In 1973 i saw him first, across a loud, profane, filthy newsroom in downtown raleigh. He was right out of school. I was still in school. I looked across at a city summit, who is that . Thats david zucchino. Is going to be the new star here. He had long, dark hair, over his shoulders, sick, jet black mustache. It was a long time ago. David is a grad of the unc Journalism School and in the burnout of the journalism hall of fame. In raleigh, he became famous very quickly in the newsroom when a new young editor came in and sent out a memo to the reporting staff saying each report will submit to his editor every morning and itinerary for his plans for the day. David even then impossible to tame, sat down at the old manual typewriter. Its a legendary story. Said what i will do today, i david zucchino. 10 15 try to to sneak in a late. 10 40 get a son drop. 11 Start Talking up where to go to lunch. He was writing all this done. We went to the diner yesterday at the blue plate special win wt over four dollars so today we may go to the mecca. All written down. Young editor goes crazy. Goes into the office of claude, the very severe, series editor who would been at the New York Times, waving the memo, waving as aquino memo. We can have this kind of insubordination. Sit down and sits and looks at him. Not a pipe. Well, ive got to be honest with you. Hes one of the best general barrs ive ever seen. In fact, he may be the best ive ever seen, and i did work for the New York Times so if we have to fire him, or we have to fire you [laughing] better start packing. [laughing] zucch was in raleigh how long . Five years in raleigh. Then he was on quickly up the ladder, philadelphia, los angeles, all this as a Foreign Correspondent which he has been a contract correspondent for the new times now in kabul. He has been under fire. He has been under water. It has been quite a career and, you know, the late Jimmy Breslin once said of mike royko of the chicago paper when they were doing a sum of the columns, theyre trying to get quotes and everything, he said hes the best, is any . Thats all he said. Thats what they say about david zucchino. [applause] thank you, jim, for those stories. Were those true . All right. Thank everybody for come out tonight. I really appreciate your interest in the book. I would like to ask how many people have been watching the impeachment hearings . And i think they are still going so do i hear a motion to call this whole thing off . Will go to bar, turn on the tv and watch impeachment. No motion . All right. I use like to start off by asking people how many of you were aware of the women 10q or massacre or what if you want to call if we came across this book the wilmington coup. I had heard about this until about 20 years ago. I find out hes one of the leading speakers on the White Supremacy campaign that the subject of this bookin 1898. When i was in that i went to kingsstadium. I didnt know who canaan wasnt really didnt care years later, as im researching this book it turns out hes a character in my book as well. He was a member of one of the machinegun crews that went through town searching out like men tokill. After i left school as jim told you i went to the news and observer s founding publisher was Justice Daniels. Who was revered at the paper. There were tributes to him all around the newsroom. Nobody ever mentioned he was almost the leader of the White Supremacy campaign and lead a Propaganda Campaign in 1898. I had no idea until i started researching this book. I found out recently the student door at chapel hill is named the student store, i had no idea and one of 30 buildings im told by the Daily Tar Heel on the campus are named after White Supremacists, many of them who were active in the White Supremacy movement of 1890 and i bring all this up just to make the point that is both is not really ancient history. Its right now. Its about right now. The legacy of this book is all over the state, all over chapel hill. Some people whove managed to read the book, i ask them their impressions and they usually have 2 questions. First is how did i not know about this and the second is how can this happen in the United States of america . The only thing i can tell them if this is a forgotten chapter of American History, not just North Carolina history but American History that was covered up or mischaracterized for a century. Most of you know the basic story. In 1898 White Supremacists overthrew the multiracial government in wilmington. They killed up to 60 black men and they wounded dozens more. They burned down a black daily newspaper and they evicted city leaders at gunpoint. They appointed the mob leaders as mayor, police chief, sheriff and city alderman and they vanished black and white political leaders. They marched them with militiamen gunpoint tothe train station. They put them on the train and said if you ever comeback to wilmington we will shoot you on site. Not one ever came back. And you can imagine during this period what it must have been like for the black families who lived in wilmington. Their men were being shot down on the street and gunmen were running through the streets terrorizing people and hundreds of them fled into the swamps and cemeteries outside the city trying to hide from the white gunmen and this was in november so you can imagine it was cold and this happened to be the first day they were there, itwas raining. There were some reports that babies died of exposure. They were there under terrible conditions and took them 2 nights and three days before they felt safe enough to return and in the days and weeks following the coup, 2100 black people fled the city and never came back. And whats hard to believe about all this is that no one was ever punished. No one was prosecuted, much less convicted for the murders or for a violent coup. Its also hard to believe that they announced it all i had of time. They said they would overthrow quote, negro rule by the ballot or bullet or both. They said they were going to do it and they did it as the whole country watched. Because they had announced it well beforehand this would have been in the spring and summer and fall of 1898. All the major newspapers sent their white reporters down to cover. The New York Times was there, washington