A Charge Toward the Past: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission and Its Political Implications
Kira Felsenfeld
Candidate Toward Senior Honors in History
Oberlin College Thesis Advisor: Renee Romano
Oberlin College, 2019
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents 1
Acknowledgements 2
Introduction 4
Chapter 1: The Charge 13
Chapter 2: Establishing Impact 30
Chapter 3: Action & Accountability 45
Conclusion 67
Bibliography 73
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Acknowledgements
Like many who decide to attempt an honors thesis, this was my first time taking on a
project of this magnitude. First and foremost, I’d like to thank Professor Romano, who first
introduced me to historical redress as a field, tolerated my many drafts, and pushed me to think
critically about my work. Because of her, my writing and analytical thinking have grown
exponentially and I continue to be in awe with the attention (and patience) she paid to every
iteration of this body of work. I am forever grateful.
I am indebted to the community and guidance I received in the honors seminar. Cole,
Emma, David, Kira Z., Shira, and John offered not only additional sets of eyes, but also a space
for comfort amidst the stress. Most importantly, Professor Wurtzel fostered an environment for
despair, joy, and humor. I will miss the snacks, memes, and thoughtful guidance on this lengthy
process.
When I first got to Oberlin, I did not think I was going to major in history nor do I think I
could ever conceptualize my being able to write an honors thesis. On my second day of classes
during my freshman year, I sat down in a seminar room in Mudd Library. Professor Nunley
beckoned a group of fifteen first year students into a world of women behaving badly. From that
day on, I was convinced that this discipline was for me. Because of Professor Nunley, four years
later, I approach my arguments with the intention set by her to “trouble the waters.”
Throughout my life, dinner table conversations have been sites of of intense debate. I
have been asked questions that I probably don’t know the answers to, but regardless, I have tried
to answer them anyway. I’d like to think that these moments were what set me on this path of
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intellectual curiosity, and for that I am immensely grateful. These spaces, of course, were created
by my incredible family. My mom, dad, Nancy, Glenn and Matt have pushed me throughout
these past four years (or maybe 22 years), to speak my mind even if my voice shakes, be curious,
and most of all, ask for help. My grandparents (Eleanor, Naomi, Gary, Jeff, and Linda) continue
to invigorate me with their pride and enthusiasm, be it in person or from afar. I am so lucky to
have a family of educators, movement builders, and critical thinkers who I am fueled and
inspired by daily.
I also could not have done this without the energy of the people I see throughout the
week: Jonah, my housemates, the Student Union staff, and the contact dancers. This project
produced joy, dismay, anger, and anxiety. Throughout those varying emotions, these people met
me with validation and kindness.
Finally, given that this thesis explores a modern history, the work of historical redress
still occurs today. Throughout this process, I got to sit down with people who have made
historical justice their life’s mission as scholars, historians, and activists. Irving Joyner, Tim
Tyson, David Cecelski and LeRae Umfleet offered invaluable insights into Wilmington’s work
toward historical justice.
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Introduction
On November 10th, 1898, Alfred Waddell knocked on the door of Wilmington’s only
black-owned newspaper. Behind him, stood a mob of white supremacists. The press, located on
Seventh Street between Nun and Church Streets, housed Alexander Manly, the editor. Manly had
written a scathing article about white women and their attraction to black men a few months
prior. Once the Red Shirt Party, a white supremacist group with chapters across the state, heard
about Manly’s article, they planned to destroy his newspaper and the city it resided in.
Conveniently, this city was also a hub for black political success. Wilmington had a large black
population and progressive government and thus posed a challenge to the vitality of white power
throughout the state. Manly was aware of the provocative nature of his article and had fled
Wilmington earlier that morning. 1
Waddell and his cohort waited for Manly to show his face. With no answer, the mob
battered down the door, smashed the windows, and let kerosene lamps hit the wooden floor,
setting the building on fire. Hundreds of angry white men rampaged the city, determined to
destroy any trace of black power and “kill every damn nigger in sight.” Black residents fled, so
the previously black-majority city became dominated by white men. The white mob overthrew
the progressive and multiracial government and elected Waddell as the new Democratic mayor.
After instigating the violence, members of the riot, such as Furnifold Simmons and Charles B.
Aycock later came to hold prominent positions as senator and governor of North Carolina. 2
1 Leon Prather, “We Have Taken a City: A Centennial Essay” in David S. Cecelski and Timothy B. Tyson, Democracy Betrayed :The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and its Legacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 29-32. 2 Ibid., 32
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Little information about the riot was recorded. To this day, no one knows exactly how
many people died or left the city after November 10th, 1898. No one tracked the economic
damage, such as the number of businesses that closed or the number of buildings destroyed.
Although Alfred Waddell wrote in his autobiography that he witnessed 20 deaths, alternate
reports from the black community emphasized an amount far beyond Waddell’s calculation.
Spanning from shortly after the riot until well into the 21st century, black oral tradition
discouraged visitors from drinking water from the Cape Fear River because it might still be
polluted from the toxins released by dead bodies from the riot. However, no written reports
existed to corroborate anyone’s perspective. Thus, the dominant narrative told by whites
neglected the extent of the destruction and described the white mob’s actions as necessary to
protect civilization. The Wilmington Race Riot Commission was created by the North Carolina
state legislature in 2000 to investigate this convoluted history.
The Wilmington Race Riot Commission operated between 2000 and 2006 with the goals
of opening up a “vital dialogue” and establishing an official record for the events that occurred in
1898. State representative Thomas E. Wright, among many intellectuals, community members, 3
and politicians, spearheaded the effort. They sought to disrupt previous narratives of the race riot
that shrouded violence and glorified white supremacy. Additionally, they hoped to assess the
economic damages caused by the riot based on the limited evidence available. Given that the riot
occurred 100 years earlier, the Commission faced a lack of data and first hand accounts that
would give definitive understandings of the riot’s impact. In light of this challenge, they used
oral histories, archival data, and alternative accounts to unearth the history. The Commission’s
3 North Carolina Center for Cultural Resources. 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission. https://www.ncdcr.gov/about/history/1898-race-riot
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report included a series of recommendations for the North Carolina General Assembly. However,
once in their hands, only some of the recommendations came into fruition.
My thesis explores the possibilities and limitations of the Wilmington Race Riot
Commission. As a reparative body, the Commission had the potential to make widespread
change throughout North Carolina. An official authority gave state-sanctioned approval and
power behind this redress effort. However, this same authority also meant that any action in
response to the Commission’s recommendations had to be approved by the governing body.
Filling their role as writers of history, the Commission encountered many challenges that
historians face: a need to corroborate oral reports and missing pieces of evidence. However,
history-writing similarly came with an important power. The Commission could disrupt
conceptions of history that upheld white supremacists as heros. Through an exploration of
meeting minutes, state legislation, interviews, local and national media, the report itself, and the
primary sources utilized by the Commission, I question the intentions, processes and impact of
this state-sanctioned body.
The Wilmington Race Riot occurred on November 10th, 1898 in the larger context of a
post-Reconstruction effort to dismantle black success. In the late 19th century, the Fusionists, a
statewide political party that consisted of blacks and progressive whites, held power locally in
Wilmington as well as statewide power in the General Assembly and governorship. “Redeemers”
throughout the south claimed that white supremacy was essential to civilization. Their violent
actions--which typically are now described as “race riots”--reflected their efforts to restore white
dominance and to uphold white supremacy. White redeemers then established historical
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societies, erected monuments, and created public education that would simultaneously uphold
their own glory while erasing violence against black people. 4
Historical redress efforts are two-pronged; they repair from past atrocities and make sure
similar injustices do not occur in the future. Nations, states, and communities have investigated
their own roles in perpetrating violence against specific groups. Investigations look differently
across the world. Truth commissions, tribunals, and trials alike share a common goal of
establishing what happened. For some, redress involves is establishing a “truth.” For others, it
means sparking action through new legislation or reparations.
Scholars who have studied the origins of historical redress, such as Pierre Hazan, Elazar
Barkan, and John Torpey, agree that historical redress efforts began in the wake of the
Nuremberg trials after the Holocaust. Hazan charts the evolution of the transitional justice
movement from its conception. These trials, facilitated by the United States, placed the West in
three distinguished roles: the victim (the Jews), the perpetrator (the Germans) and the judge (the
United States). This triad, he asserts, established “the speeches, norms, and practices, of what
decades later would become known as transitional justice.” Forty years later, in the late 1980s 5
and early 1990s, states beyond the West established similar approaches, such as trials, tribunals,
and commissions to unearth histories of dictatorships and offer retribution for victims. This 6
pattern continued into the 21st century and forced nations to grapple with their own roles in
historical injustices.
4 Prather, 18. 5 Hazan, Pierre. Judging War, Judging History: Behind Truth and Reconciliation. (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press) 2010. 14 6 Ibid., 29-30
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Although taking a facilitative role in global redress efforts, the United States government
has remained ambivalent about addressing its own historical injustices. The U.S government did
offer reparations and an apology to victims of Japanese internment forty years after World War
II, and there have been federal and state apologies for slavery and lynching. However, these
apologies did not lead to new legislation that might seek to repair their legacies, such as
disenfranchisement or racial violence. Oklahoma and Florida state governments both established
commissions to explore incidents of racial violence in their states, with the hope of establishing a
permanent record of violence and perhaps more substantive actions towards repair.
My thesis takes part in what has become a broad scholarly conversation about historical
redress. Scholars ask questions such as: how might we measure injustice? How can nations hold
people accountable if they are no longer alive? What forms of redress are appropriate for
injustice in the United States? In the American context, scholars such as Fitzhugh Brundage,
Renee Romano, Alfred Brophy, among many others, have discussed modes of redress such as
monuments, reopening court cases, and reparations. Others, such as William J. Booth and
Richard Vernon, investigate the role of responsibility in cases of historical justice. Robert Margo,
William J. Collins, and Angelique Davis, alongside scholars from many disciplines, give insight
into how nations might measure the impact of injustice. Other scholars, such as Priscilla B.
Hayner, highlight the role of a commission in provoking redress. My thesis highlights this mode
of repair as form of power, but also notes its limits in historical redress.
There is also a body of work focused on North Carolina political history. In Civilities and
Civil Rights, historian William Chafe looks at the state legislature’s response to the Greensboro
sit-ins as a case study for North Carolina’s approach to racial politics. He argues that North
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Carolina puts on a “progressive mystique.” Although presenting itself as progressive when it 7
came to racial politics, the state repressed both protest and critique in the name of maintaining
civility and thus ensured very little change to systems of racial oppression. Rob Christensen
traces these attitudes historically from the Wilmington Race Riot up until the recent bathroom
bills. He tracks the reactionary politics in North Carolina which, he argues, echo a similar ethos
to that which Chafe describes. My work contextualizes the Commission through Chafe and
Christensen’s research.
Many scholars study Wilmington as a politically significant region in North Carolina.
The port city was the site of a coup d’etat, important resistance during the Civil Rights
Movement, and conflicts around public memory. Scholarship on the 1898 riot includes works by
Leon Prather, who has documented the extent of the massacre in his 1984 work We Have Taken
a City. Building on his scholarship, Tim Tyson, David Cecelski, and Glenda Gilmore, among
other scholars featured in the collection Democracy Betrayed, have offered nuance to this history
and highlighted specific characters as well as the role of race and class in the conflict. Finally,
Leslie Hossfeld and Margaret Mulrooney examine the changing memory of the Wilmington
Race Riot. Hossfeld notes the challenges in commemoration after the centennial in 1998. She
looks specifically at the centrality of race-blind liberalism in shaping the narrative of the events
in 1898. Mulrooney, in conjunction, highlights Hossfeld’s point as a major limitation of the 1898
commemorative efforts. Commemoration one hundred years later was geared towards the
interests of the white community. These bodies of scholarship contextualize the Commission in a
pattern of memory efforts and tensions that exist within public memory work.
7 William Henry Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights :Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 436.
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Throughout this thesis, I utilize the language of ‘riot’ to describe the events in 1898,
although I acknowledge that riot is a problematic term. The word ‘riot’ invokes a sense that an
event occurred spontaneously and it offers little clarity about the identity of the perpetrators.
Even with the little evidence available, it is clear that even if river was not filled with bodies,
white supremacists had violent intentions up to twelve months before November 10th. I use ‘riot’
in order to reflect the language used by the group in their title and conversations. In chapter 2, I
offer a critical view of the debates embedded in the language, engaging scholarship by Sheila
Smith McKoy. Additionally, I describe the events as an overthrow, a coup d’etat, and a
massacre. The ambiguity in language reflects the uncertain history which the Commission sought
to address.
My thesis charts the trajectory of the Commission from its conception, to the time its
final report reached the hands of the General Assembly. Chapter 1 looks closely at the centennial
celebrations in Wilmington. Organizations who spearheaded prior commemoration, such as the
1898 Foundation, laid the groundwork for the Wilmington Race Riot Commission. However,
unlike these earlier efforts, the Commission had the financial and political support of the General
Assembly in taking on this process. Chapter 2 explores the debates that the Commission faced.
In order to disrupt the biased narrative that erased racialized violence, they had to use a broad
range of sources. However, they also had to make many judgement calls, as some sources, like
oral reports, could not be corroborated. They released a report that emphasized the violence that
occurred, but expressed uncertainty about its exact magnitude. The report, along with a lengthy
and broad set of recommendations, went directly to the General Assembly. Chapter 3 reckons
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with the lack of action from the General Assembly. Although having ample power to turn
recommendations into action, they merely acknowledged the event and moved forward.
