Wilmington insurrection of 1898

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The Wilmington insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington race riot of 1898, occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina on November 10, 1898. It is considered a turning point in post-Reconstruction North Carolina politics. The event marks an era of more severe racial segregation and effective disenfranchisement of African-Americans throughout the South, a shift already underway since passage by Mississippi of a new constitution in 1890 raising barriers to voter registration. Laura Edwards wrote in Democracy Betrayed (2000), "What happened in Wilmington became an affirmation of white supremacy not just in that one city, but in the South and in the nation as a whole," as it affirmed that invoking "whiteness" eclipsed the legal citizenship, individual rights and equal protection under the law of blacks.

It was originally described by white Americans as a race riot caused by blacks. However, over time, with more facts discovered, the event has come to be classified as a coup d'etat, with complex causes that were social, political and economic. It is the only successful coup d'état on record in the U.S.

The coup occurred after the state's white Conservative Democratic Party conspired, and led a mob of 2,000 white men, to overthrow the legitimately elected local Fusionist government, expelling black leaders from the city, destroying the property and businesses of black citizens built up since the Civil War, including the only black newspaper in the city, and killing an estimated 60, to more than 300, people.

The event came to define, and popularize, the term "race riot." The coordinated overthrow is known to be the only successful coup d'etat on U.S. soil.

Video Wilmington insurrection of 1898

Background

In 1860, before the Civil War, Wilmington was majority black and the largest city in the state, with nearly 10,000 people. Numerous slaves and free people of color worked at the port, in households as domestic servants, and in a variety of jobs as artisans and skilled workers.

With the end of the war, freedmen in many states left plantation and rural areas for towns and cities, not only to seek work but to gain safety by creating black communities without white supervision. Tensions grew in Wilmington and other areas because of a shortage of supplies; Confederate currency had no value and the South was impoverished at the end of the long war.

In 1868, North Carolina ratified the 14th Amendment, resulting in the recognition of Reconstruction, and in the state legislature and governorship falling under Republican rule. Conservative Democrats greatly resented this "radical" change, which they deemed as being brought about by blacks, Unionist carpetbaggers, and race traitors. Freedmen were eager to vote, tending to support the Republican Party that had emancipated them and achieved their citizenship and suffrage.

For a temporary period Confederate veterans were barred from office and voting. Many white Democrats had been embittered since the Confederacy's defeat. Insurgent veterans joined the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which generated considerable violence at elections to suppress the black vote.

Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1870. After the KKK was suppressed by the federal government through the Force Act of 1870, new paramilitary groups arose in the South. By 1874, chapters of Red Shirts, a paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party, had formed in North Carolina.

Democrats developed a plan to reverse "home rule," meaning local officials would no longer be elected, but appointed by the state. They began circumventing legislation by taking over the state's judiciary, and adopted 30 amendments to the state constitution including lowering the number of judges on the state supreme court, putting the lower courts and locals governments under the control of the state legislature, rescinding the votes of certain types of criminals, mandating segregated public schools, outlawing interracial relationships and granting the General Assembly the power to modify or nullify any local government. By adopting these things, the Conservative Democrats became celebrated as bastions for white Americans. However, their control was largely limited to the western part of the state, within counties where there were few blacks.

As the Democrats chipped away at Republican rule, things came to a head with the 1876 gubernatorial campaign of Zebulon B. Vance, a former Confederate soldier and governor. Vance called the Republican party "begotten by a scalawag out of a mulatto and born in an outhouse." Through Vance, the Democrats saw their biggest opening to begin implementing their agenda in the eastern part of the state.

However, in that region, poor white cotton farmers, fed up with the capitalism of big banks and railroad companies - high freight rates and laissez-faire economics - aligned themselves with the labor movement. They had turned on the Democratic Party, founding The People's Party (also known as The Populists). In 1892, as the US plunged into an economic depression, the Populists banded with black Republicans who shared their hardships, forming an interracial coalition with a platform of self-governance, free public education and equal voting rights for black men, called the Fusion Coalition.

Wilmington

In the years that followed, Wilmington, then the largest city in the state, had a majority-black population, with blacks accounting for about 55 percent of its roughly 25,000 people.

Included were numerous black professionals and businessmen, and a rising middle class.

The Republican Party was biracial in membership. Unlike in many other jurisdictions, blacks in Wilmington were elected, and also gained prominent positions in the community. For example, three of the city's aldermen were black. Of the five members on the constituent board of audit and finance, one was black. Blacks were also in positions of justice, of the peace deputy clerk of court, street superintendent, coroners, policemen, mail clerks and mail carriers.

Blacks also held significant economic power in the city. Many former slaves had skills that they were able to use in the marketplace. For example, several became bakers, grocers, dyers, etc. making up nearly 35 percent of Wilmington's service positions, which was down over 20 percent from 1889.

Blacks were moving out of service jobs, and into other types of employment, where there was a higher demand for their work, along with higher pay. At the time, blacks accounted for over 30 percent of Wilmington's skilled craftsmen such as mechanics, carpenters, jewelers, watchmakers, painters, plasterers, plumbers, stevedores, blacksmiths, masons, and wheelwrights. In addition, blacks owned ten of the city's 11 restaurants, 90 percent of the city's 22 barbers, and one of the city's four fish and oysters dealerships. There were also more black bootmakers/shoemakers than white ones, one-third of the city's butchers were black, and half of the city's tailors were black. And two brothers, Alexander and Frank Manly, owned The Daily Record, one of the few black newspapers in the state at the time, which was reported to be the only black daily newspaper in the country.

With patronage and equitable hiring practices, a few blacks also held some of the most prominent business and leadership roles in the city, such as architect and financier, Frederick C. Sadgwar. Thomas C. Miller was one of the city's three real estate agents and auctioneers, and was also the only pawnbroker in the city, with many whites known to be indebted to him. John C. Dancy replaced a prominent white Democrat as the collector of customs at the Port of Wilmington, in 1897, at a salary of nearly $4,000 (about $113,000 in 2017). The editor of the Wilmington Messenger often disparaged him by referring to Dancy as "Sambo of the Customs House." However, black professionals increasingly found themselves supporting each other. For example, of the over 2,000 black professionals in Wilmington, at the time, over 95 percent were relegated to being clergy or teachers, jobs where they weren't shut out from competing, unlike doctors and lawyers.