post, philadelphia inquirer, baltimore sun, washington evening star and the papers in charlotte and atlanta and of course the news and observer, they were all there and when these white reporters from out of town would arrive at the train station the leaders of the White Supremacy movement would meetthem there, and that cigars, give them liquor , arrange for lodging and to use a modern term they would embed them with the white gunmen who were going around patrolling the citys before the coup and these reporters would go out with them never interviewed a black person as far as i can tell that they would go out and they would swallow the stories that these gunmen and White Supremacists were telling them that there was going to be a black riot, that blacks were stockpiling weapons, that blacks were incapable of governing and they didnt have the right to vote and this was reflected, if you can believe these northern newspapers was reflected in the stories they sent back so the nation got this whole story that was basically the talking point for the White Supremacists through the white press. For a century or more this was called a quote, race riot. It wasnt. It was a racial massacre. It was a planned murder spree. In our nations history in the 19th and early20th centuries there have been many many socalled race riots. And almost all of these were spontaneous outbursts of white rage and in many cases, it involved real or supposedly contact between the black man and a white woman. But wilmington was unique. It was completely different. It was premeditated, it was a carefully orchestrated racial revolution planned well in advance and it was by far the most successful and permanent island overthrow of anelected government in us history. There has never been anything like it. Now, why was wilmington such a threat to whites . I think because it was a bold experiment and wilmington was really an outlier in the late 19th century. It was a rarity in the south. It was a majority black city, 56 percent black, very few big cities in the south at a black majority but more importantly it had a multiracial government. Blacks were in positions of authority and of the 26 Police Officers in the city were black, three of the 10 city alderman were black. Therewere a black magistrates, doctors, lawyers and there was the daily black newspaper. In 1898 a baptist publication called remington the freest town for a negro in the country. This was intolerable toWhite Supremacists and they were not going to let it stand. They had a goal. Their first goal was to overthrow the government in wilmington but that was just their first goal. There was a bigger goal and their major goal was to deny black people the right to vote and the right to hold Public Office forever. And by those standards it was an incredibly successful coup. In 1896 there were 126,000 registered black voters in North Carolina, 126,000. 1906, 10 years later, 6100 and it went downhill from there. And in fact, black citizens in North Carolinadid not vote in significant numbers for 70 more years until after the Voting Rights act of 1965. The coup also turned a black majority city into a white supremacist stronghold almost overnight. In 1898 as i said wilmington was 56 percent black. Anybody have a guess as to what it might be today . Somebody knows, 18 percent. In 1898, america had one black congressman in the entire country, one black congressman and his name was George Henry Whitefrom North Carolina and he represented a district in the southeastern part of the state that was adjacent to wilmington. He was our last, he and his family were harassed and basically run out of office by whitesupremacists. He said in 1900 was not going to run for reelection. It was leaving the state and his parting words were i cannot live in North Carolina and be treated as a man and after George Henry White left office in 1900, no black citizens from North Carolina served in congress until 1992 almost a century later. After those three black aldermen were evicted at gunpoint in 1898 no black citizen served on the Wilmington City Council until 1972. It wasnt that long ago. The coup also installed White Supremacy and jim crow as official state policy for nearly 50 years inspired White Supremacists across the south. Ill give you one example. In georgia in 1906 there was a statewide Election Campaign and the White Supremacists therewere trying to find a way to deny blacks to vote and steal the election. What do you think they did . They consulted with the leaders of the wilmington coup to find out how to do it. The white supremacistgovernor who got elected was hopelessness and heres a direct quote from him. We can handle the blacks the way they handled them in wilmington where the woods were black with their hanging purposes. That was a quote not all whites in wilmington were white supremacist. White republican officials worked closely with black officials in large part because the black vote was what helped put republicans in office under government called fusion at the time. Some whites their black neighbors escape thewhite gunmen on the day of the coup but that made them targets. During the summerof 1898 , white republicans who were prominent and who were seen as working too closely with black officials received postcards in the mail and they were called remember the sixth andthey had a skull and cross bones and a pistol on them and it was a death threat and on the card it said these six men, it was the sixth leading white republicans of the town , they call them degenerate sons of the white race and they said the day was coming when they would pay for putting blacks in office and they would be banished from the town. As it turned out they were. The mayor, the white mayor, white policechief, white commissioner and several white lawyers were marched at gunpoint to thetrain station, put on the train and said dont come back , we will kill you and not one of them ever came back. The main weapon or one of the main weapons for the White Supremacy campaign was a Fake News Campaign led by Joseph Daniels who planted phony stories in the observer about blacks that would fight whites to who attacked them and for the 25 percent of white voters who were illiterate daniels hired a cartoonist to