The Commission’s path illuminates the challenges of making concrete change in efforts
to address historical injustice. The Commission formed, researched, and presented their findings,
which resulted in an apology by the state legislature and even the building of monument. But it
never made concrete repair for what happened in 1898. In tracking these tensions, I ask: how
might a Commission contribute to larger redress movements? How do we navigate truth with
few pieces of first-hand evidence? What makes a form of redress symbolic or impactful?
One hundred years later, the story of the Wilmington Race Riot lingers throughout not
only Wilmington, but all of North Carolina. Black residents did not speak about the events out of
fear of something similar occurring in the future. In 2005, Mayor Spence Broadhurst asserted, “I
spend a lot of time looking forward and not a lot of time looking in the rearview mirror.” 8
Without any official conversation, the Wilmington Race Riot remained unaddressed although
still impactful. Wilmington confronted similar forms of violence 75 years later around the
integration of schools. The town also still faced segregation and economic disparities between
white and Black residents. Over a hundred years after the riot, Tim Tyson, a scholar and member
of the Wilmington community, addressed the risks produced by the silence about Wilmington’s
history: “In the end, we are all the captives of our own origins, runaway slaves from our own
pasts; never more so that when we do not acknowledge them. When we try to escape our past,
the only thing we elude is our future.” An absence of a public conversation about the riots for 9
8 John DeSantis, “North Carolina City Confronts Its Past in Report on White Vigilantes” New York Times. May 29, 2005. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/us/04wilmington.html 9 Tim Tyson. “Press Remarks for Wilmington Ten Pardon, 2012.” Tim Tyson Collection 1948-2012. Southern Collection at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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over a hundred years limited the possibilities for justice and prevented clarity about why things
were the way they were. Thus, the Wilmington Race Riot Commission’s work became even
more crucial in facilitating progress. In the process, they raised questions of what it might mean
to run towards our past rather than escape it.
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Chapter 1: The Charge
In late 2000, the North Carolina General Assembly passed Senate Bill 787 labeled
confusingly as “The Studies Act of 2000.” The Studies Act sought to create commissions that
would investigate and report on a myriad of subjects that impacted the state. The topics in SB
787 included the future of the North Carolina Railroad, the efficacy of the public school
calendar, and the state of the shoreline. But one section clearly stood out. Section 17 charged 10
the state to create a Wilmington Race Riot Commission in order to unearth a history of racial
violence that took place in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898.
The Wilmington Race Riot Commission, as legislated by the General Assembly, had the
charge of rewriting the previously biased history of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot. Prior to the
charge, understandings of the riot were shrouded by narratives that denied that the violence in
Wilmington had been racially-motivated. In oral narratives, newspaper articles, and history
textbooks, the white men who overthrew Wilmington’s government did not contribute to any
racial violence. Instead, they sought to overthrow an unfit government and “protect civilization.”
The General Assembly’s charge described that interpretation as misguided and noted the riot’s
lasting impact on the African American population in North Carolina. Chair of the Commission
Thomas E. Wright hoped that this act would mark the “beginning of an important dialogue” on
racism throughout the state. Passed unanimously, SB 787 marked the beginning of a complicated
journey of unearthing a violent history.
10 North Carolina General Assembly, SB 787: The Studies Act. (Raleigh: 2000)
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The commission's ties to the government gave them economic and statewide legitimacy,
thus giving them the means to write a history that could transform narratives and perhaps state
identity. I will first explore the story of the race riot before any commemoration took place. The
largely sanitized history painted the story as one of salvation rather than destruction. Then, I
examine the 1898 Foundation’s yearlong centennial commemoration. Its creation reflected a
larger public pressure to remember these events. I also look at the legislation that allowed for the
Commission’s emergence and the action steps that followed. Finally, I reference the other
Commissions that provided guidelines for the Wilmington Race Riot Commission’s charge. The
Tulsa and Rosewood Commissions not only offered an example for Wilmington, but highlighted
the significance associated with a state-sponsored effort.
Statewide tellings of the events in 1898, specifically through textbooks, suggested that
the riot occurred in order to protect Wilmington from lawlessness. Textbooks for children
ignored the riot. They did not acknowledge any sort of upheaval or government overthrow until
1907 when a Young People’s History of North Carolina referred to the election of Daniel
Russell, a governor from the progressive Fusionist party. It only described that in 1898, the
legislature returned to Democrat control. A 1916 textbook painted the Wilmington government
in 1898 as one that was predominantly black and encouraged lawlessness. It claimed that on the
day of the riot, November 10th, “competent white men” took the place of the foolish and
incapable black men who ruled. In 1940, “North Carolina for Boys and Girls” taught that “there 11
were many Negro office-holders in the eastern part of the state, some of whom were poorly fitted
for their tasks.” These narratives remained present in textbooks until 2006 after the 12
11 Tim Tyson, “Ghosts of 1898” Raleigh News & Observer, November 17th, 2006. 3 12 Ibid., 3.
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Commission’s release. Prior to the Commission, the absence of violence in the narrative fit a
larger context of Redemption. Instead of recognizing violence, dominant narratives reflected a
need to protect white communities from the risks associated with black power, such as violence
against white women and social devolution.
In 1995, a group of academics from UNC-Wilmington, leaders of the black community,
and civil rights activists formed the Alliance for Community Trust (ACT). ACT desired to create
“greater connectedness, meaning, and future opportunity” in Wilmington through a direct
examination of Wilmington’s history. They consulted Isaiah Madison, the previous director of
the Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, to trace Wilmington’s racial tensions. He
determined that Wilmington still faced intense racial tensions which demanded “a genuine
community of memory, one that will remember stories not only of suffering inflicted--dangerous
memories for they call the community to alter ancient evils.” Their efforts in 1995 were quickly
tempered. In June 1995, Hurricane Bertha hit New Hanover County and left over $250 million
worth of damages and a need for redevelopment. Wilmington’s political elite worried that
memory efforts might challenge the efforts to rebuild after the hurricane. Additionally, black
residents worried that this memory effort would overshadow positive memories, such as the
pride within the high school. 13
With these concerns in mind, the ACT shifted their scope and created a new group: the
1898 Centennial Commission. This group would “tell the story, heal the wound, and honor the
memory” of the race riot. Although they hoped to have a story representative of both white and
black perspectives, they struggled to recruit members from the “two extreme poles of
13 Margaret M. Mulrooney, Race, Place, and Memory: Deep Currents in Wilmington, North Carolina (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2018). 257-58
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Wilmington society, the old-time white elite and the old-time black working class.” Much like 14
the state-sponsored Wilmington Race Riot Commission, they tried to calculate the economic
damage caused by the riot. Economic justice through reparations was the end goal for this group.
However, they both lacked evidence and risked losing the white community’s support. The 1898
Centennial Commission claimed in a final statement that while, “many African Americans had
their livelihoods and property unjustly taken away, seeking reparations or other acts of
redress...is something best left to the descendants of those whose property was taken.” Soon after
this statement, the co-chair quit the 1898 Centennial Commission because the burden of seeking
justice was put on descendants. With her departure, the group was then forced to take a new
approach. 15
The 1898 Foundation emerged as a third iteration of grassroots efforts that would
commemorate the Wilmington Race Riot. They took guidance from organizing efforts in Tulsa,
which resulted in a ceremony in 1996 to commemorate a race riot that occurred in 1921. The
Tulsans who led the commemoration assured the 1898 Centennial Commission that event-based
commemoration would offer peaceful and meaningful results. Thus, the 1898 Centennial
Commission renamed themselves as the 1898 Foundation and used the “Tulsa model” of
remembrance: a series of events that would engage the Wilmington community.
With an aim to disrupt the popular historical narrative, the 1898 Foundation spearheaded
a multifaceted centennial commemoration project that hoped to help Wilmington heal after 100
years. In 1997, the 1898 Foundation took many steps to offer “an appropriate remembrance” for
the Wilmington Race Riot. Their efforts differed from those of the later Wilmington Race Riot 16
14 Ibid., 258. 15 Ibid., 259 16 Ibid., 260
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Commission in significant ways. The Foundation was a privately funded through local grassroots
efforts rather than on a state-sponsored funding. The Foundation’s Centennial events spanned
over a year of collaboration between the community and its local government. Descendants of
victims had the opportunity to tell their stories and face descendants of perpetrators. With
perspectives from residents, local officials, state political leaders, and scholars, the Foundation
offered a multifaceted approach to historical justice.
The leadership of these events allowed for a potential collaboration between government
and residents, but raised questions about the commemoration’s audience. In late 1997, James
Leutze, University of North Carolina Wilmington chancellor, facilitated a conversation with the
previous leaders of the Alliance for Community Transformation, Bolton Anthony and Bertha
Todd. The chancellor, Todd, Anthony, along with the mayor, chief of police, and the city
manager worked on a course of action for the centennial. The city leaders wanted to be directly
involved in planning given the significance of the anniversary and asked to join the 1898
Foundation, who had already begun plans for a public commemoration. After an agreement to
collaborate, the new executive council of the Foundation now consisted of community members,
three representatives appointed by the city, three from the county, and three from the chamber.
However, with oversight from the government, African American residents worried that the
history might be “elite” and not reflect their identities. Mary Thatch criticized the event’s 17
execution, describing that it was a “horse and pony show” by and for the Wilmington
government. The impact of these events depended on the leadership, making a multifaceted 18
perspective imperative in the execution.
17 Ibid., 260-265.; Melton A. McLaurin, "Commemorating Wilmington's Racial Violence of 1898: From Individual to Collective Memory," Southern Cultures 6, no. 4 (2000), http://www.jstor.org/stable/26236941. 45 18 Wilson Daily. “Workshop Focuses on Wilmington Riots,” November 11th, 2003.
18
As 1998 began, the Foundation carried out a series of events that sought to “heal the
wounds of 1898.” These events engaged a wide range of perspectives through different 19
mediums, cites, and lenses. In January, they hosted a kick-off event attended by over six hundred
people, including North Carolina governor Jim Hunt, to mark the opening of an exhibit at the
Cape Fear Museum exploring the massacre. The Foundation then organized a series of talks
called “Wilmington in Black and White,” which fostered dialogue between descendants of the
riot. Education through public discussions and history created a dialogue that might influence a
narrative that included violence. 20
A Black History Month event in February brought to light the still contested narratives
about the events in 1898. Kenneth Davis, George Rountree, and John Haley discussed the 1898’s
personal significance in front of the large crowd, recognizing the varied salience it had based on
their identities. Davis and Haley both came from Wilmington’s African American community.
Davis was a direct descendant and Haley a historian on the subject. Rountree’s grandfather had
participated in the overthrow. He celebrated his grandfather and did not present his story as 21
violent. Instead, he upheld his grandfather as a leader in his community. Davis pushed back;
Rountree’s grandfather may have had a distinguished leadership position, but this role facilitated
violence rather than community connection. Despite Davis’ argument, Rountree retorted that
there may have been violence, but Rountree himself bore no responsibility today because he was
not alive during the time. This event, among the many others, not only suggested a contested 22
19 University of North Carolina Wilmington Randall Archive, The 1898 Foundation. https://library.uncw.edu/web/collections/1898foundation/ 20 Leslie H. Hossfeld, Narrative, Political Unconscious, and Racial Violence in Wilmington, North Carolina. (Routledge, 2005). 253 21 Mulrooney, 255 22 Ibid., 265-262
19
narrative, but a larger challenge in reconciliation efforts. Many of these competing narratives
remained entrenched in families. Reconciliation would require not only an undoing of the
narratives, but also their ties to personal identity.
On November 10th, the actual centennial of the Race Riot, Wilmington residents
gathered to recognize the significance of 1898. A local white woman, Anne Russell, wrote and
performed a play called No More Sorrow to Arise. Russell re-wrote the White Man’s Declaration
of Independence that was read by Alfred Waddell in 1898. She instead titled it a “People’s
Declaration of Racial Interdependence,” and proclaimed a manifesto of racial justice. At Thalian
Hall, a center for performing arts, residents gathered for a public acknowledgement and prayer
from the local government. On National Public Radio, community artists such as Rhonda 23
Bellamy, Lloyd Wilson, Scott Simpson, and George Scheibner performed a dramatic reading of
Cape Fear Rising, a play about the Wilmington Race Riot. Commemorative events not only 24
took the form of a ceremony, but theatre, conversation, and public broadcast.
The Foundation, although multifaceted, lacked resources to execute a plan after
November 10th that might address repercussions of the 1898 Race Riot. From its conception, the
Foundation had a difficult time finding economic support for their project. Those with full time
positions received half of their salary while part time positions did not get pay, even with diligent
work. The Foundation mostly relied on private donations. Foundations such as the North Street
Foundation and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, both family owned, funded some of the 1898
Foundation’s work. The city of Wilmington provided $15,000, which was not nearly enough to
complete what had initially been envisioned. Many blacks suspected that white members of the
23 Ibid., 270-272 24 The 1898 Foundation. University of North Carolina Randall Library Digital Collection. https://library.uncw.edu/web/collections/1898foundation/
20
executive council had been using funds for their own personal use. This suspicion caused the
resignation of the Foundation’s co-chair, Anthony Todd. Margaret Mulrooney, a community
member and scholar questioned the Foundation’s financial viability and future without
government support, perhaps from the federal government. Without a larger financial support 25
system, the Foundation struggled to make it past November 10th.
