In 1894 a fusion of Populists and Republicans ousted the Democrats from power in North Carolina. Increasing political activity among Negroes was a major source of Republican strength. In 1896 Republican Daniel Russell was elected Governor. Blacks began to receive some federal and state patronage: one was made Collector of Customs in Wilmington, some were made postmasters, others justices of the peace, school committeemen, and aldermen. In 1897, five were elected to the 165-member North Carolina House of Representatives.
In the campaign of 1898 the Democrats used quantities of inflammatory propaganda against “Negro domination.” A vigilante group, the Red Shirts, which was organized that October, intimidated and killed blacks and threatened more violence on election day. Alfred M. Waddell, a noted Democrat, told whites: “Go to the polls tomorrow and if you find the negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls and if he refuses, kill him, shoot him down in his tracks. We shall win tomorrow if we have to do it with guns.” On November 8, the Democrats won a decisive victory.
Two days later, on November 10, white citizens of Wilmington initiated a riot, first burning down the office of a Negro newspaper, then launching a general massacre of blacks. Estimates of the number killed range widely from 20 to over 100. The whites then deposed the Mayor, forced all Negro officials to resign, expelled all black political leaders, and instituted a new government at gun point. The state Assembly, now controlled by Democrats, completed the process of depriving Negroes of political power by such devises as a poll tax and a grandfather clause. The following reminiscence by Gunner Jessie Blake, a participant in the riot, affords an insight into the mentality of the white mobs. His account was recorded by a sympathetic listener, Harry Hayden, in The Wilmington Rebellion (1936), 1–21. See also Helen G. Edmonds: The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina, 1894–1901 (1951).
Smoke was curling languidly from the old pipe Gunner Jessie Blake puffed upon as he reclined in an easy chair in the dimly lit drawing room of his mansion amid the pines, “Woodley-on-the-Sound,” where the aged Confederate veteran, survivor of both bombardments of nearby Fort Fisher in the North-South war, was entertaining two young veterans of the late World War.…
“You boys were too young to remember much about the Wilmington Rebellion, November 10, 1898,” began Mr. Blake, an unreconstructed Rebel who to this day holds that the South fought for Independence, not Slavery, and who continues to use the ante- and post-bellum by-word, damnedyank, as a single word without even dignifying the appellation with a capital “D.”
“So, I am going to give you the inside story of this insurrection,” he proceeded, “wherein the white people of Wilmington overthrew the constituted municipal authority overnight and substituted a reform rule, doing all this legally and with some needless bloodshed, to be sure, but at the same time they eliminated the Negroes from the political life of the city and the state. This Rebellion was the very beginning of Negro disfranchisement in the South and an important step in the establishment of ‘White Supremacy’ in the Southland.…
“The Rebellion was an organized resistance,” Mr. Blake said, “on the part of the white citizens of this community to the established government, which had long irked them because it was dominated by ‘Carpet Baggers’ and Negroes, and also because the better element here wished to establish ‘White Supremacy’ in the city, the state and throughout the South, and thereby remove the then stupid and ignorant Negroes from their numerically dominating position in the government.…
“The older generation of Southern born men were at their wits’ end. They had passed through the rigors of the North-South war and through the tyrannies of Reconstruction when Confiscation (the latter the most hated word in the conquered Confederacy next to damnedyankee) of properties without due process of law, was the rule rather than the exception. They had seen ‘Forty Acres and a Mule’ buy many a Negro’s vote.
“Black rapists were attacking Southern girls and women, those pure and lovely creatures who graced the homes in Dixie Land, and the brutes were committing this dastardly crime with more frequency while the majority of them were escaping punishment through the influence of the powers that be.
“These old Southern gentlemen had calculated that time and time only would remove the terrors of Reconstruction, a condition that was imposed upon the conquered Southerners by the victorious Northerners, but they were not willing to sit supinely by and see their girls and women assaulted by beastly brutes.
“The better element among the Northerners in the North could not want them and their little friends to grow up amid such conditions.…
“ ‘I do not want Southern girls growing into womanhood in fear of the Negro rapist.’ ”
“A group of nine citizens met at the home of Mr. Hugh MacRae and there decided that the attitude and actions of the Negroes made it necessary for them to take some steps towards protecting their families and homes in their immediate neighborhood, Seventh and Market Streets.…
“This group of citizens, who will hereafter be referred to as the ‘Secret Nine,’ divided the city into sections, placing a responsible citizen as captain in charge of each area, and they named Messrs. Lathrop and Manning as their contact men, who were the only ones of the ‘Secret Nine’ known to the divisional captains.…
“The better element planned to gain relief from Negro impudence and domination, from grafting and from immoral conditions; the ‘Secret Nine’ and the white leaders marked time, hoping something would happen to arouse the citizenry to concerted action.