draw race baiting cartoons. Id like to read a brief passage from the book about the Propaganda Campaign. More than a century before sophisticated fake news attacks targeted social media websites, daniels manipulation of white readers through phony or misleading newspaper stories was perhaps the most daring and effective Disinformation Campaign ofthe era. The most sensational stories august on what daniels and other democrats claimed was a black rapist. As a native of the south daniels understood implicitly sexual insecurities of white southern males. Already emasculated by union troops had occupied their town they rest further shame if black men were elevated to something approaching equality. A black man who could vote or hold Public Office was a man who might bear by their logic become a rival for the affections of white women. Daniels escalated trivial incidents into frontpage outrages. All that was required was incidental contact to a white woman anda black man. Each cartoon and with each provocative article daniels pitted whites against blacks. The day was coming, daniels wrote in the news and observer when white men will take the law in their own hands and by organized force make the negroes behave themselves. A race war was inevitable quote, a clash is surely coming between the races, daniels assured his readers and in such clashes, the white race is always victorious. Now, White Supremacists had their own fake news and their Media Campaign butthey also had their own militia. They were called redshirts and they were basically an outgrowth of the clan. Many of the men in the redshirts were sons or relatives of confederate veterans or former clan members and they were basically the private militia of the whitesupremacists. All summer redshirts job was to ride through the cape fear countryside at night , burst into homes, drag out black men and beat them and with them and tell them they would be killed if they registered to vote or dared to vote on electionday. And on election day , which is in november 1898, they intercepted any black man trying to get to the polling station and intimidated them and beat them and by doing so they crushed the black turnout that day and stole the election. In addition to the redshirts, there were 2 state militias in wilmington read the first was the willington light infantry and the other was the wilmington naval reserve. These were basically the National Guard of the day. They were supposed to report to the governor in raleigh but they were in fact commanded by White Supremacists and reported to the two leaders. The militiamen served in the spanishamerican war. The war played out atsummer. But the white leaders made sure that they were back in wilmington from the war for the time of the coup and they had planned the coup for two days after the election and then during the coup and during the riots unleashed them on black citizens. On the day of the coup these militiamen were still in federal service. They were federal sort soldiers because they wouldnt be mustered out for another week or two so that meant federal soldiers murdered american citizens on the pretext of putting down a black right. Blacks soldiers also served in the spanishamerican war and segregated units but white leaders made sure they were far from wilmington on the day of the two at a Training Camp in georgia under the miles away so that left the black community defenseless. Here you had all these young men trained soldiers, trained inweapons but they were miles away. There were defenders of the black community and one was named alex manley, he was the black publisher of the daily record. And as a journalist i was drawn to manley. I thought it was a fascinating character. He was a courageous man,just an amazing character. He challenged whites in print and demanded civil rights for blacks. He demanded the country live up to its promises to its blackcitizens. In august 1898 he wrote an incendiary editorial about race and sex that almost got him lynched. He had to flee the city. He wrote many black men were supposedly raving white women were in fact consensual lovers and pointed out white men raped black women with impunity. This editorial was in response to a speech by a white woman in georgia who said the only solution to rate was the lynch rope. Quote, 1000 times a week if necessary. I like to read now briefly from the editorial, it was a fairly long editorial and im going to read a short selection. Close, every negro lynched is called quote, 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. Let virtue be something more than an excuse for them to intimidate and torture a helpless people. Tell your men it is no worse for a black man to be intimate with a white woman and for a white man to be intimate with a colored woman. You sell yourself down as a lot of carping hypocrites and that you cry aloud for the virtue of your women while you seek to destroy the morality of ours. You can imagine what courage it took for a black man under these conditions to write Something Like that. People often ask me how i researched this book and im a journalist as jim mentioned. Im used interviewing people about events that theyve witnessedor that theyve experienced. Obviously in this case there are no witnesses left from 1898 so everything thats in this book came from documents and i got piles and piles of paper in my office from all the documents that i collected. I spent a lot of time in libraries, most significantly will bring Wilmington Library and the Southern Historical collection in the North Carolina collection which are amazing repositories of history, i really recommend that yougo but it was a problem. The whites were proud of their accomplishments and they boasted about it in memoirs and in diaries and letters and in newspaper columns. There was a really rich and detailed white record, but blacks left behind far fewer documents. As you can imagine they were running for their lives. The daily record was bird, all the copies weredestroyed although some people are finding back copies now. So when i was able to do thankfully is that there were black newspapers around the country who obviously could not send black reporters to wilmington to cover these events because at the very least they would have been the