The centennial celebration promoted a better understanding of the violence in 1898 and
to some extent, they succeeded in doing so. Leslie Hossfeld sociological study about the impact
of the 1898 Foundation on political consciousness in Wilmington revealed that the events shed a
new light on the riot. One African American participant of the commemoration noted that the
events spawned all the dialogue groups across town talking about race and those types of
things.” Another white participant and newcomer to the community learned that “it was bloody, 26
there were lots of people floating in the river, that it was much more of a massacre than we have
ever been told it was.” Many Members of the Wilmington community, both black and white, 27
pointed to the immense violence and questioned why it had remained shrouded until 1998 given
that it maintained both local and statewide significance.
However, many white residents still did not recognize the contemporary salience of the
Riot’s legacy. Hossfeld points to the centrality of color-blind liberalism, an ideology where
everyone has equal opportunity regardless of race, in the final products of the commemoration.
Few people understood why the event remained significant because no one was alive from 1898
to take the blame. The rhetoric of the commemoration encouraged this, fueling residents to
25Mulrooney, 270 26 Hossfeld, 107. 27 Ibid., 115.
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“move forward together.” Although complex and multifaceted, the Foundation could not undo 28
the narrative that erased violence against blacks in Wilmington.
As a continuation of the work from the 1898 Foundation, state representatives Thomas E.
Wright and Luther B. Jordan sponsored Senate Bill 787 two years years later with the intention
of writing an official, state-sponsored history. In section 17, the General Assembly charged a 29
group, labeled the Wilmington Race Riot Commission, with the task of “developing a history.”
The General Assembly described methods through which the Commission could take this on.
The Commission, according to the bill:
shall gather information, including oral testimony from descendants of those affected by the riot or others, examine documents and writings, and otherwise take such actions as may be necessary or proper in accurately identifying information having historical significance to the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot. 30
The Commission could also submit a final list of recommendations along with the official report
to the General Assembly. The language in the bill did not specify the final intentions of this 31
effort other than recommendations. It was not necessarily designed as a means of historical
justice. In his initial presentation of the bill, Thomas E. Wright asserted that the charge of the
Commission could invigorate a “vital dialogue” in the state, but the purpose of this dialogue
remained unclear. Five years later when the report was released, however, Wright clarified he
thought the dialogue should be about the foundation of racism in North Carolina. 32
28 Ibid., 121; The 1898 Foundation. https://library.uncw.edu/web/collections/1898foundation/ 29 Between 1998 and 2000, it is unclear what occurred to facilitate the creation of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission. Although Irving Joyner mentioned that Thomas E. Wright and Luther B. Jordan had lobbied members of the state legislature between the end of the centennial celebrations and the passing of SB 787, his claim cannot be corroborated. I looked through newspapers from the time and asked other participants such as Tim Tyson and David Cecelski, however, there is no information that described the intentions behind the creation of this Commission other than continuing the work of the 1898 Foundation. 30 North Carolina General Assembly, SB 787: The Studies Act. 8 31 Ibid., 9 32 Wilmington Race Riot Commission. 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report. (Raleigh: 2005), 12
22
The initial legislation also provided guidance for how the Commissioners would be
selected. There would be 13 members, who would each serve over a two year period. The
President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and Governor would each
appoint three members. The Mayor, City Council of the City of Wilmington, and The New
Hanover County Commissioners would each appoint two members. The General Assembly was
authorized to appoint two chairs. Eventually, they chose Thomas E. Wright and Luther B. 33
Jordan, who had initially sponsored the Commission. 34
The thirteen members represented different parts of both the city and state community.
Thomas E. Wright and Luther B. Jordan, both state representatives from New Hanover County,
chaired the Commission. However, given that Luther B. Jordan died shortly before the
Commission began, Irving Joyner, a professor from North Carolina Central University and
lawyer for the Wilmington Ten, replaced him as co-chair. Additionally, some group members 35
came from an academic background, such as John Haley. John Haley worked at University of
North Carolina Wilmington and focused on African American history. Most of the
Commissioners came from the Wilmington community. Lottie Clinton, Helyn Lofton, Kenneth
Davis, and Ruth Haas represented unique parts of the community. Harper Peterson was mayor 36
at the time. The Commission had a multiracial make-up; about half were African American and
the other half were white.
33 SB 787: The Studies Act. 7 34 North Carolina Center for Cultural Resources. 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission. https://www.ncdcr.gov/about/history/1898-race-riot 35 Martha Quillin. Raleigh News & Observer, “Why Dig Up the Past?” June 25, 2006 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article10361309.html 36 Ed Gordon. National Public Radio. “Report Re-examines 1898 Wilmington Race Riots. June 26, 2006. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5495042
23
Compared to the 1898 Foundation, the Commission held a uniquely powerful position
since it was formed by the state legislature. The Commission had the “elite power” that the
Foundation lacked through economic and statewide support that the General Assembly
provided. Within the language of the initial charge, the General Assembly “authorized” the 37
Commission to develop the history. The state’s authorization suggested their approval for the
task and their personal ties to the events in 1898. Similarly, newspapers and state 38
representatives alike claimed that the role of the Commission was to issue an “official” history. 39
Statewide legitimacy could, through its recommendations, open the door for greater forms of
action, like business development plan or the building of a monument. According to Commission
chair Thomas E. Wright the Commission could promote “economic development” or “a
permanent marker or a memorial of the site” once the study concluded. The power granted by 40
the state allowed for the Commission to access statewide resources that the Foundation could
not.
The Wilmington Race Riot Commission was not the only group to seek to rewrite history
as a form of justice; the group followed a similar pattern of truth-telling that occurred within the
United States and abroad. Truth Commissions served as an important way to start historical
redress efforts with hopes of justice for the community. Most famously, in 1996, the South
African Truth and Reconciliation Commission gathered victims and perpetrators in order to have
an “official report” about what occurred during Apartheid. Throughout Latin America, similar
37 Mulrooney, 260. 38 SB 787, 8 39 Mike Baker. The Washington Post. “1898 Race Clash Ruled a Coup,” June 1st, 2006. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/06/01/1898-race-clash-ruled-a-coup-span-classbankheadpanel-asks-nc-to-consider-reparationsspan/e7a816c4-262c-4d87-862f-1adb8cc4fdaa/?utm_term=.9ea0b3e5b402 40 Burlington Times News. “Residents to Talk About 1898 Race Riots, Deaths,” June 29th, 2003.
24
commissions have occurred in order to investigate dictatorships and establish impact.
Governments have had different intentions in creating state-sponsored investigatory bodies.
Punishing perpetrators, establishing the truth, repairing or addressing damages, paying respect to
victims, and reforming institutions emerged as possible outcomes. 41
The General Assembly ultimately funded the Commission’s project for four years
although initially funding it for only two. SB 787 had initially guaranteed funding for the
Commission for the first two years of the project, a length that seemed suitable given the short
tenures of the commissions in Tulsa and Rosewood. Although the Commission members did 42
not receive and compensation for their work, funding covered rental fees for space,
transportation, and other costs incurred. Additionally, labor from the North Carolina Department
of Cultural Resources provided free labor, which included the employment of LeRae Umfleet
and the report’s creation. With work nowhere near completion in 2002, Wright successfully 43
reapplied for funding for another two years. Funding ended in 2005 which conveniently 44
intersected with the completion of the report.
The Wilmington Race Riot Commission’s execution varied in length from the Tulsa and
Rosewood commissions, which might have influenced funding. Michael Hill, a staff person from
the Department of Cultural Resources, noted that the Rosewood commission only took six
months to write their report and left them with additional funding. The Tulsa Race Riot 45
41 Priscilla B. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths :Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions (New York: Routledge, 2011), 8 42 SB 787, 12. 43 Ibid., 12 44 North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 6 (Raleigh: 2000-2005). Page 4 45 North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 4 (Raleigh: 2000-2005). Page 3
25
Commission took two years to write their report and produced a thorough interpretation of what
happened based on the limited evidence available. The Wilmington Race Riot Commission took
five years to complete their report and another year to edit it for the public.
The senate bill did not explicitly state that the Commission was a redress-driven body,
but instead asked the group to determine the historical significance. Co-chair Thomas Wright
described the commission as having the intention to “develop a record of the events and examine
their legacy, especially on black businesses statewide.” “Historical significance” could 46
encompass so many factors of the riot. It could include tracing the long term impact between
1898 and 2000. It might mean tracing a continuum between the 1898 riots and 1971 riots. Karen
M. Inouye, in reference to Japanese Internment, describes the “afterlife” of an event. Some
atrocities, according to Inouye can have lasting impact that can take many forms: reluctance to
tell the history, fear, anxiety, or impact on community relations. Historical significance for the 47
Wilmington Race Riot could have included an assessment of the “afterlife” as described by
Inouye, but instead focused on the tangible. The Wilmington Race Riot Commission interpreted
this guideline as a mission to calculate the economic damage caused by the riot.
The Wilmington Race Riot Commission directly drew upon other state-sponsored
commissions in the United States which had been established to deal with a history of racial
violence, much like the global truth commissions. Oklahoma and Florida addressed their own
violent histories through writing an official report that identified key actors, damages and
recommendations. In 1993, the Oklahoma state legislature established the Tulsa Race Riot
Commission. Their Commission grappled with a contested story of the destruction of Black Wall
46 Ibid. 4 47 Karen M. Inouye, The Long Afterlife of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2016). 8
26
Street in 1921, which involved both state and federal police forces. In 1994, the Rosewood
legislature called upon historians to write a state-sponsored report about the 1923 massacre that
resulted in the destruction of a free Black town and forced many residents to flee the state. Each 48
of the commissions investigated, wrote a report, then presented it to the state government with a
set of recommendations.
The Tulsa and Rosewood commissions took on direct efforts toward reparations. The
Tulsa Commission found $16 million worth of damages after the riot. The magnitude of damages
warranted at least a request for reparations. However, the Oklahoma government refused to offer
victims reparations. In Rosewood, the Commission only used $50,000 of the $2.1 million
initially allocated. Although the government did not themselves award reparations, survivors
received the bulk of the funds. The legislature deposited the remainder into a scholarship fund
for African American residents. However, like the Wilmington Race Riot Commission, neither 49
Rosewood nor Tulsa first intended to give reparations to descendants.
While in Tulsa and Rosewood the commissions at least had recommendations in their
purview, the Wilmington Commission seemed ambivalent about reparations. From the
Commission’s first meeting, Thomas E. Wright shut down any conversations about economic
reparations, arguing that they were not key goals in the project. Wright discouraged members
from thinking about reparations as a final product. The minutes read that, “Rep. Wright distanced
himself from that word, indicating that the number of variables associated with such a process
would make the concept invalid.Kenneth Davis suggested that instead, they use the concept of
48 James T. Campbell, "Settling Accounts? an Americanist Perspective on Historical Reconciliation," The American Historical Review 114, no. 4 (2009), http://www.jstor.org/stable/23882941. 969-970. 49 Ibid., 3.
27
restoration. As I discuss in the final chapter, their recommendations echoed Davis’ reframing 50
and suggested a business development plan in Wilmington. In public interviews, Wright 51
neglected any possibility of reparations. In 2003, he relayed, that reparations were “not the intent
or the expressed intent of the commission.” The final recommendations, “may include
suggestions for a permanent marker or memorial of the riot and whether to designate the event as
a historical site,” but not any sort of economic packages for descendants. He reasoned that the
Commission’s intentions, first and foremost, were to create an “official history” for permanent
record. 52
Wright’s immediate recognition of monetary reparations as a central issue reflected the
heated debate amongst scholars. They contest reparations’ importance in contemporary
communities, given that many victims of historical injustice are not alive today. Alfred Brophy,
in assessing the case for reparations in Tulsa, developed a four-part test to assess whether an
historical injustice should qualify for reparations. He suggested that victims must still be alive,
the state must be culpable, the events must be concentrated in a specific time and a place, and
people at the time must have recognized that an injustice occurred. He affirms that reparations 53
can serve as a powerful and necessary tool for redress. Other scholars, such as Angelique Davis,
specifically ask for reparations for enslavement and Jim Crow violence given their lasting impact
and contemporary repercussions. For example, Davis points to the ways in which slavery’s 54
50 North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 1, (Raleigh: 2000-2005). 3 51 Ibid., 4 52 Burlington Times News. “Residents to Talk About 1898 Race Riots, Deaths,” June 29th, 2003. 53 Alfred L. Brophy, Reconstructing the Dreamland :The Tulsa Riot of 1921 : Race, Reparations, and Reconcilation (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 104 54 Angelique M. Davis, "Apologies, Reparations, and the Continuing Legacy of the European Slave Trade in the United States," Journal of Black Studies 45, no. 4 (2014), http://www.jstor.org/stable/24572848. Angelique M. Davis, "Apologies, Reparations, and the Continuing Legacy of the European Slave Trade in the United States," Journal of Black Studies 45, no. 4 (2014), 271-286. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24572848. 273.
28
legacy lives today. She points to a few among many of the lingering impacts. Black children are
less likely than white counterparts to have a higher income than their parents; African Americans
have a higher infant mortality rate; there are higher rates of HIV diagnoses within the black
community. Although public officials have given apologies for the atrocity of enslavement, 55
very few propose remedial measures to thwart its legacy.