“But the ‘watch-and-wait policy’ of the ‘Secret Nine’ did not obtain for long, as during the latter part of October (1898) there appeared in the columns of The Wilmington (Negro) Daily Record an editorial, written by the Negro editor, Alex Manly, which aroused a state-wide revulsion to the city and state administrations then in the hands of the Republicans and Fusionists. The editorial attempted to justify the Negro rape fiends at the expense of the virtue of Southern womanhood.”
Mr. Blake walked over to the library table, stooped and picked up an old scrap book that was reposing on the table’s shelf, and then he read the following obnoxious editorial from The Wilmington Record:
Poor whites are careless in the matter of protecting their women, especially on the farm. They are careless of their conduct towards them, and our experience among the poor white people in the county teaches us that women of that race are not more particular in the matter of clandestine meetings with colored men, than are the white man and colored women.
Meetings of this kind go on for some time until the woman’s infatuation, or the man’s boldness, bring attention to them, and the man is lynched for rape.
Every Negro lynched is called a “big, burly, black brute,” when in fact, many of those who have been thus dealt with had white men for their fathers, and were not only not “black” and “burly,” but were sufficiently attractive for white girls of culture and refinement to fall in love with them, as is very well known to all.
“That editorial,” Mr. Blake declared with some vehemence as he banged the closed scrap book with his fist, “is the straw that broke Mister Nigger’s political back in the Southland.” …
“Excitement reigned supreme on election day and the day following,” Mr. Blake said, adding that “the tension between the races was at the breaking point, as two Pinkerton detectives, Negroes, had reported to their white employers that the Negro women, servants in the homes of white citizens, had agreed to set fire to the dwellings of their employers, and the Negro men had openly threatened to ‘burn the town down’ if the ‘White Supremacy’ issue was carried in the political contest. The very atmosphere was surcharged with tinder, and only a spark, a misstep by individuals of either race, was needed to set the whites and the blacks at each other’s throats.
“When Mr. Hugh MacRae was sitting on his porch on Market Street on the afternoon of the election, he saw a band of ‘Red Shirts,’ fifty in number, with blood in their eyes, mounted upon fiery and well caparisoned steeds and led by Mike Dowling, an Irishman, who had organized this band of vigilantes. The hot headed ‘Red Shirts’ paused in front of Mr. MacRae’s home and the level headed Scotsman walked toward the group to learn what was amiss.
“Dowling told Mr. MacRae that they were headed for ‘The Record’ building to lynch Editor Manly and burn the structure. Mr. MacRae pleaded with Dowling and his ‘Red Shirts’ to desist in their plans. Messrs. MacRae, Dowling and other leaders of the ‘Red Shirts’ repaired across the street to Sasser’s Drug store and there he, Mr. MacRae, showed them a ‘Declaration of White Independence’ that he had drawn up for presentation at a mass meeting of white citizens the next day.
“The ‘Red Shirts’ were finally persuaded by Mr. MacRae to abandon their plans for the lynching, but only after Mr. MacRae had called up the newspapers on the telephone and dictated a call for a mass meeting of the citizens for the next morning.…
“A thousand or more white citizens, representative of all walks of life from the minister to the merchant, the mariner to the mendicant, attended the mass meeting in the New Hanover county court house the next morning, November 10, at 11 o’clock.
“Colonel Alfred Moore Waddell, a mild mannered Southern gentleman, noted for his extremely conservative tendencies, was called upon to preside over the gathering. In addressing this meeting, Colonel Waddell said: … ‘We will not live under these intolerable conditions. No society can stand it. We intend to change it, if we have to choke the current of Cape Fear River with (Negro) carcasses!’ ”
“That declaration,” Mr. Blake said, “brought forth tremendous applause from the large gathering of white men at the mass meeting. His speech, other than the two paragraphs I have just quoted, was largely a statement of facts, but he was a silver tongued orator and the crowd cheered this distinguished white haired and bearded Southern gentleman throughout the course of his address.” (He was as much respected by the Negroes as he was admired by the whites; his character was unimpeachable.)
“Colonel Waddel, in concluding his address, announced that he heartily approved the set of resolutions which had been prepared by Mr. Hugh MacRae and which included the latter’s ‘Declaration of White Independence.’