end run out of town and probably killed but after the two when all these black families read around the country, mostly on the eastern seaboard, the black newspapers would interview them and get some very reach rich and detailed stories about what had happened so that was a great resource for me. In addition, there were black ministers and black lawyers who left very interesting memoirs and left letters with incredible detail. One of the great sources i had was alex manleys wife brought these beautiful series of letters to her sons in the 1950s that are just pointing to read and i quote from some of them in the book so with all of this i was able to balance the white narrative with the black experience. And when i tried to do also was to put myself in wilmington as a journalist in 1898. And i also tried to use the tools of a novelist. Characters and scenes and dialogue to create a narrative thats built entirely from documents. This is not a historical fiction book. This is a nonfiction book. Everything in this book comes from documents. Its a work of journalism and its not fake news to use the term of the day. Now, before closing i want to read 2 short passages from the book that show the scope of this tragedy. First is an election eve speech given to the redshirt biker colonel alford moore waddell, a former congressman and a newspaper editor and a former confederate colonel who led the mob and installed himself as mayor area and again, this is the night before the election when he gave the speech to a huge crowd of redshirts in wilmington. Quote, men, the crisis is upon us. You must do your duty. This city, county and state shallbe read of negro dominationonce and forever. You have the courage, you are great, you are the sons of noble ancestry. You areanglosaxons. You are armed and prepared and you will do your duty. Go to the polls tomorrow and if you find a negro out voting tell him to leave the polls and if he refuses, kill him. Shoot him down in his tracks. Now, to show how the redshirts responded id like to read another passage this is about a black man named carter payment was a fascinating character. He had spent the summer encouraging blacks registered to vote and this made him a target but on the day of the riots, three white leaders persuaded payment to go with them doortodoor in a black neighborhood called brooklyn to plead with black residents not to resist black gunmen. He had made a great public show of urging blacks to vote but earlier in the day on november 10 which is the day of the coup , he concluded that further resistance would only get him killed. He had gone from house to house in brooklyn accompanied by three white men leading with black residents not to oppose the white government. At one point a group of enraged black men sees the three white men and held them hostage area it was the sort of bold and desperate act that might be expected of payment himself but he supplies everyone waiting with the black men to release their captives after a series ofnegotiations , the three whites were set free. Payment exported them to a nearby gathering of white government expecting around thanks. Instead, several white men in the crowd attempted to lynch him read they were intercepted by two of the three hostages who plunged into the mob and pulled him free. Payment during intercession on behalf of the white hostages did not spare him on the Management Campaign area just before dark infantry detachment quote arrested payment and escorted him to the city jail. Short time later the infantry soldiers kept him from jail marched him at gunpoint to the train depot where he was placed aboard adeparting train. Payment was terrified area just before the train departed Ominous Development in his situation even more dire. He was warned by the soldiers he would be killed on site if he ever returned to wilmington second gang of redshirts or the train before it rolled out of the depot. The infantry detachment that the party leaving payment alone with theredshirts. A few hours later hamans body riddled with bullets was discovered in the woods near open park on the northern outskirts. One account said he had jumps from the moving train and was shot by the redshirts. It is more likely he was executed on board and his body flung from the train. You think this major event in North Carolina history and in American History would be mentioned in the North Carolina public history books in schools. But in fact it was barely mentioned and it was, if it was it was portrayed as the heroic white response to a black race riot and a quote Good Government effort to replace corrupt negro rule. Heres a Public School textbook from 1933. Quote, there were many negro office soldiers,some of them were poorlyfitted for their task. This arousal feelings between the races. Heres some textbook from 1930. A massive negroes became poor citizens. Keep their vote carpetbaggers allow them to do very much as they please. The worst crimes are not punished read the white people of the south were no longer safe. Heres from the 1949textbook. A number of blacks were jailed for starting a riot in the new White Administration took over wilmingtons government and finally, this is from a 1940 textbook about the kkk and redshirts. This is a Public School textbook that children were reading. To put an end to this terrible condition white people joined together in a sort of club they named theku klux klan. Members dressed as ghosts, members dressed as ghosts and scared lawless men and acting decently read on moonlit nights thesemen could be seen writing to bring order back into the lives of their people. Such sites negroes into livingbetter lives. The names of these men negro or white that had done wrong were listed. The next moonlit night the clan would visit these men and punishthem according to the wrongs they had done. After this lawless men were not so bold and the crime became less and less. Again, Public School textbook 1940 so you can see how the white mythology the false narrative of wilmington and its live for so long. I wrote this book to correct the historical record. We have to confront the ugliest chapters of our history to understand the roots of racism and hate and learn from them read today politicians are using social media