"Yours, in much distress." These are the sign-off words from a pleading letter for help to President McKinley by an anonymous Black woman living in Wilmington, North Carolina. They were written in 1898, shortly after the Wilmington Massacre, when a group of white supremacists overtook the state government in a coup, destroying Black businesses and murdering an unknown number of Black residents.
In the PBS documentary, American Coup: Wilmington 1898, scholars and distant relatives gather across historical locations in Wilmington to discuss and reconcile the little-known story of the only successful coup d’état in the history of the US. It is, unfortunately, yet another important historical event that has been purposefully left out of our history books. Many of us only first heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre when it marked its 100th anniversary. The American Coup documentary was released in November of 2024, over 125 years after the fact. Detailed information about Wilmington was only brought to the surface after family members and historians began their own investigations into the event.
Prior to the coup, Wilmington was a thriving hub of commerce for Black and White business owners alike. Its port served as a major hub for international travel and trade, and Black entrepreneurs took advantage of their newfound freedom to create better lives for themselves and their families. Alexander and Frank Manly owned, published, and edited The Daily Record, a Black newspaper whose readership reached across the state. Isham Quick was a successful Black bank owner and trustee with at least $2 million in holdings. Frederick Sadgwar was a renowned builder and artisan contracted by the federal government.
North Carolina was also one of the few states in the country to have both Black and White elected officials, as part of the Fusion Party, a combination of Populist and Republican party members who were disillusioned by the Democratic party's policies. They plotted together to gain representation in Congress, and by 1896, the Democratic Party was out of power with only twenty-six members in the House and seven in the Senate.
During the Populist-Republican Fusion majority, there were approximately 1,000 elected or appointed Black officials, including Congressman George H. White (1852–1918). Even though Black North Carolinians made up more than 50% of the population, this number meant they were still underrepresented. However, any presence at all, no matter how minute in the scheme of things, angered Democratic white supremacists. They didn't appreciate having to share business and power with Black Americans. In order to take revenge, they built a campaign on white supremacy, spreading false stories of crime and violence and stoking fear in the white community. Their campaign, as they painstakingly planned it to be, was a winning one.
Before the coup of 1898, 126,000 Black men were registered to vote in North Carolina. After the coup, just over 6,000 Black voters remained. There would not be another Black person in Congress after George Henry White until 1992. The repercussions of the Wilmington Massacre reverberated for decades, demolishing Black legacies in the city, tearing apart families with a mass exodus from the city, and preventing new legacies from being gained not only in North Carolina but across the country due to massive voter disenfranchisement, including a Grandfather Clause stating that men could only vote if their grandfather had been able to vote prior to 1867, essentially eliminating the Black vote and allowing White men who couldn't pay their poll taxes or pass literacy tests the right to vote in their place. The lack of response from government officials across the country only emboldened the white supremacy movement, and no real leaps in advancement would come about until the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement.
In 2025, this story reeks of familiarity. We are in distress—witnessing brazen attempts to once again whitewash and erase stories of Black and marginalized Americans, of the lives they lead and have led. Legacies are being erased in real-time through book banning, executive orders, mass layoffs, and more. American Coup is a reminder of what can happen, has happened, and is happening when white supremacy is allowed to flourish. And it is a study on what we can do to not only combat it but to put in to heal from it.
You can watch American Coup: Wilmington 1898 for free on PBS here. And while you're there, consider donating to support independent media, which is more important than ever.
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