White resentment

With blacks in the area elevating themselves out of slavery, racial tension begin to emerge as they progressed economically, socially and politically. As slaves, and children of slaves, they had no inherited wealth. With the collapse of the Freedman's Bank (of the 37 branches, one was in Wilmington), some Wilmington blacks lost much of their savings and, after the experience, there wasn't a bank most blacks trusted. Blacks, recently freed, were also leery of debt, as the debt-slave metaphor stuck within the community. In addition, the debt that was available to them was marked up in price. The annual interest rate, of credit available to blacks, was nearly 15 percent (compared to under 7.5 percent for poor whites) and lenders refused to let blacks pay off their mortgages in installments, a practice known as "principal or nothing," which positioned lenders to assume black property and businesses through forced sales. The lack of inherited wealth, limitations of access to credit, and loss of savings through federal mismanagement and fraud, created a combined effect in which blacks "could not save anything," or acquire the means, to own taxable property.

Though blacks made up nearly 60 percent of the county's population, property ownership among them in Wilmington was rare, at just eight percent. Of nearly $6 million, in real and personal property taxes, blacks paid less than $400,000 of this amount. And while the per capita wealth for whites, in the county, was around $550 for whites, it was less than $30 for blacks.

This created tension with affluent whites, who felt they were disproportionately paying taxes given the amount of property they owned, relative to the city's blacks, who now held the political power to prevent affluent whites from changing this ratio. Additionally, there was tension with poor, unskilled whites, who only had their labor to offer the job market, and found their services not in as high a demand as skilled black labor. Blacks were caught between not meeting the expectations of affluent whites, and exceeding the expectations of poor whites, effectively moving too fast and too slow at the same time:

"While thus numerically strong, the Negro is not a factor in the develop ment of the city or section. With thirty years of freedom behind him and with an absolute equality of educational advantages with the whites, there is not today in Wilmington a single Negro savings bank or any other distinctively Negro educational or charitable institution; while the race has not produced a physician or lawyer of note. In other words, the Negro in Wilmington has progressed in very slight degree from the time when he was a slave. His condition can be summed up in a line. Of the taxes in the city of Wilmington and the county of New Hanover the whites pay 96 2/3rds per cent; while the Negroes pay the remainder -- 3 1/3rds per cent. The Negro in North Carolina, as these figures show, is thriftless, improvident, does not accumulate money, and is not accounted a desirable citizen." - Henry L. West, The Washington Post, November 1898

This sentiment was echoed even among whites who had aligned themselves with blacks, politically:

"An impression prevails that these colored people have grown greatly in wealth, that they have acquired homesteads, have become tax-payers and given great promise along these lines. It is not true. In North Carolina they had as fair a chance as in any other Southern State - perhaps better than any other. And here it is sad to hear their frequent boast that they own eight millions of property. This is about three percent, according to the tax list, the total of which shows an amount much less than the actual total values of the State, but this fact does not disturb the proportion between the races. They are thirty percent of the population. After thirty years of opportunity, they have three percent of the property. True, they may claim that this is all net gain as they started with no property. But they did not start with nothing. They started with enormous advantages over whites. They were accustomed to labor. The whites were not. They had been for generations the producers of the State and the whites the consumers. They were accustomed to hardship and privation and patient industry. They had the muscle. If in this thirty years they have only acquired this pittance, where will they be in another thirty years considering that the advantages of their start are largely, if not entirely lost?" - Governor Daniel L. Russell, 1900

Several homes and businesses of successful blacks would sometimes be torched by whites at night. Though because blacks had enough economic and political power to defend their interest, socially, things were relatively peaceful.

Fusionist dominance

These dynamics continued with the elections of 1894 and 1896, in which the Fusion party won every statewide office, including the governorship. The Fusionists began dismantling the Democrats' political infrastructure, namely, converting their appointed positions of local offices to offices subject to popular elections. They also began trying to dismantle the Democratic stronghold in the less populated western part of the state that allowed them more political control through gerrymandering. And, they encouraged blacks to vote, which was an estimated 120,000 Republican sympathizers.

By 1898, Wilmington's key political power was in the hands of "The Big Four", representative of the Fusion party - the mayor, Dr. Silas P., Wright; acting sheriff of New Hanover county, George Zadoc French; the postmaster, W. H. Chadbourn; and businessman, Flaviel W. Foster, who wielded substantial support and influence with black voters. The "Big Four" worked in concert with a circle of patrons - made up of about 2,000 black voters and about 150 whites - known as "The Ring." The ring included about 20 prominent businessmen, about six 1st and 2nd generation New Englanders from families that had settled on the Cape Fear before the War, and influential black families such as the Sampsons the Howes. The Ring wielded political power using patronage, money, and an effective press through the Wilmington Post and The Daily Record.

This shift and consolidation of power horrified white Democrats, who contested the new laws, taking their grievance to the state Supreme Court, which did not rule in their favor. The Democrats had been defeated at the polls, and in the courtroom, and it appeared that the Fusionist would sweep the upcoming election of 1898, if voters voted on the issues. However, the Democrats were aware of cracks showing in the Fusion alliance of black Republicans and white Populists. The Democrats were desperate to prevent another big political loss.

The issues

The economic issues, on which the Fusion party built its alliance, included:

Free Coinage. Currency reform was an emotional issue and the Fusionists built a pragmatic political coalition around it. The Coinage Act of 1834 increased the silver-to-gold weight ratio from its 1792 level of 15:1, to 16:1, which set mint price for silver below its international market price. In 1873, due to a change in market dynamics and currency circulation, the Treasury revised the law, which abolished the right of holders of silver bullion to have their metal struck into fully legal tender dollar coins, ending bimetallism in the United States, and placing the nation firmly on the gold standard. Because of this, the act became contentious in later years, and was denounced by people who wanted inflation as the Crime of '73. The appearance of this was that it hurt poor people, who referred to silver as "the poor man's money" given its use and circulation among the poor. While state Populist leadership believed its Party was more ideologically aligned the Democrats, some Populists refused to align with a party that did not support increased coinage of silver.
1868 North Carolina Railroad Bonds Scandal. Ever since before the War, the state had been trying to expand the Western North Carolina Railroad. The railroad, which was supposed to link to Asheville to both Paint Rock and Ducktown, Tennessee, saw its construction stalled at Henry Station, a few miles from Old Fort, around 1872, as it was plagued with construction problems in the Blue Ridge Mountains and became insolvent due to underfunding, misappropriation bonds, and poor management. The state purchased the railroad in June 1875 for $825,000. However, in purchasing the railroad, the state became liable for its nearly $45 million in debts - a substantial amount of that fraudulent because, in 1868, two men had defrauded the state legislature into issuing bonds for the railroad's western expansion. When Zebulon Vance was re-elected as Governor, he was aware of the economic benefits that the railroad could bring to Asheville. However, there was a conflict of interest in that Vance was from Asheville, and his family which owned a lot of land in the area. Vance made the railroad's completion a personal crusade, so much so that he made some controversial decisions to see its competition through. One such decision was that was that he was constantly contacted by bondholders for a resolution; however, paying the bondholders would further cost the financially strapped state, which would only further delay the construction of the railroad. So, Vance publicly decried the debt; but refused to take any action to resolve it during the rest of his governorship, leaving the bondholders saddled with the debt. He later left office to become a U.S. Senator, and after the railroad was completed, using leased convict labor, he negotiated a sell of the railroad to a private company. After Vance left, the state would issue a complete settlement of less than 15 percent of the roughly $45 million, leaving debtholders upset. Democrats blamed Republicans for the mishap, as they held legislative power when it happened. However, Fusionists associated railroads with capitalist greed of Democrats. In addition, many of the Democrats blaming Republicans had voted to authorize the bonds, notably Tom Jarvis.
Debt-Relief. Whites and blacks had differing experiences with debt after the War. For whites, before the War, being in debt invoked undertones of one's personal moral failings. However, after the War, when most whites were in debt, it created a recognition of a community. The community then began to band together to push for political and economic reforms, and negotiated for favorable rates. Conversely, blacks deemed debt another form of slavery, one that was immoral, and sought to avoid it. They were often subject to high, non-negotiable rates. Recognizing that poor whites - who advocated doing away with credit systems altogether, in favor of a "pure-cash" system - had incentive to keep debt low, and that poor blacks were less well off that poor whites, Fusionists sought a platform to align their interests. By 1892, poor whites were incensed at Zebulon Vance, and the Democrats, who pledged to stand with the Farmers Alliance on the issue of debt, but failed to do anything about the issue. In July 1890, Eugene Beddingfield, of the North Carolina State Farmers Alliance, had warned Vance about the extent of their anger:

"The people are very restless. We are on the verge of a revolution. God grant it may be bloodless...You cannot stand before the tide if it turns in your direction. No living power can withstand it."

With 90 percent of North Carolinians in debt-relief platform to restrict interest rates to 6 percent. In 1895, once in office, the Fusionists successful passed the measure with about 95 percent of black Republicans and white Populists supporting the measures; however 86 percent of Democrats, who accounted for most of the lending class, opposing it.

Maps Wilmington insurrection of 1898

1898 "White Supremacy" Campaign

In late 1897, nine prominent Wilmington men were unhappy with, what they called, "Negro Rule." They were particularly aggrieved about Fusion government reforms that affected their ability to manage, and game, the city's affairs. Interest rates were lowered, which decreased banking revenue. Tax laws were adjusted, directly affecting stockholders and property owners who now had to pay a "like proportion" of taxes on the property they owned. Railroad regulations were tightened, making it more difficult for those who had railroad holdings to capitalize on them. Many Wilmington Democrats thought these reforms were directed at them, the city's economic leaders.

The nine men - Hugh MacRae, J. Allan Taylor, Hardy L. Fennell, W.A. Johnson, L.B. Sasser, William Gilchrist, P.B. Manning, E.S. Lathrop, and Walter L. Parsley - banded together and began conspiring of a way to re-take control of the government.

Around the same time, newly elected Democratic State Party Chairman, Furnifold Simmons, was tasked with developing a strategy for the Democrats 1898 campaign.

Simmons knew that, in order to win, he needed an issue that would cut across party lines. A student of Southern political history, he knew that racial resentment was easy to flame. He would later admit he had taken notice when, in the previous year, Mario Butler wrote in his newspaper, The Caucasian:

"There is but one chance and but one hope for the railroads to capture the net legislature, and that is for the 'nigger' to be made the issue.'"

So, Simmons decided to build a campaign around the issue of "white supremacy", knowing that the color line would drown out all other issues.

He began working with "The Secret Nine," who volunteered to use their connections and funds to advance his efforts. He developed a strategy to recruit men who could "Write, Speak, and Ride." Writers were those who could create propaganda in the media. Speakers were those who would be powerful orators. And Riders were those who could ride a horse and be intimidating. He also had Tom Jarvis relay a promise to "the large corporations" - that if the Democrats won, the party would not raise their taxes.

In March 1898, after realizing that Raleigh News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer, which represented both the liberal and conservative wings in the Democratic party, were "together in the same bed shouting 'nigger,'" Simmons met with Josephus "Jody" Daniels, the editor of the News & Observer, who also had the talented 21-year-old cartoonist, Norman Jennett (nicknamed "Sampson Huckleberry), on staff, and with Charles Aycock." The men met at the Chatawka Hotel, in New Bern, and began planning how to execute the Democratic campaign strategy.

Simmons began by recruiting media outlets sympathetic to white supremacy, such as The Caucasian and The Progressive Farmer, which cynically called the Populists the "white man's party," while touting the party's alliance with blacks. He also recruited aggressive, dynamic, and militant young white supremacists to help his effort, chiefly These publications presented blacks as being "insolent," accused them of exhibiting ill-will and disrespect for whites in public, labeled them as corrupt and unjust, constantly laid claims about black men's supposed interest in white women, and accused white Fusionists allied with them of supporting "negro domination".

Simmons summarized the party's platform when he stated:

"North Carolina is a WHITE MAN'S STATE and WHITE MEN will rule it, and they will crush the party of Negro domination beneath a majority so overwhelming that no other party will ever dare to attempt to establish negro rule here."

Party leader, Daniel Schenck, added:

"It will be the meanest, vilest, dirtiest campaign since 1876. The slogan of the Democratic party from the mountains to the sea will be but one word...'Nigger!'"

On November 20 1897, following a Democratic Executive Committee in Raleigh, the first statewide call for white unity was issued. Written by Francis D. Winston, it called on whites to unite and "r-eestablish Anglo-Saxon rule and honest government in North Carolina." He compared Republican and Populist rule to anarchy, evil, and in apocalyptic terms, setting a vision for the Democrats to be the saviors - the redeemers - that would rescue the state from tyranny.

