Photo credits: The Library of Congress

On Nov. 10, 1898, white supremacists murdered African Americans in Wilmington, North Carolina and deposed the elected Reconstruction era government in a coup d’etat.

It was the morning of November 10, 1898, in Wilmington, North Carolina, and the fire was the beginning of an assault that took place seven blocks east of the Cape Fear River, about 10 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. By sundown, [Alex] Manly’s newspaper [The Daily Record] had been torched, as many as 60 people had been murdered, and the local government that was elected two days prior had been overthrown and replaced by white supremacists.

For all the violent moments in United States history, the mob’s gruesome attack was unique: It was the only coup d’état ever to take place on American soil.

“Lost in the fire that destroyed The Daily Record were the lives of Black citizens and the spirit of a thriving Black community, and also the most promising effort in the South to build racial solidarity,” wrote Adrienne LaFrance and Vann Newkirk in an article titled The Lost History of an American Coup D’État.

Watch the trailer for “Wilmington On Fire,” a film about this tragic event in American history below.

Reference: Editors, ZinnEdProject.org. (2020) Nov. 10, 1898: Wilmington Massacre. Retrieved from https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/wilmington-massacre-2/#:~:text=On%20Nov.,in%20a%20coup%20d’etat.

*BlackThen.com writer and historian Victor Trammell edited and contributed to this report.