The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 is the only successful coup d’état in American history. The event was the first and only time in this country that a lawfully elected government was overthrown by a violent force motivated by racism.
The Wilmington Insurrection, now often called the Wilmington Coup but historically called the Wilmington Race Riot, took place during the period in North Carolina politics called Fusionism during the 1890s. The Populist Party and the Republican Party briefly allied. Though they disagreed on national issues like the gold standard and tariffs, they did agree on many state-related issues like education, voting rights, and protecting the Farmers’ Alliance.
For the Democrats, the Farmers’ Alliance was an issue. The alliance had developed out of farmers’ resentment against what they viewed as mistreatment by railroads and merchants. Initially, it was welcomed by Democrats. But during the 1890s, the Farmers’ Alliance began to split, and many members began to support the nascent People’s or Populist Party.
Through the alliance between the Populist and Republican parties and a series of backdoor dealings, the Fusion alliance swept the state in 1896, securing control of the legislature and electing members of Congress and other statewide offices. Critically, the Fusion alliance included African Americans, who were elected to approximately 1,000 positions throughout the state.
This success left Democrats completely out of power, and deeply frustrated. “Although black Tar Heels were still underrepresented, the presence of black officials troubled Democratic white supremacists,” reports this encyclopedia’s entry on Fusion politics.
It was during this confluence of racial and political tensions that the election of 1898 occurred.
Former Confederate officer and U.S. Congressman Alfred Moore Waddell ignited the flames by making a speech before the election demanding the removal of Republicans and Populists from power in Wilmington. He told the audience at Thalian Hall that white citizens should “choke the Cape Fear with carcasses” if necessary.
His comments were made in response to an editorial from the black-owned Daily Record, published by Alexander Manly. That editorial responded to a call in a Georgia newspaper for “lynching black rapists.” Manly wrote defiantly that “poor white men are careless in the matter of protecting their women” and that “our experience among poor white people in the country teaches us that 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.”
His comments outraged many Democrats and were repeated in white-owned Democratic newspapers such as the News & Observer. On November 10, 1898, Waddell led a mob of 500 white men to the Daily Record, where they invaded and torched the building. Quickly, the fire led to other parts of the city, causing thousands to flee.
The mob then marched to the city hall where they forced Wilmington’s Republican mayor Silas P. Wright and the rest of the city council, made up of white and black members, to resign. Waddell then made himself mayor.
The violence that consumed the city claimed at least sixty lives, according to a state-led investigation in 2006. All of the victims were black, and some have estimated that the true death toll may have been in the hundreds. Thousands also fled the city and took refuge in a swampy area, which may have led to more deaths.
The coup d’état changed the city’s demographics, with African Americans being mostly forced out. Racist Jim Crow policies rose to prominence.
The Wilmington Coup is a stain on American history, and it took more than 100 years for the full facts about that day to come to light. Initially, after power over the city had been secured, those involved in the mob violence were written about as heroes, not villains.
But historians—and family members of those caught up in the violence—discovered the truth.