Alfred M. Waddell

Simmons created a speakers bureau, stacking it with talented orators who he could deploy to deliver the message across the state. One of those orators was Alfred Moore Waddell, an aging member of Wilmington's upper class who was a skilled speaker, and four-time former Congressman, who lost his seat to Daniel L. Russell in 1878.

Waddell remained active, as a Conservative Democratic, after his defeat, becoming a highly sought after political speaker and campaigner, position himself as a representative of oppressed whites, and a symbol of redemption, for enflamed white voters. He had developed a reputation as "the silver tongued orator of the east" and as an "American Robespierre."

In 1898, Waddell, who was unemployed at the time, was also dealing with financial difficulty. His law practice was struggling, and his third wife, Gabrielle, largely supported him through her music teaching. The Chief of Police, John Melton, later testified that Waddell was seeking an opportunity to return to prominence, as a politician, in order to "lighten the burden of his wife."

Waddell aligned with the Democrats and their campaign to "redeem North Carolina from Negro domination." Melton stated that Waddell, who had been out of public life for while, saw the White Supremacy Campaign as "his opportunity to put himself before the people and pose as a patriot, thereby getting to the feed trough.

Waddell was "hired to attend elections and see that men voted correctly." With the aid of Daniels, who would distribute racist propaganda that he later acknowledged helped fuel a "reign of terror" .i.e. disparaging cartoons of blacks, before speeches, Waddell, and the other orators, began appealing to white men to join their cause.

White Supremacy "Clubs"

Nearing the fall of 1898, prominent Democrats, such as George Rountree, Francis Winston and attorneys, William B. McCoy, Iredell Meares, and John D. Bellamy, began organizing white supremacy clubs, known as the "White Government Union." The clubs demanded every white man in the city join.

"Many good people were marched from their homes...taken to headquarters, and told to sign. Those that did not were notified that they must leave the city...as there was plenty of rope in the city." - Wilmington Alderman, Benjamin F. Keith

Membership in the clubs began spreading throughout the state. The clubs were complemented by the development of a white labor movement created to oppose blacks competing with whites for jobs. The "White Laborer's Union" got the backing of the Chamber of Commerce, and also the Merchant's Association, which vowed to create a "permanent labor bureau for the purpose of procuring white labor for employers."

However, the efforts of the white supremacists finally consolidated in August 1898, when Alexander Manly, owner of Wilmington's sole black newspaper, The Daily Record, wrote an editorial responding to a speech supporting lynchings, by printing that many white women were not raped by black men, but willingly slept with them. Manly was the acknowledged grandson of Governor Charles Manly and his slave, Corinne. Whites were outraged at Manly's piece. This provided an opening for Democrats, now referring to themselves as "The White Man's Party," as "evidence" supporting their claims of predatory and emboldened blacks.

"The Determining Factor"

For some time, Josephus Daniels had used Wilmington as a symbol for "Negro domination" because its government was biracial, ignoring that it was dominated by a two-thirds white majority. Many newspapers published pictures and stories implying that African-American men were sexually attacking white women in the city. This belief was championed, throughout the country, following a speech by Rebecca Latimer Felton, a prominent women's suffragist, and wife of Georgia populist, William H. Felton, at the Georgia Agricultural Society, about the problems farm wives faced. She stressed that, of all the threats farm wives face, there was none greater than "the black rapist" due to the failure of white men to protect them. She advocated white men resorting to vigilante justice as a way for them to restore that protection:

"When there is not enough religion in the pulpit to organize a crusade against sin; nor justice in the court house to promptly punish crime; nor manhood enough in the nation to put a sheltering arm about innocence and virtue -if it needs lynching to protect woman's dearest possession form the ravening human beasts - then I say lynch, a thousand times a week if necessary." - Mrs. W.H. Felton, August 11, 1897

In response to Felton's speech, and the danger it imposed upon black men, 32-year-old Alexander Manly wrote an editorial, refuting it and invoking truths about white women having consensual sex with black men:

"A Mrs. Felton from Georgia, makes a speech before the Agricultural Society, at Tybee, Ga., in which she advocates lynching as an extreme measure. This woman makes a strong plea for womanhood and if the alleged crimes of rape were half so frequent as is oftimes reported, her plea would be worthy of consideration.

Mrs. Felton, like many other so-called Christians, loses sight of the basic principle of the religion of Christ in her plea for one class of people as against another...

Mrs. Felton begins well for she admits that education will better protect the girls on the farm from the assaulter. This we admit and it should not be confied to the white any more than to the colored girls. The papers are filled often with reports of rapes of white women and the subsequent lynchings of the alleged rapists. The editors pour forth volumes of aspersions against all Negroes because of the few who may be guilty. If the papers and speakers of the other race would condemn the commission of the crime because it is crime and not try to make it appear that the Negroes were the only criminals, they would find their strongest allies in the intelligent Negroes themselves; and together the whites and blacks would root the evil out of both races.

We suggest that the whites guard their women more closely, as Mrs. Felton says, thus giving no opportunity for the human fiend, be he white or black. You leave your goods out of doors and then complain because they are taken away. Poor white men are careless in the matter of protecting their women, especially on the farms. They are careless of their conduct toward them and our experience teaches us that the women of that race are not any more particular in the matter of clandestine meetings with colored men than are the white men with colored women. Meetings of this kind go on for some time until the woman's infatuation, or the man's boldness, bring attention to them, and the man is lynched for rape. Every Negro lynched is called a "big burly, black brute," when in fact many...were sufficiently attractive for white girls of culture and refinement to fall in love with them as is very well known to all.

Mrs. Felton must begin at the fountain head if she wishes to purify the stream. Teach your men purity. Let virtue be something more than an excuse for them to intimidate and torture a helpless people. Tell your men that it is no worse for a black man to be intimate with a white woman than for the white man to be intimate with a colored woman.

You set yourselves down as a lot of carping hypocrites in fact you cry aloud for the virtue of your women while you seek to destroy the morality of ours. Don't ever think that your women will remain pure while you are debauching ours. You sow the seed - the harvest will come in due time." - Alexander Manly, August 18, 1898

Fearing the backlash of the piece, five prominent black Wilmington Republicans - W.E. Henderson (lawyer), Charles Norwood (Register of Deeds), Elijah Green (Alderman), John E. Taylor (Deputy Collector of Customs) and John C. Dancy (Collector of Customs) - urged Manly to suspend the paper.

