Civil War: The Wilmington Uprising

On November 10th, 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina became the site of the only coup d’état in American history. The uprising of 1898 was complicated, with deep roots and lasting effects, yet this momentous event has gone largely ignored, relegated to an obscure corner of history where it is remembered only as a petty riot. It is rarely acknowledged as the incident that led to the overthrow of North Carolinian Reconstruction governments in favor of the Democratic assemblies that instituted the infamous Jim Crow laws, leading to a century of segregation. The Democrats of North Carolina staged this uprising as a reaction to the laws placed on them by Reconstruction—laws that were alien, diametrically opposed to the views held by the Old South,
and laws that insisted on social equality between blacks and whites. After the coup d’état had concluded, the political turmoil created in its wake was exploited to ensure that blacks would never again rise in opposition to the white race. Beginning with a speech by a feminist and ending with the Cape Fear River dammed with the bodies of blacks, the Wilmington coup d’état was a multi-faceted social revolution led by a race ruled by unreasonable fears to reopen the wounds of those whose oppression they wished back.
The roots of the Wilmington uprising trace back to the end of the Civil War, after President Lincoln and his successors established Reconstruction governments in the South.
What had formerly been ruled by Democratic hardliners was now governed by equally radical Republicans intent on changing the ways of the South. One of the primary goals of Reconstruction was to integrate blacks into Southern society and readmit the states that seceded, but only after blacks had won full political and civil equality (Wormser, “Reconstruction”). This, however, did not align with the idea that most Southern leaders at the time held, and there was an obvious backlash to the Republican
government.
Almost immediately after reform organizations such as the Freedmen’s Bureau were created, North Carolina adopted Black Codes that restricted citizenship in order to deny former slaves civil rights and also refused to ratify the 14th Amendment, leading Congress to turn it over to military rule. Under martial law, blacks were allowed to serve on juries and hold government office (“War’s End and Reconstruction”). Since the blacks were supposedly an inferior race, this led Southern whites to argue that the freedmen were corrupting the government with their presence and they had no intention other than ruling over and eventually eliminating the whites. This was a common belief, and it was also the most prevalent excuse for the Wilmington coup d’état (McKelway, 1).
The leaders of the 1898 uprising were radical Democrats who wanted a return to the status quo antebellum, with the exception of slavery.
These Democrats were men who feared their loss of power after the 1894 elections. Preceding 1894, the Democrats had control of the North Carolina General Assembly, with their major competitors being the Populists and the Republicans. During the 1894 elections, these two parties combined their platforms and ran together, creating a “Fusion” party that ousted Democratic hegemony in both houses of the General Assembly. What was truly insulting and infuriating to the Democrats, however, was the election of a Fusionist, Daniel Russell as the governor of North Carolina in 1896. In addition, Russell enacted a series of policies that expanded franchisement to include more blacks, leading to a biracial government in Wilmington
(Hunt).
In a speech to newly freed blacks just months after the Civil War ended, Alfred Waddell reminded them:
You have rights now which you did not have before, but the white people, as a class, have not lost any of their rights, except the right to hold slaves…. Being a new question in the politics of this country…[one] thing is certain, viz: That you cannot vote now, under the regulations established by the President for the reorganization of the State government. (Waddell, “Lecture…”)
Waddell later asserted that he could not see a future where blacks and whites lived in social equality, and affirmed his belief in the dominance of the white race (Waddell, “Card…”). Waddell’s presumption of the innate inferiority of the black race combined with anger towards the election of black officials to catalyze his actions as the leader of the Wilmington uprising. Almost all of the other participants in the uprising shared Waddell’s view of African Americans, and for a society that had once owned and sold blacks, being governed by that same race was a radical social change that they could not accept.
The uprising was also caused in part by the blacks themselves, although not through any form of violence or corruption as the Democrats suggested. In Waddell’s aforementioned speech, he told the blacks that if they ever hoped to alleviate their oppression and make social progress, they ought to work hard and become industrious folk like the whites (Waddell, “Lecture…”). Much to Waddell’s surprise and chagrin, this is precisely what the black community of Wilmington did. An examination of city directories before the coup d’état revealed that more than sixty percent of the city’s population was composed of blacks. Of these, there were approximately 58 black-run businesses, mainly barber shops, tailors, and drug stores (City Directory, 1897; Wormser, “Wilmington Riot”). The black population in Wilmington was thriving, and this terrified the whites. The provisions of North Carolina’s Reconstruction government are what initially allowed blacks to become relatively successful, so once again, Reconstruction policies became linked to the Wilmington coup d’état.
With a growing black middle class and a Fusionist governor, Wilmington Democrats now had all the fuel needed to begin the fire; all they were lacking was a spark. That spark arrived in August of 1898, when Alexander Manly, editor of the Daily Record, published an inflammatory response to a speech by Rebecca Felton. In her oration, Felton declared that blacks ought to be lynched as often as necessary to protect the innocence of white women. In retaliation, Manly argued that perhaps whites should consider protecting their women more carefully. Manly also brought attention to the fact that most blacks were falsely accused, of rape, and sexual relations between white men and black women were just as common (Felton, Manly). Despite the truth in his statements, Manly’s bravado in challenging white infallibility was unacceptable and convinced Democrats that the time to revert to the old ways had arrived.