escapegoat and demonize people of color with White Nationalism on the rise. In fact some of the white nationalists who chanted jews will not replace us in charlottesville would probably have feltright at home in wilmington in 1898. White voters today are being told by some extremists that america is a white country. And people of color are portrayed as outsiders and threats to the traditional american way of life and a few politicians are using some of the same tactics that the white supremacist in1898. Alex manley in addition to the many Death Threats he received was told many times , go back to africa. Just this summer. Conversely men of color were told to go back to their home countries. One more example , in 1898 whites were told lacks were ripping their women and stealing their jobs. Today white voters are told mexican rapists are pouring across the border to steal their jobs so if we dont learn from tragedies like wilmington, demagogues who play the race card againand again to incite the sort of hate and violence that was so destructive hundred 22 years ago so if theres one thing i hope that you do takefrom this book , this is it so thank you very much. Youve been very patient and thank you for listening. [applause] and i think were going to open it to questions now. Two quick questions, first , that went off on me. First is i had heard on npr that there was some difficulty in even obtaining the information that you researched Going Forward today and some of the libraries have kept this off the shelves and its question number one, number two, was there any realization from the federal government, politicians and other states at the time that this was going on and did they do anything . The first question, i did not have any trouble getting documents. Theresplenty of them, they are very well categorized. Imentioned Wilmington Library in the Public Library in wilmington , the cape fair museum , national archives. There was no trouble, there were more documents than i can handle. Second question was the federal government. I write in the book about how the Mckinley Administration was warned repeatedly before hand during the summer and fall of 1898. George henry white, the congressman i mentioned that in the white house with mckinley and warning warned him about what was going to happen. A group of black clergymen also met with mckinley and warned him about the same thing as did the white republican congressman from North Carolina. The senator, sorry. All warned him after the riots and the two, george in re white went back and asked president mckinley for help, for intercession but then to send troops. Other black ministers did the same. As far as i can tell in the records, mckinley did not make onesingle Public Statement about the situation in wilmington. You have to remember this was in the aftermath of the spanishamerican war and the peace negotiations with the spanish were going very poorly. His administration was being accused of not taking care of the troops in cuba and puerto rico weredying of yellow fever. They were poorly fed. It was ahuge controversy. It was surprising that mckinley reacted that way because he was an abolitionist. He had been a Union Officer and in fact he campaigned for the black vote and supported black suffrage, but he was also trying to bring the nation together and during his campaign he met with confederate veterans and gave them each a knife that was in grade union forever, trying to heal the wounds and you have to remember in1898 , 30 years after the civil war white southerners and northerners are fighting together in the war so i think in his mind he did not want to risk antagonizing southern whites. He had to run for reelection so i think for all these reasons he didnt intercede but in answer to your question there was no intercession bythe federal government. Im sorry, yes sir, back here with your hand up. I like to know about the reaction of governor Daniel Russell on the coup. And the reactions from either wells barnett. Russell was a republican and in fact he was put in office with the help of black votes. He was fromwilmington. He was from a slaveowning family, was part of the white gentry in wilmington. But he was under threat by the White Supremacists. A completely intimidated him. They threatened him with assassination, he carried a gun with him he was so afraid. They threatened him with impeachment. He tried to go to wilmington on the day of the election and managed to vote but he barely made it home. It was almost killed on the way because he had to go through redshirt towns on to get back to raleigh on the train and they had to hide him in a baggage car and at every stop drunken redshirts would board the train and try to lynch him and screaming lynch the fat sonofabitch. He made it to raleigh only to find at the Governors Mansion it was surrounded by a mob and he barely got inside and he and his wife had to stay there. In order for federal troops to come down and restore order or do anything about the riots that governor russell wouldhave to request them and he wasnt about to because he was terrified. Next, yes maam. Im wondering if the redshirts had been so successful in suppressing the vote why they felt it was necessary to goahead with the coup . Because municipal offices were part of the election. There was a municipal election for next march and they didnt want that long and they knew once they stole the election and were in power they would be in a position to do whatever they wanted because nobody in the city, nobody in raleigh was going to stop them they had taken over the City Government so they planned the coup for two days after the election and forcibly removed the officeholders rather thanwaiting for the march election. Over here if anybody has any questions. Number yes sir. Wait for the microphone. I appreciate the fact that you are sounding the alarm, ringing the bell, in essence being a toxin for awareness of this issue. Obviously our local newspaper has on its masthead be hope to be the toxin for misdeeds. Is there any role for reparations, anything of that nature from descendents or owners of the newspapers that bowman did this riot . I was in wilmington over the weekend and talk and reparations came up as you can imagine and in 1998, when