However, many whites were appalled at the suggestion of consensual sex between black men and white women. Within 48 hours, white supremacists, aided by newspapers across the South, used Manly's words - though reprinting incendiary distortions of them - as a championing catalyst for their cause. Waddell, and other orators, began inciting white citizens with sexualized images of black men, insinuating black mens' uncontrollable lust for white women, running newspaper stories and delivering speeches of "black beasts" who threatened to deflower white women.

Following the coup, Felton would later say of Manly:

"When the negro Manly attributed the crime of rape to lewd intimacy between negro men and white women of the south, the slanderer should be made to fear a lyncher's rope rather than occupy a place in newspapers." - Mrs. W. H. Felton, The Lawrence Gazette

Prior to this editorial, The Daily Record had been considered "a very creditable colored paper" throughout the state, that had attracted subscriptions and advertising from blacks and whites alike. However, after the editorial, white advertisers withdrew their support from the paper, crippling its income. His landlord, M. J. Heyer, then evicted him. For his own safety, Manly was forced to relocate his press in the middle of the night. He and supporters moved his entire press from the corner of Water Street and Princess Street., to a frame building on Seventh Street between Ann and Nun. He had planned to move to Love and Charity Hall (aka Ruth Hall), on South Seventh Street, but it declined to take him as a tenant because his presence would have greatly increased the building's insurance rate. Black pastors asked their congregations to step in and purchase subscriptions to help keep Manly's newspaper solvent, which many black women agreed to do, as they deemed Manly's paper to be the "one medium that has stood up for our rights when others have forsaken us."

John C. Dancy would later call Manly's editorial "the determining factor" of the riot, while Star-News reporter, Harry Hayden, referred to it as "the straw that broke Mister Nigger's political back."

Rallying the base

On October 20, 1898, in Fayetteville, the Democrats staged their largest political rally. The Red Shirts made their North Carolina debut, with 300 of them accompanying 22 "virtuous" young white ladies in a parade where cannons were fired and a brass band played. A guest of honor was South Carolina senator, Ben Tillman, who chastised the white men of North Carolina for not yet "killing that damn nigger editor [Manly]," bragging that Manly would be dead if his editorial had ben published in South Carolina, and when it came to blacks, advocating a "shotgun policy."

Four days later, 50 of the city's most prominent white men, such as Robert Glenn, Thomas Jarvis, Cameron Morrison and Charles Aycock, who was now the pre-eminent orator of the campaign, packed the Thalian Hall opera house.: Alfred Waddell delivered a speech, declaring that white supremacy was the only issue of importance for white men. He deemed blacks to be "ignorant" and railed that "the greatest crime that has ever been perpetrated against modern civilization was the investment of the negro with the right of suffrage," and he advocated punishment for race-traitors for enabling it, cementing his call with a blistering closing:

"We will never surrender to a ragged raffle of Negroes, even if we have to choke the Cape Fear River with carcasses."

Waddell's closing became a rallying cry, for white men and women alike:

"This I do not believe for a moment that they will submit any longer it is time for the oft quoted shotgun to play a part, and an active one, in the elections...We applaud to the echo your determination that our old historic river should be choked with the bodies of our enemies, white and black, but what his state shall be redeemed. It has reached the point where blood letting is needed for the health of the commonwealth and when [it] commences let it be thorough! Solomon says 'there is a time to kill.' That time seems to have come so get to work...You go forward to your work bloody tho' it may be, with the heart felt approval of many good women in the State. We say AMEN..." - Rebecca Cameron, October 26, 1898

Portions of Waddell's speech were printed, sent around the state, and "quoted by speakers on every stump."

"White Supremacy Convention"

After the Thalian Hall speech, on October 28, "special trains from Wilmington" provided discounted train tickets to Waddell, and other white men, to travel across the state to Goldsboro for a "White Supremacy Convention". A crowd of 8,000 showed up to hear Waddell share the stage with Simmons, Charles Aycock, Thomas Jarvis, and Major William A. Guthrie and the mayor of Durham. Preceding Waddell on the stage, Guthrie declared:

"The Anglo Saxon planted civilization on this continent and wherever this race has been in conflict with another race, it has asserted its supremacy and either conquered or exterminated the foe. This great race has carried the Bible in one hand and the sword [in the other]. Resist our march of progress and civilization and we will wipe you off the face of the earth."

Waddell followed by accusing blacks of "insolence," "arrogance," which he claimed was only overshadowed by their "criminality." He insinuated that black men were disrespectful to white women, and blamed the "evils of negro rule" on the white men who had empowered them by "betraying their race." Once again, he concluded his speech assuring them that white men would banish blacks, and their traitorous white allies, even if they had to fill the Cape Fear River with enough black dead bodies to block its passage to the sea.

Intimidation

Waddell's speech so inspired the crowd that the Red Shirts left the convention and started terrorizing black citizens and their white allies, in the eastern part of the state, right away. They destroyed property, ambushed citizens with weapon fire, and kidnapped people from their homes and whipped them at night, with the goal of terrorizing them to the point where Republican sympathizers would be too afraid to vote, or even register to do so.

The Populists accused the Democrats of crying "nigger," to distract from the issues, and of attacking the character of good men in order to get elected to office. Several Populists began trying to fight back in the court of public opinion, like Oliver Dockery, who was attacked by John Bellamy at the white supremacy convention:

"You may abuse me, if you like, but I want to tell you that you will never make a duck...I cannot close without referring to my opponent, as he has seen fit to attack me.

On the night before the canvassing board met...Sol Weill chartered a boat and, at the hour of midnight, went to South port where convened the canvassing board, all of whom were Democrats, and made the arrangements to throw out the entire Populist vote of this county on the ground that the ballots wore not on white enough paper. And the votes were thrown out. Now Bellamy asks Populists to save him...The man who would steal a man's vote is a pig...Democrats will not let the negro vote...This should prompt you colored people to stand together with the Populists and your other white friends, until we fasten this honest election law on the State forever...