There are of course, many scholars, policy makers, and constituents who disagree with
reparations. Some argue that descendants should not have to suffer consequences of their
forefathers’ actions. Others argue that it does not remedy the serious harms done in the past. 56
They suggest that a simple lump-sum of money does not cure every aspect of a historical
injustice. Instead, a trust, perhaps in the form of educational funds or business development, may
offer more substantial repair. These argument were central to many who opposed reparations 57
in Wilmington. 58
The Wilmington Race Riot Commission emerged on the coattails of the 1898
Foundation’s commemorative efforts and built upon their important work. The Foundation
created spaces for public dialogue and recognition, but did not act beyond November 10th, 1998.
The Commission thus offered what the Foundation could not: government support and a
possibility of action. Federal resources and the ability to authorize an “official” narrative allowed
the Commission to commemorate the violence through different means. The Commission took
direction from Tulsa and Rosewood in completing their task. However, from the very beginning,
55 Ibid., 278 56 Alfred L. Brophy, "What should Inheritance Law be? Reparations and Intergenerational Wealth Transfers," Law and Literature 20, no. 2 (2008) http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/lal.2008.20.2.197. 206 57 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/47386/pdf 58 Hossfeld, 111
29
they acknowledged that reparations would not be included in the completion of the
Commission’s charge.
The Commission faced a daunting task of unearthing and writing a history. Although
given some direction from the General Assembly, the Commission still encountered a lack of
information. To write their history, they would need to determine how to calculate economic
impact, how to describe what occurred in 1898 if it was not a riot, and how to change a biased
narrative.
30
Chapter 2: Establishing Impact
In historical redress efforts that have taken place around the world, nations and local
communities have attempted to understand the magnitude and details of different historical
injustices. They ask: how many people died? What was destroyed? How and why did violence
occur? How might a new investigation change previous understandings of the event? The 59
answers to these questions seek transparency for victims and descendants about what occurred in
the past. Transparency plays a critical role in various forms of redress, be it an apology or a truth
commission. Some scholars see transparency as central to ensuring that the victims, perpetrators,
and their descendants understand why things are the way they are. More importantly, answers 60
to these missing pieces can provide justice by designating a sense of what happened and who
should pay the damages.
In the case of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission, measuring the damage and the
impact of the riot involved a broad investigation because much of what occurred in 1898 was
unclear. Through their close examination of oral histories, economic data, and even historical
fiction, the Commission sought to craft an official narrative for the General Assembly. However,
they faced some limitations. After a hundred years, no victims were still alive to tell their story,
nor did any reports exist that documented the number of deaths or displaced people. With these
challenges at hand, the Commission still attempted to create an inclusive history that disrupted
existing biased narratives.
59 Hazan, 9. 60 Richard Vernon, Historical Redress :Must we Pay for the Past? (London; New York; 4: Continuum, 2012). 14.
31
The lack of hard evidence created a real challenge for the Commission. The debates
around the Wilmington race riot shaped the Commission’s scope and their methodological
decisions. Biases ran rampant throughout narratives of November 10th, 1898. Those narratives
eliminated not only white accountability, but the possibility of ongoing damage. Many in the
black community did not believe they needed empirical evidence to determine both the initial
and lasting impact after 1898. An understanding of these debates underscored the significance of
the Commission’s methodological decisions and the methodologies the Commission adopted
reflected these challenges.
This chapter first explores the debates about what occurred in 1898. The Commission
hoped to disrupt the story that erased racial terror. It then looks into the evidence available to the
Commission. Although limited, some data still existed that allowed the Commission to complete
their charge. Given the importance of the Commission’s methodological approach, I interrogate
the mechanisms used to create this new narrative. Finally, I investigate the challenges the
Commission faced in confronting more ambiguous evidence. Certain aspects of the impact
remained unquantifiable, and thus hampered the possibility the commission developing of a
definitive narrative. Although faced with this challenge, the Commission worked to craft a
history to the best of their ability.
Given the difficult task of establishing a new history, the Commission had conflicting
opinions on what their scope should be. Helyn Lofton, a community member and employee of
the Cape Fear Museum, suggested that they concentrate on the impact the Riot had on education
for black people in the state. Kenneth Davis noted an absence of a stories of black success 61
61 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 1. 3
32
within Wilmington and proposed that their investigation should include attention to the powerful
black elite in Wilmington. Focusing on their success, Davis argued, could illuminate a story of
“what could have been.” Historian John Haley, however, pushed back. If the Commission 62
crafted a story based on hypotheses instead of evidence, it would be “purely speculative.” 63
Certain long term impacts, like segregation and disenfranchisement, could not be correlated
without data. From the get-go, the Commission acknowledged the magnitude of their task.
In Senate Bill 787, the General Assembly required the Wilmington Race Riot
Commission to establish the historical significance and the economic impact of the riot. To 64
assess impact, the Wilmington Commission investigated records left behind, including but not
limited to newspaper articles, census records, and photographs of the destruction. If they could 65
establish economic impact, according to Lottie Clinton and Kenneth Davis, they could better
interpret the legacy of 1898 and how it continued to impact life for African Americans in
Wilmington. Additionally, an economic analysis could provide empirical evidence that would 66
intervene in the debates on whether or not the event shaped North Carolina’s political climate.
Although tasked with calculating the economic impact, the Commission also grappled
with the convoluted language used to describe the events in 1898. ‘Riot,’a term used by
historians in describing November 10th, masked what it actually was: a violent attempt to
overthrow a successful black government. As with many instances of historical redress, debates
62 Ibid., 1 63 Ibid., 3 64 SB 787: The Studies Act. 8 65 North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 8 (Raleigh: 2000-2005). Page 3 66 North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 1 (Raleigh: 2000-2005). Page 3; North Carolina General Assembly, 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report. (Raleigh, 2006). 5.
33
about legacy start with the language used to describe the events. Tim Tyson, in his article on the
Wilmington Race Riot and its legacy, challenged the dominant language. For over a hundred
years, he claimed, “historians have obscured the triumph of white domination calling it a ‘race
riot,’ though it was not the spontaneous outbreak of mob violence that the word ‘riot’
suggests.” Historians cloaked the terror that occurred through language and in the process did 67
not hold white people accountable. Evidence suggests that the Wilmington Race Riot was not at
all spontaneous. Newspapers, eyewitnesses and participants alike attested to the careful planning
and violent execution of the overthrow. Leaders of the overthrow directed their peers to “go to 68
the polls tomorrow, and if you find the negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls. If he refuses,
kill him.” White supremacists had the clear intention of killing and terrorizing the black 69
community in order to facilitate the government’s overthrow. Although ample firsthand evidence
of planned violence exists, historians accepted ‘riot,’ until 1983 when Leon Prather released the
first historical account of the Wilmington Race Riot in his work We Have Taken a City.
However, this language still appears in even in more progressive narratives of the events that
acknowledge the violence, which make the destruction appear as spontaneous and to erase white
responsibility.
The use of ‘riot’ by historians follows a linguistic trend that neglects white
accountability. English scholar Sheila Smith McKoy, in her monograph When Whites Riot,
unpacks the misuse of the term. ‘Riot’ invokes an image of spontaneous violence which suggests
that the terror occurred out of nowhere, and thus no one can be blamed. She argues that white
67 Tyson, “Ghosts of 1898” 3 68 H. Leon Prather, We have Taken a City :Wilmington Racial Massacre and Coup of 1898 (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984), 49-50 69 Leon Prather in Democracy Betrayed :The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and its Legacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 31.
34
violence is coded as a ‘race riot’ as a mechanism of white supremacy. Even if they 70
acknowledge that the violence happened, white people do not get blamed or held accountable for
it. They excuse their behavior with an explanation that they protected society from “social
devolution.” White people, who hold more racial privilege, get to decide the language that is 71
used and thus do not get held accountable. Throughout Jim Crow in the United States and
Apartheid in South Africa, the description of white violence riots downplayed the role and
responsibility of perpetrators because of their role in preserving of civilized society. In the case 72
of Wilmington specifically, white people used violence to overthrow an increasingly powerful
black elite. However, the use of ‘riot’ in the following decades to describe the event erased white
perpetratorship.
While the dominant narratives all described 1898 as a spontaneous riot, members of the
black community stood firm in their belief: the events in 1898 were and should not be considered
a riot. The violence was carefully planned and did not occur out of nowhere. The stories of
violence that echoed throughout black communities in Wilmington and beyond, focused on the
deliberate violence whites caused. William Barber, a North Carolina-based reverend and activist,
compared the overthrow to the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. He argued that
November 10th made September 11th look “pale in comparison” and could be considered a case
of terrorism. Black residents in Wilmington shared Barber’s perspective.. An interviewee from 73
Leslie Hossfeld’s sociological study on the impact of commemoration reported:
70 Sheila Smith McKoy, When Whites Riot :Writing Race and Violence in American and South African Cultures (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), 170. 71 Ibid., 21 72 Ibid., 7 73 North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 23, (Raleigh: 2000-2005). 2-3
35
...you could see blood, actually in the Cape Fear River. That there were bodies there. Bodies strewn about...It was far greater than nine or twelve. From my perspective, as well as I can remember, and the old folks, you know many of them weren’t very well educated, but they just say something like a whole heap of them’ or hundreds and hundred, and you know that it probably wasn’t 4 or 5 hundred, when they say hundreds and hundreds, you know, it’s more than 12 and more than a hundred. 74
This interviewee offered a rough approximation of the number of deaths after the riot. However,
he was clear that the initial count was inaccurate. Based on oral accounts, the Wilmington Race
Riot Commission encountered a debate about how many had died. Oral accounts, like Barber’s
and the interviewee’s, provided an intervention to the biased narrative.
Black residents of North Carolina also saw the Wilmington Race Riot as the fall of a
successful black city that could have flourished. Prior to 1898, Wilmington held a unique
position as a successful port. The city had a population of 11,324 African Americans and 8,731
Whites. Black residents owned most businesses. Fusionist leaders, both white and black, 75
dominated local government and implemented progressive policies. The riot and overthrow thus
marked a downfall of black success. William Barber proposed this shift as a theme for a
documentary about the overthrow: “Wilmington Would Have Been Atlanta Today, but for the
Terrorist Attack of the Daniels-Carr Crew.” His comparison to Atlanta reflected the prospects of
success in Wilmington had the Riot not occurred. Atlanta today is a cosmopolitan, tourist-driven
city, with a large black population. Barber was not alone in his disappointment over
Wilmington’s lost opportunity. Luther Jordan, resident and state representative, actively fought
for the Commission’s scope to include Wilmington’s pre-riot success in their narrative. 76
74 Hosfeld, 116 75 Tim Tyson, “Ghosts of 1898” 4 76 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 1. 2.
36
Including the imminent opportunity prior to the riot in the narrative, according to Jordan, might
have given magnitude to the destruction.
Black members of the Commission shared the opinion that the contemporary racial
climate took shape because of the political foundation laid in 1898. In his remarks in the
introduction of the Commission’s report, Kenneth Davis expressed this sentiment:
We must remove the diabolical stain of racism from the fabric of freedom and democracy that still exist in Wilmington today. It exists in the gentrification of black communities, it exists in the attempts to resegregate schools, it exists in hiring and promotions practices in the public and private sector and it exits in the distorted historical facts of the events of 1898. 77
Davis traced a continuum of violence that began during the Riot and contributed to continued
tensions almost a hundred years later. He was not the only one who held this opinion; Lottie
Clinton, when reflecting upon the importance of the Commission, eluded to the contemporary
fear that events, like what occurred in Wilmington, could happen again. With opinions like 78
these present, the Commission disrupted a narrative that ignored the long-term political impact of
the violence of 1898. Wilmington’s fall meant far more than an isolated instance of violence. It
created the current basis for the living conditions of the North Carolina black community today.
Black Commission members were not wrong. Nearly seventy-five years after the events
in 1898, racial violence in Wilmington would take a similar form when white residents in fought
vehemently against public school integration. David Cecelski and Tim Tyson describe that
“buildings burned every night. White vigilantes roared through the city, spraying bullets from
rooftops downtown. Racial violence in the newly integrated public schools threatened to bring
public education to a halt.” John Godwin, a historian of Wilmington racial politics, argues that 79
77 North Carolina General Assembly, 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report. 10 78 Ed Gordon. National Public Radio. “Report Re-examines 1898 Wilmington Race Riots.” 79 Cecelski and Tyson, Democracy Betrayed :The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and its Legacy, 1
37
the intersection of the riot and the rise of the tobacco and furniture industries during the early
twentieth century led to a racially conservative climate. White people not only disenfranchised
black people, but put them in labor positions that would fuel the state economy. The Wilmington
Race Riots, he argues, “gave progressive-minded white leaders good reason to follow a path of
racial moderation.” Racial progressivism, according to Godwin, evolved into intense 80
conservativism. With a the tone set by the white perpetrators in 1898, violence and domination
remained endemic to the North Carolina racial political climate.
Given its contemporary significance, the Wilmington Race Riot Commission used a wide
range of sources to challenge some of the existing biased narratives of 1898. Newspaper reports
and business directories from the time neglected white violence and minimized the riot’s impact
on the black community. Newspapers covered when the event happened and who was involved,
but did not detail how many people died. Oral histories from descendants gave more information
and offered a personal perspective of how the violence impacted descendants’ lives. Though this
offered some evidence, a lot was still missing. The Commission, in collaboration with LeRae
Umfleet, tackled these primary sources and confronted the biases in the process.