they celebrated, not celebrated, marked the hundred Year Anniversary was quite a debate in the city over reparation and that debate is still going on. I just wonder how you could possibly compensate all these families that had their lives ripped apart. Add members of theirfamily murdered and run out of town. I think its an important issue. I think it needs tobe discussed, i dont have the answer but in wilmington it is a big issue. And youmentioned Justice Daniels , an ironic quote thats run on the editorial page everysingle day. If you read the words, you might burst out laughing. Yes, rob. As you mentioned in the epilogue, its come down from the unc campus that its perhaps time to topple the statue of josephus and mass square. Im not getting into that one, thats not for me to decide. I will say i did anticipate a question about silent sam. Many of you might know this but the speaker when the statue was put up in 1913, the main speaker was julian shakespeare car. Youve heard of him, carrboro tobacco company, he was a vocal supporter of the White Supremacy campaign. Championed White Supremacyand as i say in 1913 he delivered a speech in ordering silent sam. Let me read you a couple of quotes. It was portrayed as a tribute to the students who left the university serving the war and it was because a lot of students died in the war but he made it clear that was also a tribute to White Supremacy. Carr said that students and fought to quote, save the life of the anglosaxon race and to hold the purest strain of the anglosaxon in his speech he bragged about flogging a black woman when he returned from serving in the civil war. I for swift and the girl went until her skirt hung in shreds because on the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned the southern lady. Called it a pleasing duty. Just wanted to make that point again this isnt ancient history, this is very much alive today read theres a building on campus named after car today and it still stands. Wilmington happened, you mentioned georgia. And then we had rosewood and we had tulsa. Can you comment about the interrelationship of wilmington happening and setting the standard for subsequent white supremacist massacres . I dont know. I can only assume those riots, socalled riots would have happened regardless of wilmington but as i pointed out before, wilmington was absolutely unique in that it wasnt a spontaneous outburst of rage on behalf of whites. It was planned, it was premeditated. Over a period of months and thats the distinction to say what effect it had because a lot of these socalled riots happenedbefore 1898 , whether it had an effect or somehow contributed to the ones after that, i cant say area yes maam. Hi david. I was wondering if you could talk more about the role of the North Carolina Democratic Party in fighting the militia. Of course the Democratic Party is different today and it was back in 1898. But if you could talk more about that and i guess any subsequent things to overturn it or not overturn the documentation that was put out among the white militia. I think as most of you know Democratic Party in 1898 was the party of White Supremacy and the republicans were the party of lincoln and black suffrage read Josephus Daniels was on the executive committee of the Democratic Party. In fact in my mind he was a politician who happened to own thebiggest and most powerful newspaper in the state. And he met regularly in his office with the Democratic Executive Committee in the office of the news and observer to plan strategies to deprive blacks of the vote and to malign lacks in this phony News Campaign and he did it as a member of the Democratic Party working with a man named fernald simmons was thechairman of the Democratic Party. And after the coup, whites had to figure out, the Democratic Party had to figure out how they could permanently by legislation to blacks for voting. You were poll taxes and literacy taxes and those were used to keep blacks from voting but they also affected white voters does as i said before nearly a quarter of the whites were illiterate so they had to figure out a way to and sent them from the literacy test and from the poll tax is a lot of whites were poor they had Josephus Daniels go to louisiana which the year before and passed a socalled grandfather clause which was a brilliant piece of legislation. Law in louisiana said any person whose father or grandfather and voted before 1867 would be exempt from the poll tax and literacy test. 1868 was the year blacks got the vote so obviously law exempted almost all blackmen from voting. Josephus daniels thought this was wonderful. The Democratic Party sent him down there to do what they portrayed as a journalistic investigation on this and in fact daniels didnt want to pay for it. He got the Democratic Party to pay for it and he went and wrote these Amazing Stories about how wonderful the grandfather clause was and how it had completely snuffed out the black vote and said weve really got to try this in North Carolina. In 1900 they passed an amendment and it was passed into law and that was used up until 1915 when several other, by the way that inspired for other Southern States to do the same thing area 1915 the Supreme Court outlawed it but by that time black voting had been snuffed out in North Carolina and around the south until at least 1965. Front row. The flip side, did you find in wilmington that people look at some of the road characters that you found like manley and even galloway who you didnt talk much about earlier and is there a period of there being honored or remembered for the role they played in trying to create this experiment in wilmington . Alex manley had a historic marker in wilmington but it calls what happened in 1898 a quote, race right. There is a Real Movement in wilmington now to have Abraham Galloway get some sort of recognition, a statue or something. If you have read the book he was an amazing character. An escaped slave, he was from outside wilmington. He escaped on a ship, stowed away on a ship and got to philadelphia and he came back and was a union spidering the war and he was i believe the first or one of the very first black senators in North Carolina after 1868 after a new institution was written so he was an