Can there be a more diabolical scheme than this latest plan of monopoly? What think ye, laborers? Are you ready to march into the trap? Are you ready to surrender your liberties? Can the Hypocrite leaders be anything else except tools or fools? Are you ready to follow them! Progressive-Farmer, when you go to town be tempted. [They] set you up to dinner at the hotel, give you a drink, call you a "good fellow" (too good to be in the "fusion" crowds and in a hundred other ways they will tempt you to tall down and worship the Simmons-Ransom gold bug machine). The Democrats in Tar Heeldom are straining their lungs and using all the big type in the printing of farce to prove that negro domination is what is the matter in North Carolina. But it won't work not altogether.

Wherein is negro domination responsible for the Democratic judges who have sat on the bench in recent years in a state of beastly intoxication and sentenced innocent men to tbe penitentiary and allowed rogues and murders to go free? Wherein was negro domination responsible for the lease to the Southern Railway of the North Carolina property which has been denounced as a midnight crime? Wherein is negro domination responsible for the existence of one of [the] greatest trusts of the century which has impoverished the entire state?...Who [has] been responsible for the shameless record of theft and plunder at the state's capital when the legislature was solidly Democratic? It was because of the infamous proceedings of Democratic misrule and pillage that the Populist party was born. From the ranks of Democracy came every mother's son of the many thousands of Populists who are righteous in wrath [against] conspirators masquerading as untrammeled Democracy. That is the truth of the whole sorry business. And whenever the Democratic party will purge itself; when it will shake off the bloodsuckers and leeches which have disfigured and disgraced it, there are thousands who will return to its folds...until that glad day comes...[the Democrats must] do something else besides cry "negro domination." - Oliver Dockery, September 9, 1898

However, the Democrats continued to put more pressure on Republican and Populist, leading to candidates being too fearful to speak in Wilmington.

Democrats sought to further capitalize on this fear by making efforts to Capital suppress the Republican ticket in New Hanover County, arguing that a win by any political party opposing the Democrats, would guarantee a race riot. They convinced the business community of this outcome:

"...[the election] threatens to provoke a war between the black and white races...[that] will precipitate a conflict which may cost hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of lives, and the partial or entire destruction of the city. We declare to you our conviction that we are on the brink of a revolution which can only be averted by the suppression of a Republican ticket." - James Sprunt to Governor Daniel Russell, October 24, 1898

The Red Shirts, known to be "hot-headed," were looked down upon by the Wilmington white elite as "ruffians" and "low class." However, they deployed the Red Shirts around the city, who began holding a series of marches and rallies, organized by an unemployed sympathizer, Mike Dowling, an Irishman who, despite being the elected chair of the White Laborer's Union, had recently been fired as the foreman of Fire Engine Company Number 2 for "incompetency, drunkenness, and continued insubordination."

On November 1, 1898, Dowling led a parade of 1,000 men, mounted on horses, for ten miles, through the black neighborhoods i.e. Brooklyn, of Wilmington. Joining his Red Shirts were the New Hanover County Horsemen and members of the Rough Riders, led by Theodore Swann. White women waved flags and handkerchiefs as they passed. The procession ended at the First National Bank Building, which served as the Democratic Party headquarters, where they were encouraged by Democratic politicians in front of big crowds.

The next day, Dowling led a "White Man's Rally." Every "able-bodied" white man was armed. Escorted by Chief Marshal Roger Moore, a parade of men began downtown, again marched through black neighborhoods - firing into black homes and a black school on Campbell Square - and ended at Hilton Park where a 1,000 people greeted them with a picnic and free barbecue. A number of defiant speakers followed. For example, Claude Kitchin said, "All the soldiers in the United States will not keep white people from enjoying their rights," and "if a negro constable comes to a white man with a warrant in his hand, he should leave with a bullet in his brain."

Leading up to the election, these gatherings became daily occurrences, with the white newspapers advertising the time and place meetings. Free food and moonshine were provided for the vigilantes in order to "fire them up, and make them fiercer and more terrorizing in their conduct." At night, the rallies took on a carnival-like atmosphere. However, away from the streets, the groups began disrupting black churches, and patrolling the streets as "White Citizens Patrols," wearing white handkerchiefs tied around their left arms, intimidating and attacking black citizens. The patrons of the white supremacy campaign also supplied them with a new $1,200 ($34,000 in 2017) Gatling gun.

Atmosphere and suppression of black defense

The atmosphere in the city made blacks anxious and tense. Conversely, it made whites hysterical and paranoid.

A number of black men attempted to purchase guns and powder, but the gun merchants, who were all white, refused to sell them any. The merchants would also report, to the clubs, on any black person who tried to procure arms. Some blacks tried to circumvent the local merchants, by trying to purchase guns outside of the state, such as the Winchester Arms Company of New Jersey. However, the manufacture would refer the request back to their North Carolina state branch, which would then call the order in to the local Wilmington branch. Once the state branch learned, from the local branch, that the purchasers were black, the state branch would refuse to fill the order. Despite it being legal for blacks to own and purchase guns, they were unable to procure any for their defense, except a few men who owned old army muskets or pistols. Merchants sold no guns to blacks between November 1st and November 10th, but later testified that they sold over 400 guns to whites over the same period.

Newspapers had incited people into believing that confrontation was inevitable. Rumors began to spread that blacks were purchasing guns and ammunition, readying themselves for a confrontation. Whites began to suspect black leaders were conspiring in churches, making revolutionary speeches and pleading with the community to arm themselves with bullets, or to sabotage white cotton bales with kerosene and torches to fight.

Alderman, Benjamin Keith wrote:

"...[readers were] believing everything that was printed, as well as news that was circulated and peddled on the streets. The frenzied excitement went on until every one but those who were behind the plot, with a few exceptions, were led to believe that the negroes were going to rise up and kill all the whites."

The Political Director of The Washington Post, Henry L. West, went to Wilmington to cover the White Supremacy Campaign. He wrote:

"In Wilmington, I found a very remarkable condition of affairs. The city might have been preparing for a siege instead of an election...All shades of political beliefs were represented: but in the presence of what they believed to be an overwhelming crisis, they brushed aside the great principles that divide parties and individuals, and stood together as one man. When I emphasize the fact, that every block in every ward was thus organized, and that the precautionary meetings were attended by ministers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, railroad officials, cotton exporters, and, indeed, by the reputable, taxpaying, substantial men of the city, the extent and significance of this armed movement can, perhaps, be realized. It was not the wild and freakish organization of irresponsible men, but the deliberate action of determined citizens...Military preparations, so extensive as to suggest assault from some foreign foe, must have had unusual inspira tion and definite purpose.