In 1898, North Carolina newspapers galvanized white supremacists before and after the
riots and blamed black people for the violence. On November 11th, the Wilmington Star
reported, “Bloody Conflict With Negroes White Men forced to Take Up Arms for the
Preservation of Law and Order.” Four days later, the Raleigh News & Observer reported an 81
alderman’s interpretation of the events. He asserted, “In the riot, the negro was the aggressor. I
believe that the whites were doing God’s service, as the results for God have been felt in
80 John Godwin, Black Wilmington and the North Carolina Way: Portrait of a Community in the Era of Civil Rights Protest (New York: University Press of America, 2000). 15 81 Hossfeld, 40
38
business, in politics and in the Church.” Other reports claimed that only ten black people had 82
been killed and emphasized that black residents provoked the violence and white people
protected the town. White instigators burned down the only black newspaper in Wilmington, 83
which could have given a perspective from the victims. Newspapers at the time offered little
useable evidence of the role of white supremacy and denied the riot’s impact. 84
Fictional accounts from the time, like The Marrow of Tradition and Hanover or the
Persecution of Lowly, portrayed the riot differently than newspaper accounts. Black author
Charles Chesnutt in The Marrow of Tradition, explored a fictional instance of racial violence that
looked a lot like the Wilmington Race Riot. He told the story of a Black doctor in “Wellington,”
William Miller, who saved the life a white supremacist’s child. Much like Wilmington, a race 85
riot occurred in Wellington and resulted in the progressive government’s overthrow and a black
newspaper’s destruction. At three o’clock on a day in early November, the Wellington Riot
cultivated “darkness” throughout the city. Charles Chesnutt also described November 10th as a
“war battle” that prompted widespread killing. Hanover or the Persecution of Lowly more 86
explicitly described the race riot. Black journalist David Bryant Fulton, under the pseudonym of
Jack Thorne, wrote a veiled fictional account of the Wilmington Race Riot with a nameless
“editor,” probably Alexander Manly, and “Colonel,” or Alfred Waddell. The Colonel and other
white leaders organized an overthrow in response to the editor’s article on white womanhood. As
a result, the white mob stormed Wilmington, terrorized black citizens, and forced them to flee
82 Ibid., 41 83 Smith McKoy, When Whites Riot :Writing Race and Violence in American and South African Cultures, 170 48 84 Ibid., 48 85 Ibid., 50 86 Ibid., 65
39
their homes forever. Fictional interpretations, like Hanover and Marrow gave different 87
perspectives to that of newspapers and highlighted violence as central to the overthrow.
Fiction offers an important perspective when it comes to historical events, especially in
the black community. Genevieve Fabre and Robert O’Malley suggest that for African
Americans, sites of memory go beyond that of the typical historian. They see novels, poems,
slave narratives autobiographies, and oral testimonies as “crucial parts of the historical record.”
These varied repositories of individual memories, taken together, create a collective communal
memory.” For Toni Morrison, fiction allows blacks to participate in writing a history that they 88
could not contribute to beforehand. She argues that fiction, “is also critical for any person who is
black, or who belongs to any marginalized category, for, historically, we were seldom invited to
participate in the discourse even when we were its topic.” Given fiction’s ability to preserve a 89
narrative usually absent of black perspectives, historical fiction accounts could at least give some
insight into a history that differed from the dominant narrative.
A measurement of economic impact could determine what actually happened amidst
conflicting accounts of newspapers and historical fiction. With the few records left behind from
one hundred years ago, the Commission hoped they could measure economic impact using
empirical data. While anecdotal evidence about the riot’s impact existed, commissioners worried
that anecdotes would not provide definitive answers. If the Commission used anecdotal evidence,
they would not be able to guarantee accuracy in the final report. With no official death toll, the
Wilmington Race Riot Commission relied on business directories and census data to calculate
87Jack Thorne, Hanover or the Persecution of Lowly. 1900. University of North Carolina Southern Archive. 88 Geneviève Fabre and Robert G. O'Meally, History and Memory in African-American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 321. 9. 89 Toni Morrison, The Cite of Memory. in Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, William Zinsser (Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995), 91
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who had died and what had been damaged. These sources provided names, ages, and house
values before and after 1898. Like the yellow pages today, business directories and censuses 90
offered information on individual residents and businesses in Wilmington. However, the
directory and census records did not give a sense of how businesses could decide to add their
names to the record. It was unclear whether they could opt in optionally, or if had to pay a fee to
include their information in the directory. This uncertainty presented a limitation and possible
bias in the sample. With the documents available, the Commission did not have key 91
information that could offer corroboration of anecdotal evidence.
The Commission decided that estimating the economic damage could offer give
substantial evidence of how the events in 1898 impacted African Americans in Wilmington. As
mentioned previously, the charge from the General Assembly asserted this need. The
Commission built off of Sue Cody’s work, who researched the Wilmington Race Riot’s
economic impact for her dissertation. Cody utilized deeds, tax records, census data, and 92
business directories from seven years before and after the riot to determine the damage. With the
guidance of Cody’s research, prior economic research on other race riots, and analysis from
external economists, the Commission tackled their charge.
The Commission also drew on the work of William J. Collins and Robert Margo from
2004. Collins and Margo had created a model to assess the impact of race riots and studied the
shift in property values after race riots during the 1960s. They determined that property values
90 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 23. 1 91 Ibid., 1 92 North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meetings 21 and 22, (Raleigh: 2004).
41
decreased after race riots occurred across the country. Their conclusion indicated that race riots 93
caused white flight and fewer resources for predominantly black neighborhoods. They argued
that their study could have implications for policy makers who frequently neglected
concentrations of poverty in black neighborhoods. The Commission lacked a lot of the
information available to Margo and Collins, but built upon their methods. They looked
specifically into property and how its ownership shifted after 1898. The Commission employed 94
Tod Hamilton and William Darity, who built upon Cody’s equations that would show damage,
such as property loss or population displacement, over time. Hamilton and Darity calculated
damage with the Duncan Score Measure, an economic tool that detects how economic damage
changes from year to year, which Cody used in her research. The method used two variables:
self-reported occupation and the OCCScore, which is a value assigned to total median income.
Their calculation resulted in a final value that described the magnitude of damage after the race
riot.
Hamilton and Darity concluded that in Wilmington's black community, socioeconomic
status and property ownership decreased after 1898. They reported that fourteen percent of black
residents left Wilmington after 1898. Fewer black residents owned businesses. Occupations in
the black community no longer had as high of an income. Although they lacked some important
data that would give them exact numbers of how many people died or left, the data available
offered important estimations on damage. Darity and Hamilton established that, based on their
data, the riot had a “negative impact on black people in Wilmington.” 95
93William J. Collins and Robert A. Margo, "The Economic Aftermath of the 1960s Riots in American Cities: Evidence from Property Values," The Journal of Economic History 67, no. 4 (2007) http://www.jstor.org/stable/40056402. 855 94 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report. 490 95 Ibid., 492
42
Oral histories and community contributions corroborated the narrative produced through
hard evidence. Lottie Clinton and Kenneth Davis facilitated public forums throughout 2001 and
2002. There, community members and descendants offered their interpretations of the story.
Clinton and Davis also drew on already existing oral history resources, such as public
testimonies from the 1898 Foundation symposium and interviews from Duke University’s Center
for Documentary studies. Additionally, some Commission meetings were open to the public so 96
Wilmington residents could share their insights and artifacts. Newspapers throughout New
Hanover County called residents to contribute anything they had on the riot. In response, many
residents showed up to meetings frequently. 97
In the Commission’s final report, oral histories elaborated certain pieces of economic
evidence. For example, trends in oral accounts reiterated Darity and Hamilton’s claims of
economic impact. Although faced with the destruction of businesses and deaths of family
members, oral histories pointed to family and church as key modes of resilience. Additionally, 98
Kirk Allen, a progressive reverend in Wilmington at the time, emerged through the
Commission’s research as a critical leader after November 10th. The Commission 99
communicated that oral histories reified his significance throughout family narratives. Using oral
history, the Wilmington Race Riot Commission constructed a history that included some stories
of contemporary significance in the lives of descendants.
96 North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 4, (Raleigh: 2000-2005). Page 3 97 “Archives Seek Descendants of Wilmington Riot.” Wilson Daily News. March 2, 2004; “Draft Report from Race Riot, due in Dec”. Kinston Free Press. October 10, 2005. 98 Wilmington Race Riot Report, 235. 99 Ibid., 440
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The Wilmington Race Riot Commission could not calculate every aspects of what was
impacted by the riot because some information could not be quantified. In the final report, Darity
and Hamilton presented a disclaimer. The case of Wilmington presented “special difficulties”
upon measurement. Over one hundred years had passed and they could not definitively
determine how many people had been killed. While it they could document a decline in black
voters after the riot, Darity and Hamilton admitted that “it is difficult to put a dollar value on the
right to vote.” Although non-quantifiable, these features were key components of the 100
Commission’s scope.
Although unable to find the exact number of deaths, the Commission looked into
personal accounts that would give more definition information. LeRae Umfleet explored the
inquests on November 12th, 1898, two days after the event, and found that only fourteen people
had been officially reported dead. She mentioned evidence of a mass grave somewhere, 101
although she could not determine its exact location. Umfleet also discovered conflicting 102
evidence in another report, where a coroner went through the city and picked up bodies of the
victims who could not afford a funeral. Beyond Umfleet’s findings, oral accounts described 103
stories of gunshot wounds after the riot. Finally, in Leslie Hossfeld sociological study,
interviewees remembered the river filled with bodies. Although these sources existed, they did
not offer an exact number of deaths. Firm numbers were important for the sake of both clarity
and accountability in Wilmington. However, they would never be found.
100 Ibid., 440 101 Ibid.., 440 102 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 21 Minutes. 2 103 Ibid., 3
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Many scholars look at how seeking truth can be a form of reparations. Alfred Brophy
argues that repair can emerge through an intentional shift of collective memory. Intellectual
reparations through an investigation of the past, he claims, can change our nation’s memories. 104
Through a direct exploration of our national history, Brophy suggest we can change our
collective understanding of what we inherited and how it occurred. Margaret Urban Walker
suggests something similar. She argues that while truth-telling should by no means be the only
form of reparations, it can be suitable and substantial form of redress in some cases. She claims,
“Reparative truth telling addresses two intertwined harms that often befall victims: their
epistemic impeachment and their degradation from moral status as of a credibly self-accounting
actor.” Historical injustice often displaces narratives of injustice and allows epistemologies 105
that deny what occurred to persist. This act within itself neglects the humanity of victims and
their descendants. With the ability to undo this, truth telling, Walker argues, can offer reparations
within itself.
The Commission encountered a challenge in establishing the impact of the riot. Although
certain pieces of damage could be represented by numerical data, other aspects could not be
quantified. As they grappled with what to do with this struggle, the Commission decided that
their response would be to first investigate, then to acknowledge what they could and could not
achieve. Tensions within their work raise important questions: is redress possible without
definitive facts? Is investigation enough? Who was the Commission’s investigation for in the
first place? With answers to these questions at stake, the Commission handed over the official
104 Alfred L. Brophy, "What should Inheritance Law be? Reparations and Intergenerational Wealth Transfers," Law and Literature 20, no. 2 (2008), 197-211. doi:10.1525/lal.2008.20.2.197. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/lal.2008.20.2. 208 105 Walker, Margaret Urban. “How Can Truth Telling Count as Reparations?” Klaus Neumann and Janna Thompson, eds. Historical Justice and Memory. (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015) 139
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report to the General Assembly with the hope of widespread change. Once in the hands of the
General Assembly, however, this hope quickly shifted.
Chapter 3: Action & Accountability
Asked about the Commission’s impact, Irving Joyner leaned back in his chair, more
solemn than before. What was the change after the Commission? Was there any shift? “Not what
I had hoped for,” he claimed:
We go out with this big burst and you end with a whimper. We thought this would be a blockbuster for the state, and that the legislature would view what we came up with and feel some compassion, and need for the state to have some response on what had occurred and institute some actions that would help redevelop the Wilmington community at the end of the day, they got an official apology and that was it. 106
Irving Joyner’s lament illustrates a real gap between the intention and impact of the Commission.
The Wilmington Race Riot Commission hoped to offer more than just a narrative to descendants:
they sought economic redress, the rebuilding of black-owned spaces, and the construction of
memorials. They reached out to the Raleigh News & Observer, asking the newspaper to hold
themselves accountable for their role in the violence. Yet, despite their efforts to unearth
information, to collaborate with descendants, and to craft a narrative, the WRRC no longer
controlled the outcome after they handed their report over to the General Assembly.
Joyner’s discussion of impact points to the challenges of moving from telling truth to
creating transformation. The WRRC received a charge to unearth the history of the riot and to
106 Irving Joyner Interview, January 8th, 2019 17:53
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present recommendations. Implementing those recommendations, however, did not rest on their
shoulders. Like most attempts of redress, there was little control of statewide transformation of
the North Carolina community after the Commission presented its history and suggested action.
The Commission did get The News & Observer to accept its responsibility in the riot and to
communicate the new historical narrative about it, but they had no power over how the
newspaper special was received. The state legislature offered an apology and built a monument,
but they did not step up to acknowledge their role in the violence in the same way.
