In the early 1890s an unthinkable alliance produced an\nunacceptable outcome for North Carolina Democrats, as poor whites suffering\nfrom a sharp economic downturn began joining with black and white Republicans to\ncreate a multi-racial Fusion government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To thwart this democratic uprising, leading Democrat \u2013\nincluding News & Observer owner Josephus Daniels \u2013 planned and executed a\ncriminal campaign centered on white supremacy to steal back the reins of power\nin 1898.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their state-wide efforts achieved its murderous apex in\nWilmington where months of false newspaper articles casting blacks as rapists\nand the government as a tool of \u201cNegro domination\u201d culminated in a November\nelection marked by voter intimidation, ballot stuffing and the cold-blooded\nmurder of about 60 African-Americans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilmington\u2019s mayor was soon forced to resign in the only\nknown coup in American history and many leading blacks and white Republicans\nwere banished from the city \u2013 promised a bullet if they ever returned. No one\nwas ever held accountable for these crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead they were rewarded. Leaders of the white supremacy\ncampaign became revered state leaders while passing Jim Crow laws that\ndisenfranchised blacks, ensuring that they would never again face a free and\nfair election. They also controlled the memory of this event, as state-issued\ntext books taught our children that blacks were responsible for the violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Zucchino \u2013 who cut his teeth at the N&O in the 1970s \u2013 reports this ugly and momentous chapter of North Carolina history in his superb new book, \u201cWilmington\u2019s Lie.\u201d<\/a> He is not the first truth-teller \u2013 the African-American scholar Helen Edmonds earned that courageous honor in 1951. The novelist Philip Gerard brought the episode to life in his bracing 1994 novel, \u201cCape Fear Rising,\u201d<\/a> and in 2006, historian Timothy Tyson corrected the record in a 16-page supplement published by the N&O and Charlotte Observer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zucchino\u2019s years of archival work and cinematic writing\nstyle provide a gut-punching level of narrative detail. His almost\nmoment-by-moment reconstruction of the savage events is a tour de force of\nhistorical reportage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n His book is also part of the ongoing effort in books,\nmagazines and newspaper article to address America\u2019s often hidden racial\nhistory. Yes, most people know that slavery and Jim Crow were abominations, but\nZucchino and others are replacing that broad summary with specific accounts of\nthe breadth and depth of the systems imposed to prevent African-Americans and\ntheir white supporters from enjoying the blessings of liberty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jim Crow \u2013 like all systems that deny freedom \u2013 was\nunnatural. As with the Soviet gulags and apartheid South Africa, it required\nincessant work to block humanity\u2019s natural yearning to be free. The repressive\nlaws, institutions and ideologies that ruled North Carolina and the South were\nnot just how things were<\/em>, they were\nmade, imposed and extended every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, however, Zucchino succumbs to present-day\npartisanship. In the Epilogue, he asserts that the conservative Republicans who\nhave controlled our state legislature since 2011 have \u201cinvoke[d] the spirit of\n1898\u201d through voter ID laws and gerrymandering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To compare these efforts \u2013 which are aimed at diluting\nDemocratic rather than black power and .actually increased the number of\nAfrican-American legislators \u2013 to what transpired in Wilmington is misguided.\nIndeed, as he shows us what honest to goodness white supremacy looks like, he\ndebunks the current claims that it is ascendant today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A more pertinent lesson from his book regards the dangers of\na partisan press. Not just the N&O, but the Washington Post, New York\nTimes, Baltimore Sun and others provided false racist accounts of the white\nsupremacy campaign in 1898. Like Democrat leaders, they wanted a certain\noutcome and used the power of their pens to shape the news accordingly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That is the greater danger today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"