The fiat had gone forth; and it was expected that the Negroes, when they learned that the right of suffrage was to be denied them, would resist. From their churches and from their lodges had come reports of incendiary speeches, of impassioned appeals to the blacks to use the bullet that had no respect for color, and the kerosene and torch that would play havoc with the white man's cotton in bale and ware house. It was this fear of the Negro uprising in defence of his electorate -- of a forcible and revengeful retaliation -- that offered an ostensible ground for the general display of arms; but if the truth be told, the reason thus offered was little more than a fortunate excuse. The whites had determined to regain their supremacy; and the wholesale armament was intended to convey to the blacks an earnest of this decision. There would have been rapid-fire guns and Winchester rifles if every church had held a silent pulpit, and every lodge-room where the Negroes met had been empty. White supremacy, therefore, was the magnet that attracted, the tie that bound, the one overwhelming force that dominated everything."

The Democrats hired two detectives to investigate the rumors, including one black detective. However, the detectives concluded that the black residents "were doing practically nothing." George Rountree would later write that two other black detectives claimed that black women agreed to set fire to their employers homes, and that black men threatened to burn Wilmington down if the white supremacists prevailed in the election. To prevent any black conspiring, the Democrats forbade blacks from congregating anywhere.

Right before the election, the Red Shirts, supported by the White Government Union, were told that they wanted the Democrats to win the election "at all hazards and by any means necessary...even if they had to shoot every negro in the city." The Red Shirts had so instituted a level of fear, among the city's blacks, that, approaching the election, they were "in a state of terror amounting almost to distress."

The day before the election, Waddell excited a large crowd at Thalian Hall when he told them:

"You are Anglo-Saxons. You are armed and prepared and you will do your duty...Go to the polls tomorrow, and if you find the negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls and if he refuses, kill him, shoot him down in his tracks. We shall win tomorrow if we have to do it with guns."

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1898 election

The election occurred with little interference. However, most blacks, and many Republicans, did not vote, hoping to avoid violence, as Red Shirts had blocked every road leading in and out of the city, and driving any perceived black voter away with gunfire. The Red Shirts were in line with Congressman W.W. Kitchin, who declared, "Before we allow the Negroes to control this state as they do now, we will kill enough of them that there will not be enough left to bury them."

Governor Russell, who by this point, had withdrawn his name from the ballot in the county, decided to come to Wilmington, as it was his hometown, and he thought he might be able to calm the situation. However, when his train arrived, Red Shirts swarmed his train car and tried to lynch him.

When the day was over, Democrats won 6,000 votes, overall, which was sizable given the Fusion Party won 5,000 votes just two years prior. However, years later, it was determined that the 11,000-vote net increase also strongly suggested a high degree of election fraud. Mike Dowling would support this suggestion when he testified that Democrats spent a lot of time working with the Red Shirts, teaching them deal how to deposit Republican ballots so they could be replaced. The Washington Post's political director, who was in Wilmington for the election, recounted: "No one for a moment supposes that this was the result of a free and un trammelled ballot; and a Democratic victory here, as in other parts of the State, was largely the result of the suppression of the Negro vote."

Despite the Democrats' inflammatory rhetoric in support of white supremacy, and the Red Shirt armed display, the biracial Fusionist government still remained in power in Wilmington.

The night following the election, Democrats ordered white men to patrol the streets, expecting blacks to retaliate. However, no retaliation occurred:

"...all the abuse which has been vented upon them for months they have gone quietly on and have been almost obsequiously polite as if to ward off the persecution they seemed involuntarily to have felt to be in the air...in spite of all the goading and persecuting that has been done all summer the negroes have done nothing that could call vengeance on their heads..."I awoke that [next] morning with thankful heart that the election has passed without the shedding of the blood of either the innocent or the guilty. I heard the colored people going by to their work talking cheerfully together as had not been the case for many days now." - Jane M. Cronly, Wilmington Resident, 1898

"...it was perfect farce...to be out there in the damp and cold, watching for poor cowed disarmed negroes frightened to death by the threats that had been made against them and too glad to huddle in their homes and keep quiet." - Michael Cronly, Wilmington Resident, 1898

The White Declaration of Independence

The "Secret Nine" had tasked Waddell's "Committee of Twenty-Five" with "directing the execution of the provisions of the resolutions" within a document, that they authored, which called for the removal of voting rights for blacks, and for the overthrow of the newly elected interracial government. The document was called "The White Declaration of Independence."

On election day, Hugh MacRae (of the "Secret Nine") had the Wilmington Messenger call for a mass meeting. That evening, the paper published, "Attention White Men," telling all white men to meet at the courthouse the following morning for "important" business.

On the morning of November 9th, the courthouse was packed with 600 men across all professions and economic status. Hugh MacRae sat up front with the former mayor, S. H. Fishblate, and other prominent white Democrats. When Alfred Waddell arrived, MacRae provided him a copy of "The White Declaration of Independence," which Waddell read to the crowd, "asserting the supremacy of the white man." He proclaimed that the U.S. Constitution "did not anticipate the enfranchisement of an ignorant population of African origin," that "never again will white men of New Hanover County permit black political participation" that "the Negro stop antagonizing our interests in every way, especially by his ballot," and that the city "give to white men a large part of the employment heretofore given to Negroes.":

"Believing that the Constitution of the United States contemplated a government to be carried on by an enlightened people; believing that its framers did not anticipate the enfranchisement of an ignorant population of African origin, and believing that those men of the state of North Carolina, who joined in framing the union did not contemplate for their descendants subjection to an inferior race.

We the undersigned citizens of the city of Wilmington and county of New Hanover, do hereby declare that we will no longer be ruled and will never again be ruled, by men of African origin.

This condition we have in part endured because we felt that the consequences of the war of secession were such as to deprive us of the fair consideration of many of our countrymen.

While we recognize the authority of the United States and will yield to it if exerted, we would not for a moment believe that it is the purpose of 60 million of our own race to subject us permanently to a fate to which no Anglo-Saxon has ever been forced to submit.

We, therefore, believing that we represent unequivocally the sentiments of the white people of this county and city, hereby for ourselves, and as representatives of them, proclaim:

That the time has come for the intelligent citizens of this community owning 95 percent of the property and paying taxes in proportion, to end the rule by Negroes.