This chapter investigates the aftermath of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission by
examining the redress efforts undertaken by the North Carolina General Assembly and the
Raleigh News & Observer. Their relationships to the atrocity differ: in 1898, the General
Assembly responded with inaction. The News & Observer participated in the instigation of
violence through disseminating falsehoods about the nature of African Americans. After
finishing the investigation, the WRRC presented the Observer and the General Assembly with
possible opportunities to hold themselves accountable. Their responses offer insight into the
possibilities of repair as well as the limitations of the power of a Commission beyond
constructing a historical narrative.
On November 16th, 2006, the Raleigh News & Observer and Charlotte Observer
published a 16-page feature on the Wilmington Race Riot that discussed the critical role played
by the newspaper in instigating racialized violence. Written by Tim Tyson, the special edition
reiterated information offered in the Commission's final report. The eight sections mimicked the
Commission’s report chapters and mapped Wilmington’s trajectory from its success as a
metropolitan city to a port town with deeply ingrained racial disparities. As per recommendation
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from the NAACP and other Commission members, the Observer produced over a million copies
to be distributed in schools, universities, and community centers. Additionally, the newspaper 107
recruited Tim Tyson to write the piece. Tyson had just written Blood Done Sign My Name, a
book following a racialized murder and the processes of reconciliation and maintained deep
personal ties to Wilmington. Tyson’s recent fame and connection to Wilmington gave the
Commission a direct platform to uphold the new truths unearthed in a public manner. In
presenting this newly solidified history, the Observer piece thus offered a supplement to the
traditional public education and discourse which neglected the 1898 overthrow.
The feature held the newspaper accountable for the role that it played in facilitating the
events in 1898. In 1898, the newspaper had called for the punishment for black journalist
Alexander Manly, who publicly criticized white womanhood. This episode fueled the overthrow
of the Wilmington government and the destruction of the black-owned newspaper. Instead of
recognizing the overt attack on black residents of Wilmington, rumors circulated about
Alexander Manly. This aspect of the story circumscribed a contemporary understanding about
1898; black people deserved this violence because they challenged white dominance. 108
Challenging the impact of the News & Observer’s role, Tim Tyson identified and apologized for
the newspaper’s behavior: “A new social order was born in the blood and the flames, rooted in
what the News & Observer publisher Josephus Daniels, heralded as a ‘permanent good
government by the party of the White man.’” Daniels’ connection as perpetrator and editor 109
thus created a direct tie between the newspaper and the violence in 1898.
107 Irving Joyner interview, 37:15-41:00; North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 23 1-3; DeSantis, “Wilmington, NC Revists a Bloody Day in 1898 and Reflects.” 108 Leon Prather, We have Taken a City :Wilmington Racial Massacre and Coup of 1898. 48. 109 Tyson, “Ghosts of 1898” Raleigh News & Observer, 1
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The News & Observer held themselves accountable through an apology and reparations
in the form of providing additional information. When presented with the evidence of their
pivotal role in the overthrow, the Raleigh newspaper opened their doors as a source of
information. More evidence on their role in the 1898 riot sat in the archives of the 110
Daniels-family owned newspaper. Their newspaper continued to reflect on their role and offered
coverage on contemporary racialized violence after the 2006 special. 120 years after the riot in
2018, the Observer released an article interviewing David Cecelski, a history scholar on
Wilmington, about the connection between 1898 and 2016 through both Donald Trump and
Josephus Daniels’ uses of “fake news.” This case of redress offers insight into possibilities of 111
repair beyond an apology. Participating parties, like the News & Observer can assist in
unearthing a history as a form of redress.
The link between Josephus Daniels and the current editors allowed for a clear lineage of
accountability for the overthrow in 1898. Josephus Daniels owned the News & Observer in 1898
and facilitated the rumors surrounding Alexander Manly. In 1898, he celebrated his role and the
destructive activity in Wilmington, citing the new order established after the overthrow. The
newspaper remained in his family until 2006 when the family sold the Observer to a different
publisher, shortly after the Commission released its report. Like an inherited business, the debt
of accountability for the violence in 1898 can also be inherited. Recognizing this reality, the
News and Observer identified their fundamental role and ongoing silence since. First, the News
& Observer identified key actors in their feature. They focused on Josephus Daniels, Alexander
Manly, Furnifold Simmons, and Alfred Moore Waddell, all of whom served as central foci of the
110 Tyson, “Ghosts of 1898,” 16. 111 Christopher Gergin & Stephen Martin. Raleigh News & Observer. “Fake news played a critical role in our 1898 riots. And it still does.” May 4, 2018. https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article210455759.html
49
riot. Whereas Daniels, Simmons, and Waddell instigated much of the violence, Manly was the
target of rumor and conspiracy. Their identification of these players immediately sets up a
lineage of accountability, perpetration, and victimhood, starting with Josephus Daniels. This 112
perhaps reflects an identification of the described inherited debt of violence.
The issue of inherited guilt or accountability is tricky, especially as it is less tangible
than, say, inherited wealth. If we insist that we can inherit wealth that our forefathers cultivated,
we must also look into what allowed them to accumulate wealth. Whereas many may claim that
they should not be held responsible for what might have happened in the past, the existence of
inherited wealth raises the question: at whose expense is this accumulation? Who might have
suffered for someone to gain? An investigation of these questions, as mentioned in the last
chapter, offer a form of intellectual reparations, and the result may be economic reparations,
repairing both a narrative of loss as well as attempting to reduce economic disparity. As 113
framed by philosopher Richard Vernon, although present generations may not have enslaved
anyone or benefitted from racial violence, and guilt itself cannot be inherited, those in the present
might have benefitted from unjust enrichment. Unjust enrichment, a focus in legal scholarship, is
“not about what you have done, but about what you have.” Those who benefitted from unjust
systems still benefit today and may be obligated to give back. As the News & Observer 114
investigated its role in violence, it began to recognize their inherited responsibility to repair.
Although the News & Observer curated an organized execution to announce their
inherited responsibility in the riot, the Wilmington Race Riot Commission struggled with how to
112 Tyson, Ghosts of 1898. 2 113 Alfred L. Brophy, "What should Inheritance Law be? Reparations and Intergenerational Wealth Transfers," Law and Literature 20, no. 2 (2008), 197-211. doi:10.1525/lal.2008.20.2.197. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/lal.2008.20.2.197. 114 Vernon, Historical Redress :Must we Pay for the Past? 56-57.
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hold the General Assembly accountable. Possibilities ranged from a political march into the state
house to a series of workshops at universities across North Carolina. Each method of 115
presentation to the public emphasized the need for action and accountability from the General
Assembly. With more solidified evidence, a better sense of impact, and a list of
recommendations, the Commission sought to remedy the historical injustice that still affected
Wilmington after 1898.
The key findings from the Commission illuminated the role in which the state
government played in facilitating the riot. After many years of research the Wilmington Race
Riot Commission concluded that “racial violence of November 10, 1898, in Wilmington
precipitated an armed overthrow of the legitimately elected municipal government.” 116
Additionally, this was an effort that resulted out of a political campaign and facilitated by white
men who later took local office. Among the many social and economic consequences were the
exodus of 2,100 black residents, the “subsequent development of statutory basis for segregation
(i.e., Jim Crow) and disfranchisement legislation in North Carolina,” and a decline of business
and property ownership within the black community. There was clear evidence of an absence 117
of government intervention in the violence. This could have prompted a level of accountability
from the General Assembly.
Beyond the conclusions the Wilmington Race Riot Commission also presented
recommendations to the General Assembly. They split their requests into four categories:
empowerment, economic development, education, and commemoration. Each directed the
115 North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting 19, (Raleigh: 2000-2005). 1-3. 116 North Carolina General Assembly, 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report. 5 117 Ibid., 6.
51
General Assembly to take a larger form of action, but suggested broader versions of what they
may have envisioned. For example, the empowerment section suggested to create “a strategic
vision funded through an endowment,” to “support amendments of the federal Voting Rights
Act” in New Hanover County and to create a study of the impacts of enslavement and
Jim Crow. Language utilized in these recommendations was vague, so it did not specify what 118
it might look like to support, envision, or study the consequences of enslavement or Jim Crow.
An endowment similarly suggested economic packages with questionable and unclear intentions
for an endpoint. Although attempting to draw causation, the lack of plan for action suggested a
need for the General Assembly to dictate direction and an endpoint in redress efforts.
During their General Assembly meeting in 2007, Representative and Commission chair
Thomas E. Wright approached the North Carolina legislature with reparative legislation based on
the Commission’s report. He proposed a series of bills that encompassed the needs of the
Wilmington community. Some bills, such as HB 683, HB 636, and HB 823 focused on changing
education about the riot through curriculum changes, the creation of a museum exhibit, and a
section in the local library. Other bills sought to hold groups accountable. HB 637 requested civil
action for those who could be held accountable for the riot (although all were dead), and HB 751
had the General Assembly acknowledge the events and their impact. However, the General 119
Assembly only acted upon a few, such as the monument and acknowledgement.
The events in Wilmington marked a key instance in which the General Assembly
participated in and benefitted from racialized violence and offered an example for terror across
North Carolina. In 1898, both the statewide and federal democratic party turned a blind eye to
118 Ibid., 1-2. 119 North Carolina General Assembly, House Journal 2007. (Raleigh, 2007). 304-333
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the violence. Occurring all over the state, President McKinley among many other Democrats,
neglected punishment or intervention. In 1898, the News & Observer quelled the fears of white
men who planned to storm Wilmington: “Of course, the President has no power to send Federal
troops” unless the Governor told him to do so. Upon their government takeover on November 120
10th, McKinley did not send in troops, nor did he hold the perpetrators accountable. In light of
his inaction, white supremacists throughout the state got the message that they could get away
with similar violence. If the state was to take responsibility for Wilmington in 2007, the General
Assembly would also have to express a sense of remorse for the continual killing and
disenfranchisement of black people in the state. The white supremacy campaign in Wilmington
set an example of what could happen to successful Black towns throughout the state. White men
could violently displace Black people in the name of “white women’s protection,” invoking a
rhetorical pattern in white supremacy. White residents across North Carolina prevented black 121
people from voting through intimidation, displacement, and lynching. The Red Shirt Club, a
group with the intention of killing any black man who attempted to vote, took action. Black men
lost the right to vote and white progressives stepped back. Without intervention from the General
Assembly throughout the early 20th century, the continued debt remained. Thus, the legislature
faced responsibility for an event that lasted beyond a single day in Cape Fear.
Yet in the case of the state, lineage of accountability is not as clear as the News &
Observer. The Observer maintained a familial connection throughout the years, starting with
Josephus Daniels who facilitated the rumors against Alexander Manly. Although Irving Joyner
suggested that the Democratic party should be held accountable for the uprising, the party had
120 H. Leon Prather, We have Taken a City :Wilmington Racial Massacre and Coup of 1898. 85. 121 Timothy B. Tyson, Blood done Sign My Name :A True Story (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004), 160.
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fundamentally changed their membership and behavior since 1898. There was no single family
or single actor alive for the accountability of the General Assembly’s actions in 1898. It is hard
to pinpoint the inheritance of perpetratorship in the Democratic party from historical to
contemporary actors. As no one as alive to bear responsibility, a general gap emerged in
processes of historical justice. However, as philosopher William J. Booth argues, in institutions
like political parties, courts, and constitutional documents, shared memory can create a line of
continuity and accountability. He asserts that these bodies “serve as the institutionalized memory
of society...Political communities are a ‘dense web’ of such memory forms and it is precisely
that web which gives us our identity and hence our accountability across time.” Even though 122
parties have changed, there is still a clear institutional burden of responsibility through memory.
The current General Assembly might not have been the actual perpetrators in 1898, but they took
part in a web of complicity. There is a need, perhaps, to offer a broader interpretation of
responsibility beyond who was alive.
The official acknowledgement that appeared in Joint Resolution 1572 did not clearly take
responsibility for the events in 1898. The resolution began by noting that the history of the 1898
Wilmington Race Riot had remained obscured in public discourse until the work of the
Commission. It stated that “political leaders and others were directly responsible for and
participants in the violence of November 10, 1898, engineering and executing a statewide
campaign to win the 1900 elections that was vicious, polarizing, and defamatory toward
African-Americans and that encouraged violence,” which had impact beyond the single day in
1898. Finally, the General Assembly acknowledged the violence: “The General Assembly of
122 William James Booth, Communities of Memory :On Witness, Identity, and Justice (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), 247. 26.
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North Carolina acknowledges the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission's findings and
expresses profound regret that violence, intimidation, and force were used to replace a duly
elected local government, that people lost their livelihoods and were forced to leave their homes,
and that the government was unsuccessful in protecting its citizens during that time.” The
resolution expressed profound regret. Yet, the language used in this bill still failed to embrace
the state’s accountability. Similarly, an acknowledgement is by no means an apology. As such, 123
this acknowledgement, which passed unanimously, demonstrated the ambivalence toward full
accountability.
Although the General Assembly offered only an acknowledgement for the Wilmington
Race Riot, the General Assembly’s apology for enslavement took a more direct form of apology
and addressed the state’s critical role in upholding the system. We might assume that the
Commission’s report prompted this apology, given that both happened in the same session.
