Wilmington recently commemorated the 125th anniversary of the 1898 coup. Join a conversation provided by the NC Museum of History through their Community Class Series.

By the 1890s, Wilmington was North Carolina’s largest city and a shining example of a mixed-race community. It was a bustling port city with a burgeoning African American middle class and a Fusionist government of Republicans and Populists that included Black aldermen, police officers, and magistrates. However, this model for the future of southern, and even American, politics would not last.

On November 10, 1898, the local Wilmington, NC government was violently overthrown, and dozens of Black citizens were killed in the culmination of an organized, months-long statewide campaign by white supremacists to halt gains made by Blacks and restore racism as official government policy, cementing White rule for another half century.

Join speakers David Zucchino, Journalist and Author of the Pulitzer Prize–Winning Book Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, and Dr. Darin Waters, Deputy Secretary, NC Office of Archives and History for a conversation about this extraordinary event.