incredible man and there is a movement to have some sort of tribute or monument to him. Nobody else, lets go over here to the back. Speaking of reparations, is there any documentation of africanamerican property that was confiscated and the current value of it . That has been an issue for many years and among the black community there was a conviction that whites confiscated their property after they fled and took it over. There was a researcher named i think sue and cody unc wilmington who did a study of all theproperty records of the time. Presently this is in 2006 state commission write report , she found that there was very very few examples of this. And the conclusion i came up with is that the White Supremacists wanted to deprive blacks of their civil rights. Not of their property and i think according to this analysis what had happened is even when black families left they would leave the property and had it taken over by either black friends or black relatives so according to this studymost of the Properties Data and black hands. Anybody else. We in the back. I do not hear any questionsbeing asked on the side. Secondly, you course notice but what about the United States senator thereafter in this state from 1901 to 1931. Okay. Im just watching the boom might not working. The question was about simmons was the head of the Democratic Party and one of the leaders of the White Supremacy campaign. He catapulted to fame along with a lot of other people in 1898 and as you mentioned he served 30 years as a us senator and Rob Christiansen right here in the back row, wrote a terrific book and includes simmons and politics in northcarolina, i recommend it highly. Josephus daniels rose to fame and became secretary of the navy under Woodrow Wilson was a segregationist we spent eight years as ayoung man in wilmington. He was also ambassador of mexico, became a wellknown man, nationally known figure. Many other, when there were three speakers during the White Supremacy campaign they became governors and catapulted to fame as a result of their role in the campaign. Right here. I have a couple of comments and questions you mentioned earlier something about brooklyn. I grew up in brooklyn new york. First of all, the story is an absolutely outrageous story area and is it possible , first my comment. This sounds almost like a blueprint for the holocaust. Almost read theres a lot of similarities. Im sure it wasnt the area but my question is this, its possible that kaylee didnt get involved in the actions in wilmington because of states rights. And because he felt that there are good people on both sides. He may have thought that, i know he never said it to my knowledge but i think thats a good point. Its entirely possible but i do think he did not want to antagonize voters, not only in North Carolina but across the south. He was a politician running for reelection and i think that had a lot todo with. Ive been working with young people and we did a pilgrimage to wilmington this past summer and i was wondering if youheard from members of the community in wilmington the black community , particularly st. Marks. They said in the past year to descendents of the redcoats came to apologize or what their ancestors had done so you might want to get in touch with st. Marks. My question is in your research have you seen evidence of how the impact of 1898 played on the wilmington town in the 1970s . Got asked that question about the wilmington 10. Im not an expert on the wilmington 10 i remember and i know the outlines of the story. Im sure most people here are familiar with the wilmington 10 71 or 72. I wont go into the whole story but you can only assume that some of the hate and racism from 1898 bled over into what whites called in 1971 by accusing 10 people who were later exonerated. He also had the clan marching in 1971 and the rights of what people and organizations, i dont know the details so yes, i see a Straight Line that hate and racism against 1971. As i said when the 10 young people, they were in, nine of them were black and one was a white woman. The young people were wanting a place to meet just to discuss their grievances and no church would own up and when i asked him about that they said they were afraid to what happened in 1898. You mentioned black descendents, i was just down in wilmington and i tried hard and went all over the city when i was doing the book to get people to talk to me and very few would and i tried to talk to some interesting descendents and put them in the book but now when i went down there were all these people coming forward telling me these incredible stories that i wish i had for the so i think theres a part of that working there that people didnt want to talk about. Black newspaper replaced the record, i went several times there in person, phone calls, emails and they completely ignored me and did not want to talk to me and i think it was the legacy of a white person coming to tell their story and i dont think they wantedbut they never talked to me. Yes maam, way back here. Our students have been researching only documented lynching in a county for three years now and in the last 2 weeks our Research Takes us back to thomas dixon, Josephus Daniels in bc, secretary of navy with wilson and the thomas dixon was one of the leaders in the clan at the time the clerk of court for raleigh and would have been the one to know George Taylor had been arrested so the planwas waiting for him. The woman who was accused of being raped it wasnt him and were waiting for him within the driveway and that night he was murdered, lynched with a 300 person mob in a town of 120 area and was the peak of this campaign because one would think this was the peak but what do you think now that youve done this work and we know these other pieces later. When does this whitesupremacy campaign declined . I look around this room and i have to say i just got called out by a senior in high school and he said im glad white people are getting involved finally and i thought your we are areas but when is the decline . It certainly peaked in 1898 but as you know the clan went underground after reconstruction and came back in a big way and i would think the 1920s, not only in wilmington but around the state and around the south so