That we will not tolerate the action of unscrupulous white men in affiliating with the Negroes so that by means of their vote they can dominate the intelligent and thrifty element in the community, thus causing business to stagnate and progress to be out of the question.

That the Negro has demonstrated by antagonizing our interests in every way, and especially by his ballot, that he is incapable of realizing that his interests are and should be identical with those of the community.

That the progressive element in any community is the white population and that the giving of nearly all the employment to Negro laborers has been against the best interests of this county and city, and is sufficient reason why the city of Wilmington, with its natural advantages, has not become a city of at least 50,000 inhabitants.

That we propose in the future to give to white men a large part of the employment heretofore given to Negroes because we realize that white families cannot thrive here unless there are more opportunities for employment of the different members of their families.

That we white men expect to live in this community peaceably; to have and provide absolute protection for our families, who shall be safe from insult or injury from all persons, whomsoever. We are prepared to treat the Negroes with justice in all matters which do not involve sacrifice of the intelligent and progressive portion of the community. But are equally prepared now and immediately to enforce what we know to be our rights.

That we have been, in our desire for harmony and peace, blinded both to our interests and our rights. A climax was reached when the Negro paper of this city published an article so vile and slanderous that it would in most communities have resulted in a lynching, and yet there is no punishment, provided by the courts, adequate for the offense. We, therefore, owe it to the people of this community and city, as protection against such license in the future, that "The Record" cease to be published and that its editor be banished from this community.

We demand that he leave the city forever within 24 hours after the issuance of this Proclamation. Second, that the printing press from which "The Record" has been issued be shipped from the city without delay; that we be notified within 12 hours of the acceptance or rejection of this demand.

If the demand is agreed to, we counsel forbearance on the part of the white men. If the demand is refused or no answer is given within the time mentioned, then the editor, Manly, will be expelled by force."

The crowd gave Waddell a standing ovation and 457 signed their names to adopt the resolutions, which would be published in the newspapers, without any concealment of who they were.

The group then decided to give the city's black residents 12 hours to comply with them, one of which included Manly's banishment, though Manly had already shut his press down and left town when he was alerted, by a white friend, that the Red Shirts were going to lynch him that night. Manly's friend gave him $25 dollars and told him a password to bypass white guards on Fulton Bridge, as bands of Red Shirts were patrolling the banks, trains and steamboats. Once Manly, along with his brother, Frank, and two other fair-skinned black men, Jim Telfain and Owen Bailey, approached the guards, after escaping through the woods, the guards let them pass. The guards, believing the four men to be white, also invited them to the "necktie party" they were going to that evening for "that scoundrel Manly." The guards even loaded their buggies with Winchesters in case they spotted Manly on their way out of the city.

Waddell's "Committee of Twenty-Five" summoned the Committee of Colored Citizens (CCC), a group of 32 prominent blacks citizens in the city, to the courthouse at 6:00pm. The told the CCC of their ultimatum, instructing them to direct the rest of the city's black citizens to fall in line. When the black men asked to reason with them, and pleaded that they could not control what Manly did, or what any other black person would do, Waddell responded that the "time had passed for words."

The black men left the courthouse and went to David Jacob's barbershop on Dock Street, where they wrote a reply to the Committee's ultimatum:

"We, the colored citizens, to whom was referred the matter of expulsion from the community of the person and press of A. L. Manly, beg most respectfully to say that we are in no way responsible for, nor in any way condone, the obnoxious article that called forth your actions. Neither are we authorized to act for him in this manner; but in the interest of peace we will most willingly use our influence to have your wishes carried out."

Lawyer, Armond Scott, wrote the letter, and was instructed by the Committee to personally deliver the response to Waddell's home, at Fifth and Princess Streets, by 7:30 a.m., on November 10, 1898. Scott was afraid, and left the response in Waddell's mailbox. Scott later claimed that the letter Waddell had published in newspapers was not the letter he wrote. He said that the letter he authored expressed that Manly had ended publication of The Daily Record two weeks before the election, thereby eliminating the "alleged basis of conflict between the races."

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Riot and coup d'état

When Waddell and the Committee did not received a response (it is unclear when, Waddell checked his mailbox) by 7:30 a.m., about 45 minutes later, he gathered about 500 white businessmen and veterans to the Wilmington's armory. After heavily arming themselves with rifles, and the Gatling gun, Waddell then led the group to the two-story publishing office of "The Daily Record." They broke into Manley's publishing press, vandalized the premises, doused the wood floors with kerosene, set the building on fire, and gutted the remains. At the same time, black newspapers all over the state, were also being destroyed. In addition, blacks, along with white Republicans, were denied entrance to city centers throughout the state.

Following the fire, the mob of white vigilantes swelled into about 2,000 men. A rumor circulated that some blacks had fired on a small group of white men a mile away from the printing-office. White men then went into black Wilmington neighborhoods, destroying black businesses and property, and assaulting black inhabitants with a mentality of killing "every damn nigger in sight."

As Waddell led a group to disband, and drive out, the political institution of the city, the armed white mob rioted and shotguns, attacking blacks throughout Wilmington, but primarily in Brooklyn, the majority-black neighborhood.

The small patrols were spread out over the city and continued until nightfall. Walker Taylor was authorized by Governor Russell to command the Wilmington Light Infantry (WLI) troops, just returned from the Spanish-American War, and the federal Naval Reserves, taking them into Brooklyn to quell the "riot." They intimidated both black and white crowds with rapid-fire weapons, and killed several black men. Hundreds of blacks fled the town to take shelter in nearby swamps.

As the violence spread, Waddell lead a group to Republican Mayor, Silas P. Wright. Waddell forced Wright, the board of aldermen, and the police chief to resign at gunpoint. The mob installed a new city council that elected Waddell to take over as mayor by 4 p.m. that day.

Once he was officially mayor, Waddell was given a list of names by "The Secret Nine," filled with prominent Republicans who he was to banish from the city. The next morning, Waddell, flanked by George L. Morton and the WLI, marched six prominent black people on the list out of Wilmington. The other blacks on the list had already fled. Waddell put them on a train headed north, in a special car with armed guards who were given explicit instructions to takes them beyond the state line. Waddell then gathered the whites on the list and paraded them in front of a large crowd, allowing G.Z. French to be dragged on the ground and nearly lynched from a telephone poll, before he was allowed to board the train and leave the city.

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