Rather than identifying Wilmington as an isolated event to apologize for, they investigated
slavery’s role in perpetuating violence in instances such as Wilmington. On April 11th, 2007, the
General Assembly released Joint Resolution 1557, and expressed “profound regret of the North
Carolina General Assembly for the history of wrongs inflicted upon Black citizens by means of
slavery, exploitation, and legalized racial segregation and calling on citizens to take part in acts
of racial reconciliation.” Although expressing remorse, the General Assembly employed vague 124
language and lacked specifics in their initial apology. What, for example, did exploitation and
segregation in North Carolina look like? How might citizens commit to racial reconciliation?
123 General Assembly of North Carolina. Joint Resolution 1572. 2007. 124 Ibid., 590
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Avoiding specifics, the General assembly offered a halfway understanding and apology for their
regret, providing a symbolic understanding of their role in this ongoing oppression.
The resolution had three sections which outlined a vague action plan for North
Carolinians seeking reconciliation. The General Assembly first issued an apology for their
complacency in slavery. The examples of their complacency ranged from laws preventing slaves
from reading and writing to segregation of schools. They urged schools, businesses, and
professional associations to “acknowledge the transgressions” and to “learn lessons of histories
in order to avoid repeating mistakes of the past.” Finally they called communities to invoke the
Declaration of Independence and live by the creed that “all persons are created equal.” This
evocation dismissed the racist context in which the Declaration of Independence (in which
slavery was active) and upheld a progressive guise. Although suggesting a collaboration between
the General Assembly and the North Carolina community, constituents were given loose
instructions to take action and reconcile, instead of any plans for tangible action, such as
reparations or changes school curriculum. It is striking, however, that a resolution that was
probably issued in response to the report and does not include an explicit mention of the
Wilmington Race Riot in the apology itself.
Although not including the Wilmington Race Riot in the within the body of the apology,
state representatives mentioned the 1898 event in varying degrees throughout their responses.
Some described it as “residue” of enslavement. They claimed that the Wilmington Race Riot was
just one among many acts of terror mentioned in this resolution. As Larry Womble’s, from a
black representative Winston Salem, stated to the General Assembly, “I hope we’ll truly be one
North Carolina because the residue of that slavery system still affects us today in a negative
56
way….An example is education. Our examples in health care, jobs, employment, housing, the
military, infant mortality, poverty, HBCU’s the judicial system, the death penalty, the
Wilmington race riots.” On the other hand, James Luebke, a white state representative from 125
Durham County, pointed to the event more directly. He told the story of his experiences teaching
a black history course and noted North Carolina’s racist trajectory. He pointed to it as one of
many examples of history of racial violence in North Carolina, such as segregation and redlining:
And I won't read from this either because we, each of us, has one in our offices, but the 1898 report that Representative Wright worked on. Just read what happened in the 1900 election, just read it. The number of African-Americans - the number of people voting in Wilmington dropped from 5,000 before the insurrection in the 1896 election before the insurrection of 1898 by the so-called red shirts, which included, unfortunately among their supporters, one Charles Aycock, soon to be Governor Charles Aycock... I've seen some improvements, but I've seen an awful lot of things not improved. 126
For both Luebke and Womble, Wilmington fit into a broader pattern of racial violence but had
varying significance. Although the apology itself did not include the Commission’s work, the
report had some impact on the way that state representatives understood North Carolina’s
relationship to racism throughout history.
Throughout history, public apologies have varied in quality. A public apology differs
from an individualized apology, given that it usually engages groups of people rather than a
person-to-person relationship. For instance, when the Japanese ambassador came to the United
States to apologize to the prisoners of war during World War II, he did not specify who the
apology was to, or even what he was apologizing for. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, 127
various state governments throughout the United States apologized for their role in enslavement.
125 Ibid., 590. 126 Ibid., 608 127 National Public Radio, “The Apology Broker” June 13, 2018 https://www.npr.org/2018/06/12/619207707/the-apology-broker 11:23-15:00
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Angelique Davis analyzes these apologies and comes to determine that, “at a most fundamental
level, whether or not a statement functions as an apology is contingent upon whether or not it
actually apologizes.” Most of these apologies minimized the legacy of slavery. State 128
governments did not explicitly describe wealth gaps or health disparities that existed in the black
community. Specificity, for both the cases of the Japanese prisoners of war and the the American
state governments, took a central role in the efficacy of public apologies.
There are varying perspectives on the importance and purpose of an official apology.
Meaningful apology, according to Janna Thompson, requires that perpetrators do three things:
they acknowledge that they have committed a wrongful act and take responsibility; they
communicate remorse; and they agree to avoid similar transgressions in the future. Audience,
presentation, and response all shape the efficacy of an official apology; if the perpetrator does
not keep the audience in mind, the apology fails. Thompson discusses the efficacy of the apology
to the Aboriginal people in Australia, looking specifically at how it was presented and its larger
impact in facilitating historical justice. No matter how strong or powerful the speech may be,
there sometimes might be a disconnect between the person who is giving the apology and the
party they represent. It is hard to guarantee regret from an entire group of people. 129
Eleanor Bright Fleming underscores the significance of apologies for slavery as a way to
offer dignity to an entire community. Reparations, according to Fleming, may offer some remedy
for social debt, but alone do not make up for the woes of the past. She suggests that an apology 130
128 Davis, "Apologies, Reparations, and the Continuing Legacy of the European Slave Trade in the United States," 275 129 Janna Thompson, “Apology, Justice, and Respect: A Critical Defense of a Political Apology.” in Mark Gibney eds., The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 32-34. 130 Eleanor Bright Flemming, “When Sorry is Enough: The Possibility of a National Apology for Slavery.” in Mark Gibney eds, The Age of Apology :Facing Up to the Past, 98
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can offer something much larger, but less tangible, than reparations: dignity. She asserts, “With
one party saying to another, ‘I am sorry,’ an apology brings a sense of humanity and respect to a
situation where both had been violated.” If Americans acknowledged slavery’s denial of black 131
people’s humanity, an apology could fill that void with an emphasis on respect and collective
responsibility. Although attempting this in their apology, the General Assembly did not identify
perpetrators and wrongdoers in their claim. The intended respect that comes with an apology
does not exist without a clear understanding of who enacted the violence.
There are many critiques of apology that warn of their ability to be superficial, politically
motivated, or meaningless. Many questions emerge when using apology as a form of historical
redress: what do we do if the political group is no longer alive? How can a state be collectively
remorseful for the actions of their entire population? In light of this problem, we can turn to the
possibility of “transgenerational polities,” which guarantee a continuum of the state’s policies
throughout generations. One must accept what their party, nation, or leader enacted throughout 132
the generations. The Democratic party did not provide an apology that acknowledged an ongoing
responsibility for their forefathers, even though they held an obligation to hold themselves
accountable. The apology merely identified past injustice without interrogating contemporary
legacies.
Another key problem with public apology can be the lack of action after an apology is
issued. Stating one’s regret without action, has good intentions, but does not really repair for any
past injustice. Robert Weyeneth argues that apologies are nothing if they substitute action. He
131 Ibid., 100 132 Thompson, 21
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deems economic reparations the most significant action that could emerge from reparations. 133
Throughout many cases of apologies for Jim Crow violence, political officials have called
constituents to action and work toward racial injustice. In North Carolina, the action that
accompanied apology was learning about racial injustice and acting in line with a national creed
that “all men are created equal.” Although a form of action, its broad form might have weakened
the statewide apology through the standards set by Weyeneth.
In many ways, the General Assembly apologized without action. Representative Alma
Adams, a progressive state representative from Greensboro, pushed the group to do more than
just apologize: “the lives we lead and the action that we take about matters, whether they are
related to the budget or public policy, those actions and those policies that we make on behalf of
people in North Carolina, should be consistent with the sentiment of this resolution.” 134
Unfortunately for Adams, the following legislation was not consistent with the apology nor the
recommendations of the General Assembly. After 2007, the state legislature passed laws
upholding voter IDs, a failed to fund healthcare, and cut funds for historically black universities.
Outside of racial politics, North Carolina reaffirmed deeply conservative policies around gender
and sexuality, further marking their lack of progressivism and distance from the sentiment that
“all men are created equal.” Instead of embarking on a new chapter of challenging the status quo,
the General Assembly solidified their commitment to conservative politics.
North Carolina’s failure to move beyond an apology reflects a pattern throughout its
history. William Chafe describes this trend as the “progressive mystique.” Countering V.O.
Key’s argument that North Carolina held a more progressive political stance than the rest of the
133 Robert R. Weyeneth, "The Power of Apology and the Process of Historical Reconciliation," The Public Historian 23, no. 3 (2001) http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/tph.2001.23.3.9. 29. 134 House Journal 2007. 599
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South, Chafe pushes back. He argues that instead of actual racial progressivism, North Carolina
presented a progressive mystique, where citizens and political leaders focused on maintaining a
sense of civility which meant to constrain both outspoken critics of racism and racists
themselves, rather than actually confronting either side. Politicians met protesters from the
Greensboro sit-ins with intention to quell their demands; fervent racists were similarly silenced.
Without these public outbreaks, there North Carolina did not appear as overtly racist as other
places in the South. Yet North Carolina maintained deep rooted racism and paternalism toward
its Black population. 135
The lack of action after the Commission fits Chafe’s model. Upon being presented with
information about the realities of violence, displacement, and disempowerment in 1898, the
General Assembly only took some forms of action. Although they were offered
recommendations, they ignored the lasting impact of the massacre on the Black community.
Their response to the report reflected a liminal space between action and stagnation, much like
the progressive mystique presented by Chafe. An apology, although planting seeds for
accountability and perhaps offering some measure of dignity, did not disrupt the ongoing
patterns of white violence in North Carolina. In neglecting the possibility of grander gestures, the
General Assembly upheld the white supremacy that allowed for Wilmington’s overthrow.
The actions taken by the North Carolina General Assembly provide a stark contrast to the
efforts of the News & Observer. The legislature, with ample information about their role in 1898,
faced a choice. It could internalize and incorporate the information into future legislation or
acknowledge the information and move on without any meaningful change. Although the
135 William Henry Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights :Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 436. 1-15
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legislature passed laws to create a monument, shift the public school curriculum, and fund a
museum, few actions beyond these moved forward in the General Assembly. This may suggest
that the General Assembly might have been more comfortable with education and
commemoration rather than larger shifts, such as reparations or policy changes. Whereas the
News & Observer offered a multifaceted response to accountability, the General Assembly took
broad steps to acknowledge their role in the racial violence. The differences between the two
cases point to a limitation in making redress happen. Although a new truth or history may
emerge in the process of historical redress, an additional step remains. Next steps might require
disruptions in power beyond relations and politics.
Much like the broad nature of the acknowledgement and apology, the monument funded
by the General Assembly and took a vague stance on the violence in 1898. In the Commission’s
recommendations for commemoration, they asked for plaques, monuments, and markers
identifying the key participants and places in the Wilmington Race Riot. This recommendation 136
reflected an early charge of the Commission, as members hoped that the information unearthed
would provide materials for proper commemoration. In response to this recommendation, 137
Wilmington erected a monument and placard that presented some information given by the
Commission. However, given that incomplete evidence existed, and much rested on
hypotheticals, the numbers and terms used on the monument are vague. Although presenting a
somewhat broad interpretation of the history, the monument disrupted a space dominated by a
white history.
136 Wilmington Race Riot Commission. 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report . (Raleigh: 2005), 5-9. 137 North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Wilmington Race Riot Commission Meeting # 4 (Raleigh: 2000-2005). 2-3.
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Two years after the release of the Commission’s report, Ayokunle Odeleye, a designer
and sculptor from Georgia created the large structure reflecting Wilmington’s history. His
sculptures portray important pieces of African American history, be it through large scale busts
or through more symbolic interpretations. Educated at Howard University, he works to disrupt
public spaces by making narratives of the black struggle more present. The monument in
Wilmington presents six paddles, representing the role of water in “spiritual belief of people
from the African continent.” The plaque in front tells the story of the riot and describes white 138
supremacy’s deep ties to the protection of white women. It held Alfred Waddell and his cohort
accountable. The monument, according to the inscription, “Serves as a symbol of Wilmington’s
commitment to an inclusive society, a tribute to all who over the years have struggled to reverse
the tragic consequences of the 1898 racial violence and a memorial to those African Americans
who were killed in the violence.” Another panel explicitly describes the importance of water “as
a medium of moving from one medium to the next.” There is an obvious tension between what 139
appears in the structure and the text below. For instance, in no way does the monument portray
any violence, nor does it connote connection to Wilmington in general. It raises questions such
as, how strong are the ties between Africa and Wilmington, both in 1898 and today? Did black
residents of Wilmington share this value of water? Dell Upton, architectural historian, has
criticized the structure on the grounds that there is a disconnect between the events in 1898 and
the monument. By zooming in on African traditions, Upton argues, Ayokunle diminished the
events and ignored the direct attack on African American political power. While the monument
138 Commemorative Landscapes. “African American Monuments” University of North Carolina Documenting the South. Chapel Hill, North Carolina https://docsouth.unc.edu/commland/features/essays/upton/ 139 Ibid.
