men and rape all white women.
The leaders now called on the mob to expel “The Six,” the leaders of the local Republican party.
White ministers began preaching against the Black population, giving their imprimatur for the massacre. Black women were stopped on the street and “searched.” Black men were shot down.
The plaque says:
THESE SIX BRONZE PADDLES STAND AS A MEMORIAL TO THOSE WHO SUFFERED AS A RESULT OF THE / VIOLENCE OF NOVEMBER 1898. THE PADDLES REFER SYMBOLICALLY TO WATER, AN IMPORTANT / ELEMENT IN THE SPIRITUAL BELIEF SYSTEM OF PEOPLE FROM THE AFRICAN CONTINENT. THEY / BELIEVED WATER TO BE THE MEDIUM FOR MOVING FROM THIS LIFE TO THE NEXT. WATER IS ALSO / INCORPORATED INTO A DIVERSITY OF BELIEFS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD TO SYMBOLIZE PURIFICATION, RENEWAL, REBIRTH, FORGIVENESS, CLEANSING AND WHOLENESS.
FOR THIS CITY THAT GREW UP BESIDE THE WATERS OF THE CAPE FEAR RIVER, THESE PADDLES SYMBOLIZE A / TYPE OF PASSAGE AS WELL. THE MEMORIAL STANDS HERE ON THE BANKS OF THIS RIVER AS A / TESTIMONIAL TO A COMMUNITY THAT, ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER, STROVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE / INJUSTICES OF THE PAST AND WORKED TO MOVE FORWARD TOGETHER TOWARDS A SOCIETY OF GREATER / JUSTICE AND INCLUSIVENESS FOR ALL ITS CITIZENS.
“WE BELIEVE THESE SLENDER YET STRONG PADDLES THOUGH ROOTED IN THIS SOIL OF PAST / MEMORIES, RISE SKYWARD TO THE FUTURE IN A SPIRIT OF RECONCILIATION AND HOPE.” / MEMBERS OF THE 1898 FOUNDATION / NOVEMBER 8, 2008
There are several plaques in the area describing Blacks who led their community for a century. Unfortunately many of them have been damaged.
The militia units mounted rapid fire guns on wagons to intimidate Blacks. The units were called the Flying Machine Gun Squadrons. Two howitzers were also used by the militia.
Waddell called a meeting of his followers and they elected eight new alderman to run the legislature. Waddell was elected mayor.
The next day, hundreds of Blacks began to flee for refuge. White Republicans left town, never to return.
As the Democrats won all over North Carolina they passed a “racially neutral” bill that said that to vote a man had to show literacy. Since many poor whites were illiterate, a “Grandfather Clause” was added that said that if one of your ancestors was able to vote before 1867, then the literacy test did not apply to you. Since Blacks had only been granted the right to vote in 1868, the Grandfather Clause did not apply to them.
In March of 1899 there was an election under the new law. In the entire city only 25 Blacks were registered and five voted.
Across the state the Black vote collapsed. Blacks registered to vote went from 126,000 in 1896 to just 6,100 in 1902.
Wilmington’s Black population declined as well. At the time of the coup, Blacks made up 56% of the population. In 1900 it dropped to 49% and declined to 35% in 1950. Now the Black population is just 18%.
The number of Blacks killed in the massacre ranges from 10 to more than 60.
Sources:
Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino published by Atlantic Monthly (2020) Note: Many of the quotes from 1898 come from this excellent book.
The White Declaration of Independence
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