and today, obviously theres not the over racism and the violence that we hadin 1898. You have a state legislature here that just passed recently a few years ago a voter id laws that the federal courts ruled were specific specifically designed to depress and suppress turnout and one judge that it targeted africanamericans with surgical precision thats one example. Obviously this is not the same level of faces and racism and hate attempt to keep black citizens from voting. We have time for onemore question. Theres the pressure, yes maam. This is more of a personal level, when i moved to raleigh 40 years ago i joined jaycees and the daniels and been a member of the acs previously. Everything i always heard when i moved from fayetteville which was a military town to raleigh was how liberal the raleigh observer was. Having here you talk about the past and the things that were done in the past, hoping the Daniels Family has seen some of life with their generation offspring, have you happened to run into any of the daniels as of late and if you have, hopefully theyve read your book and i just want to know on a personal basis , do you see any difference in the writing in the newspaper today as a journalist or have you, have you run into family . The paper when i worked there and today, i worked there in the 70s was a very progressive and liberal paper and still is on the editorial page. When i worked there i thought it was a terrific paper area it was a force and particularly covering government, state government. Covering and exposingfraud by republicans and democrats. It remained a democratic paper but todays democrat and i think the editorial page over the years has hewed to pretty much traditional mainstream liberal democratic opinions and values. Yes, doyou have a followup . [inaudible] what do you think caused that change . Josephus daniels died in the 40s area his family did take it over and there was a period when it was still conservative in the 50s, but i think once the Democratic Party changed, when the segregationist wing of the states rights wing of the Democratic Party voted for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party became now the voice of progressive movements and at the same time africanamerican voters demanded they come over to the Democratic Party and i think the news and observer at a choice to make whether to stay with the democrats and stay with the democrats and as i say from the time i worked there till this morning, the paper is i think most people would agree editorial is mainstream liberal progressive and you asked about the daniels, i worked for Frank Daniels junior is the grandson of josephus and he was very gracious, i met him in his office and he took all the time i needed and i talked to him and you can read about in the book. Hes mentioned in theepilogue. Thank you so much. Thank you all very, very much. [applause] requested. The president from public affairs, available now in paperback and ebook. Presents murphys of every president , organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst. And features perspectives into the livesof our nations chiefexecutives and leadership styles. Visit our website , the president to learn more about each president and historian features and order your copy today. Wherever books and ebooks are sold. On our weekly Author Interview program, former Clinton Administration press secretary mike mccurry interviewed abc news chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Carl about his time covering thetrump administration. In this portion of the program he discusses the history of the phrase any of the people. Every one of those president s complain about press coverage. Every one of those thought the press august on, it was way too negative and they didnt see the great accomplishments of the administration. Thats tattered operating procedure but trumps attacks go far beyond any of that area literally, you have any of the people which is a phrase which i actually spent a little time in the book about the origins of that phrase. Its a very ugly phrase thats been used by stalin, used by hitler. Used during the french revolution to justify the beheadings of people by guillotine. Talk more about that, thats one of the more interesting parts of the book is unpacking that phrase. You do that at some length in a couple of chapters and really go through what a noxious phrase that is if you look back at the history of it but talk about that a little bit. I spent some time looking through the origins of the phrase and it was used white prominently during the french revolution. Thats really the most difficult place. People got beheaded as a result. And basically the justification was that the people that were targeted by the law under which they were found guilty and beheaded, the actual law uses that phrase enemy of the people. And i go through and i document the use of it during the reign of terror when blood was falling in the streets of paris. And then the other place, the next place that i saw it was in germany. The website that gave hitler his powers, i go back and find this article that was an Associated Press article and had a front page in the New York Times and papers around the world and right there on the lead paragraph, you see the National Socialist party making the case anybody who votes against this is an enemy of the people so you have a nazis using the phrase then you see it later used by joseph stalin. Im not saying that donald trump knew that that was the history behind this phrase it was certainly pointed out by a lot of people that have had this really dark and morbid and deadly history and he kept using it. Visit our website, booktv. Org and click on the afterwards tab on the end of the page. Simply around long discusses her journey from prisoner to advocate for juvenile sentencing reform and historian Richard Frank provides a history of the asiapacific war from 1937 tonight. Him welcome to this evenings welcome to this evenings screen showing. To this evenings Tisch College Speaker Series featuring a conversation with cyntoia brownlong, and author, activist for criminal justice reform. I want to thank molly you just heard from. It was her suggestion
vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.