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and park provided a space for descendants to commemorate, it only represented the riot in its
text. 140
The Wilmington Race Riot Memorial in Wilmington, North Carolina. 141
The Race Riot monument, moreover, sits among many other monuments dedicated to the
Confederacy. When visiting Wilmington, one will immediately notice the prevalence of
monuments dedicated to Confederate generals and soldiers. In Wilmington, there are 25
monuments dedicated to various events and people such as World War II veterans and the
founding of the city. 11 of the 25 of these markers are dedicated to Confederate heroes and
figures who governed Wilmington after the riot. Irving Joyner spoke directly to the importance 142
of monuments and markers in the ongoing legacy of white supremacy in Wilmington. Many of
these markers are dedicated to the people who spearheaded the overthrow and then took local
office. Despite the work of the Commission, perpetrators such as Alfred Waddell, Furnifold
140 Ibid. 141 Ibid. 142 Commemorative Landscapes. Monument Archive. University of North Carolina Documenting the South. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. https://docsouth.unc.edu/commland/results/?sort=type&city=41
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Simmons, and Hugh Macrae’s legacies remain preserved in parks, memorials, and street names
throughout the city. Irving Joyner reiterated this point: “Hugh Macrae didn’t mean anything at
the time, but then I find out that he is on the committee of nine….and you find these names,
popped up, all over the place.” Even after the Wilmington Race Riot Commission and the 143
creation of the monument, few challenge the history of white supremacy in Wilmington, even
today.
What’s so important about monuments in this contemporary political context? Legal
scholar Stanford Levinson grapples with this question in his work, Written in Stone: Public
Monuments in Changing Societies. Public monuments are ways in which public officials convey
desired political lessons. They can establish a history in one complex symbol. For the South, in
many ways, these monuments represent a glorified history of the Confederacy. However, when
these desired political lessons are entangled in the history of enslavement or racism, their
contemporary relevance seems outdated or even offensive. Amidst monuments’ importance, it is
important to take the varying responses of these symbols into account. Levinson acknowledges
that,
...it is naive in the extreme to believe that we can achieve any genuine consensus as to their place in the public realm. That would require the existence of a singular public, whereas the reality of our society is its composition by various publics who are constituted at least in part by their relationship to conflicting symbologies. And, needless to say, all of these publics seek the particular validation that comes from their symbols occupying some place of respect within the general public realm.
Thus, although monuments can represent an important history for one group, it may represent an
offensive or problematic history to another. This raises many questions: do we build new
monuments that coexist with the old? Do we tear down the old ones to signify a new political
143 Irving Joyner, 10:20
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chapter? Levinson proposes many alternatives, almost all of which include erecting new
monuments or plaques alongside the complex figures. Thus, communities can acknowledge the
previous history while also affirming a new, perhaps more nuanced perspective. 144
Scholars reiterate the significance of monuments in creating a specific version of
Southern history. After Reconstruction, members of the confederacy told a narrative that
neglected slavery’s role in causing the war. Instead, the Southern narrative turns the story of the
loss into a war epic. The cause of the war was not about slavery, but about honor, bravery, and
the protection of civilization. Generals, soldiers, and other forms of leadership emerged as key
representations of what the South used to be. The redemption movement after Reconstruction’s
demise reaffirmed this rhetoric. Various cultural groups, such as Daughters of the 145
Confederacy, erected monuments that would portray these figures as protectors of civilized
society.
Members of the black community had different responses to the work of the Commission,
General Assembly, and the monuments that emerged later on. After the release of the report and
recommendations, Reverend Dr. William Barber responded, “what about policy?” John Hope 146
Franklin followed a similar vein of thinking. He asserted that, “How large is the black population
now living in abject poverty in this country? How large is the population of blacks who have
poor health...Why don't they work on that instead of trying to draft a syrupy apology?” However,
he acknowledged the need for more groups like the Commission: “we need more reports like the
report of this commission. I think if we had those reports we would overcome the deficiencies, at
144 Sanford Levinson, Written in Stone:Public Monuments in Changing Societies (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 144. 145 W. Fitzhugh Brundage, The Southern Past :A Clash of Race and Memory (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), 418. 146 Jim Nesbitt. “Dems Apologize for Role in Riot” Jacksonville Daily News. January 21, 2007.
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least of the side of history, of what happened and understanding the trends.” Some members of 147
the local community expressed excitement for the Commission’s report and how it might reflect
the narratives they provided. According to the Kinston Free Press, a local newspaper,
Wilmington Resident Franklin Ford stated that, “he is curious to learn more about the event and
has attended many of the commission’s meetings.” These mixed reviews reflected the 148
complicated implications of the Commission, as being both symbolically powerful but limited in
action.
The Wilmington Race Riot Commission’s limitations highlight the need for redress
efforts beyond a single reconciliatory body, such as in collaboration with community members or
the state government. The characters at play encountered the “whimper” described by Joyner: a
lack of information to substantiate reparations; an absence of active accountability from the
legislature; an ambivalence from the White community to grapple with their own role in
undermining the success of black residents of Wilmington. Putting these sources in conversation
with scholarship on commissions, monuments, and accountability, the results of the Wilmington
Race Riot Commission can be identified as a larger phenomenon in historical redress efforts.
North Carolina offers us an important insight into the important tensions that exist in
commission-based redress. This liminal space between action and stagnation exists well beyond
North Carolina.
147 Olufunke Moses, “Apologies are Not Enough.” Indy Week. April 18, 2007. https://indyweek.com/news/john-hope-franklin-apologies-enough/ 148“Draft Report from Race Riot, due in Dec.” Kinston Free Press. October 10, 2005.
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Conclusion
A year after the Commission released its report, Indy Weekly, a progressive
Durham-based newspaper, interviewed John Hope Franklin about the Wilmington Race Riot. He
discussed the impetus to remember and forget, and how the General Assembly could go beyond
just an apology. Franklin had participated in the Tulsa Commission and the Wilmington Race
Riot Commission. He had attended Duke University and maintained firm ties with North
Carolina through his work with the state chapter of the NAACP. When asked about the
possibility about a national amnesia about Wilmington Race Riot, Franklin responded:
They've not been forgotten about. They've been buried. There are people, even when I go back to Tulsa, who claim they hadn't heard of the riots until they were grown. And maybe that's so, but the conspiracy of silence has been what has kept the history of this country distorted and misrepresented. So I'm not impressed with the fact that they haven't heard of it or don't know about it. They haven't heard of it or don't know about it simply because there's been a conspiracy of forgetfulness. There's been no intention to remind them of it and no desire on the part of people to learn about what happened in the past. 149
The riot, according to Franklin, had not been forgotten, but had been silenced. It was up to the
people who lived in the state to engage in the larger history. The “conspiracy of silence” was
what allowed an ignorance in the first place.
Many years after the report’s release, the Commission’s impact still lingers through shifts
in public education, newly erected monuments, and newfound contemporary significance. Public
education in North Carolina now includes a detailed account of the Wilmington Race Riot in its
149 Olufunke Moses, “Apologies Are Not Enough.”
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American History II curriculum. It is situated in a larger context of conflict since Reconstruction
and fits within a continuum of race, class, and gender struggles. In 2018, the Highway Historical
Marker Committee erected a plaque at a busy intersection in Wilmington that reminded residents
and visitors alike about the violence 120 years ago. In 2017 and 2018, national and state
newspapers found contemporary relevance for the race riot. In May 2018, the Raleigh News &
Observer released an article claiming Donald Trump, much like the leaders of the 1898 Riot,
galvanized a demographic of white constituents through “fake news.” Donald Trump and 150
Alfred Waddell alike relied on rumors rooted in very little reality to solidify their election. In
February 2018, the Washington Post reported that Donald Trump had speculated that he might
be the target of a political coup d’etat. When Sean Hannity rejected Trump’s claim and stated,
“we are not a banana republic,” Irving Joyner, a chair of the Commission criticized Hannity’s
suggestions “that coups are characteristic of far-off regions of the world.” 151
The Wilmington Race Riot Commission attempted to disrupt the conspiracy of silence
discussed by Franklin. Through a close examination of archival documents, oral testimonies,
newspaper articles, and alternative accounts, the Commission wrote an official history of the
Wilmington Race Riot that documented the violence that had been committed against the black
community. Prior to the Commission, the public narrative about the riot did not take white
violence into account. Much like what Franklin discussed, a story of glory reaffirmed a collective
amnesia about what occurred in 1898, not just within the white community, but also within black
150 Christopher Gergin & Stephen Martin “Fake news played a critical role in our 1898 riots. And it still does.” 151 Isaac Stanley-Becker. “Trump keeps warning of a coup. But the only one in American history was a bloody, racist uprising” The Washington Post. February 20 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/02/20/trump-is-warning-coup-us-history-provides-single-example-power-grab-by-white-supremacists/?utm_term=.73db26a9c752
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communities traumatized by the event. By creating an official narrative of the violence, the
Commission disrupted ongoing processes of erasing a more complex narrative.
However, the Commission’s work only marked the beginning of an what many believe
should be an ongoing process of redress. John Hope Franklin praised the Commission but asked
for more: “I think the recommendations are commendable...I can only hope that they do almost
as much as they propose to do.” The Commission presented the recommendations to the 152
General Assembly with mixed results. Although the state legislature apologized for the violence
and constructed a monument to honor the riot’s victims, it did not complete many of the other
goals the Commission outlined, such as addressing disenfranchisement, redlining, and economic
disparities. Apologies and monuments can play a critical role in shaping narratives, though. Both
of these tools can serve as critical parts to addressing histories of violence. But an apology alone
isn’t enough. William Barber stated this succinctly after the initial apology from the General
Assembly: “What we must have is not only an apology, but public policy that redresses these
wrongs.” 153
Barber’s claim points to a real tension in using commission as a form of redress.
Apologies and monuments are necessary in continuing the work that the Commission did:
changing the narrative and making sure that public understandings do not erase the violence that
occurred in 1898. However, how do these efforts move beyond symbolism? How can an apology
undo the endemic racism that persists throughout legislation and social attitudes? In neglecting
these questions, the Wilmington Race Riot Commission risked being only a symbolic form of
redress.
152 Olufunke Moses, “Apologies Are Not Enough” 153 “Residents to Talk About 1898 Race Riots, Deaths.”
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Brophy highlights this as a major limitation in commissions as a form of redress. In his
discussion of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, he argues that commissions are only the
beginning of a lengthy process of redress. He states that commissions, like that of Wilmington
and Tulsa, can “expand our historical knowledge; the rest of the discussion and action is up to
us.” The Wilmington Race Riot Commission offers important nuance to Brophy’s assertion. 154
“Up to us,” does not establish the group that is involved in these processes. Is it the descendants?
The perpetrators? Those who do not know about the atrocity? All residents of Wilmington?
Moreover, the action embedded in his call to action remains vague. What might the action look
like? How can it last beyond the moments after the commission? How might we facilitate
personal or statewide transformation? The lack of answers to these questions ultimately
illuminate a larger difficulty in redress processes, and political processes in general: they rely on
so many people.
Even so, historical justice today is playing a critical role in shaping contemporary politics
throughout the 2020 presidential election. Candidates such as Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker,
and Kamala Harris have put reparations for enslavement on the table, asserting that we must
come to terms with our nation’s dark past. Booker, in his position as Senator, proposed a bill 155
that would establish a commission to investigate the impacts of enslavement on black
communities in the United States. This commission, he asserted, will establish “an official
record” of what happened during enslavement. From there, Congress can assess the possibility 156
154Alfred Brophy “The Tulsa Race Riot Commission, Apology, and Reparation: Understanding the Functions and Limitations of a Historical Truth Commission” in Barkan, Elazar and Alexander Karn, eds. Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2006. 250. 155 James Hohman. “Will supporting reparations become a new litmus test for Democrats in 2020?” Washington Post. February 22, 2019. 156 Rebecca Buck, “Cory Booker to introduce reparations commission bill in the Senate.” CNN. April 8, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/08/politics/cory-booker-reparations-senate-bill/index.html
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and efficacy of reparations. Booker’s mission might follow a similar trajectory to the
Wilmington Race Riot Commission: group formation, investigation, presentation of facts, and
then perhaps action. In both of these cases, however, a key question remains unanswered: Will
offering reparations change national attitudes? Will these conversations facilitate the discussion
and action described by Brophy?
Before establishing whether or not the Commission can be labeled as a success, it's
important to define success in historical redress efforts. In Germany after the Holocaust, public
life underwent dramatic changes. The government erected monuments, rewrote elementary
education, held trials, and punished perpetrators. However, anti-semitism still lingers in
Germany today. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission engaged in
processes-driven historical redress. They offered a space for victims to share their stories and for
perpetrators to acknowledge their role in the injustices of Apartheid. Some still question whether
or not the TRC changed public attitudes about racism, given the contemporary uproar on South
African college campuses around issues of racialized violence. Globally, historical redress
efforts may be completed, but the ability for redress-driven groups to create personal salience for
stakeholders remains uncertain. Thus, assessing success remains difficult given questions of
audience and end goal.
Scholars and communities alike struggle to explain what makes a historical redress effort
successful. Activist groups, communities, and politicians alike mark reparations as the be all end
all of historical redress as it offers both symbolic and monetary forms of justice. However, even
reparations raise some issues given their one-off nature and inability to influence individual
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attitudes. Much like reparations, tribunals, commissions, monuments and apologies all have the
ability to only be symbolic. What if, we frame these approaches to historical redress as
beginnings rather than endpoints?
Although the General Assembly offered a limited response to lengthy and broad
recommendations, the Wilmington Race Riot Commission’s attempt at historical justice was also
the beginning of a larger conversation. Perhaps it sparked smaller change, like the creation of a
monument, but it might have later influenced a national conversation about historical justice,
racial violence, and a national history embedded in violence. When we understand modes of
historical justice as an impetus for the action described by Brophy, success is not about what
these mechanisms might solve, but the conversations they start.
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