“These resolutions were unanimously approved by the meeting, followed by a wonderful demonstration, the assemblage rising to its feet and cheering: ‘Right! Right! Right!’ and there were cries of ‘Fumigate’ the city with ‘The Record’ and ‘Lynch Manly.’ ”
Mr. Blake then read the resolutions from the scrap book, as follows:
Believing that the Constitution of the United States contemplated a government to be carried on by an enlightened people; believing that its framers did not anticipate the enfranchisement of an ignorant population of African origin, and believing that those men of the state of North Carolina, who joined in framing the union, did not contemplate for their descendants subjection to an inferior race.
We, the undersigned citizens of the city of Wilmington and county of New Hanover, do hereby declare that we will no longer be ruled and will never again be ruled, by men of African origin.
This condition we have in part endured because we felt that the consequences of the war of secession were such as to deprive us of the fair consideration of many of our countrymen.…
“Armed with a Winchester rifle, Colonel Waddell ordered the citizens to form in front of the Armory for an orderly procession out to ‘The Record’ plant, which was located in ‘Free Love Hall,’ on Seventh between Nun and Church Streets.
“As this band of silent yet determined men marched up Market Street it passed the beautiful colonial columned mansion, the Bellamy home. From the balcony of this mansion, a Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Salmon P. Chase, delivered an address shortly after Lincoln’s tragic assassination, advocating Negro suffrage and thereby sowing the seeds that were now blossoming forth into a white rebellion.
“The printing press of ‘The Record’ was wrecked by the maddened white men, who also destroyed other equipment, and the type that had been used in producing the editorial that had reflected upon the virtue and character of Southern womanhood was scattered to the four winds by these men, who stood four-square for the virtue of their women and for the supremacy of the white race over the African.
“Some lamps that had been hanging from the ceiling of the plant were torn down and thrown upon the floor, which then became saturated with kerosene oil; and then a member of the band struck a match, with the result that the two-story frame building was soon in flames.
“The leaders and most of the citizens had designed only to destroy the press,” Mr. Blake averred, adding philosophically: “all of which proves that a mob, no matter how well disciplined, is no stronger than its weakest link.
“The crowd of armed men, which had destroyed the plant and building of the nefarious Wilmington (Negro) Daily Record, dispersed, repairing peacefully to their respective homes,” Mr. Blake said, continuing his narrative:
“But in about an hour the tension between the two races broke with the shooting of William H. (Bill) Mayo, a white citizen, who was wounded by the first shot that was fired in the Wilmington Rebellion as he was standing on the sidewalk near his home, Third and Harnett Streets. Mayo’s assailant, Dan Wright, was captured by members of the Wilmington Light Infantry and the Naval Reserves after he had been riddled by 13 bullets. Wright died next day in a hospital.
“Then the ‘Red Shirts’ began to ride and the Negroes began to run.… The Africans, or at least those Negroes who had foolishly believed in the remote possibility of social equality with the former masters of their parents, began to slink before the Caucasians. They, the Negroes, appeared to turn primal, slinking away like tigers at bay, snarling as they retreated before the bristling bayonets, barking guns and flaming ‘Red Shirts.’
“Six Negroes were shot down near the corner of Fourth and Brunswick Streets, the Negro casualties for the day—November 11, 1898—totaling nine. One of these, who had fired at the whites from a Negro dance hall, ‘Manhattan,’ over in ‘Brooklyn,’ was shot 15 or 20 times. A member of this shooting party later exclaimed:
“ ‘When we tu’nd him ovah, Misto Niggah had a look o’ s’prise on his face, I ashure ye!’
“One ‘Red Shirt’ said he had seen six Negroes shot down near the Cape Fear Lumber Company’s plant and that their bodies were buried in a ditch.… Another ‘Red Shirt’ described the killing of nine Negroes by a lone white man, who killed them one at a time with his Winchester rifle as they filed out of a shanty door in ‘Brooklyn’ and after they had fired on him.… Another told of how a Negro had been killed and his body thrown in Cape Fear River after he had approached two white men on the wharf.…
“Other military units came to Wilmington to assist the white citizens in establishing ‘White Supremacy’ here, as follows: The Fayetteville (N.C.) Light Infantry, the Kinston division, Naval Reserves, Lieut. W. D. Pollock in command; the Maxton Guards, Captain G. B. Patterson, and the Sampson Light Infantry, Captain H. W. Hines commanding. Military organizations from as far South as New Orleans telegraphed offering to come here if their services were needed in the contest.
“When the Rebellion was in full blast ‘The Committee of Twenty-five’ appointed Frank H. Stedman and Charles W. Worth as a committee to call upon Mayor Silas P. Wright and the Board of Aldermen and demand that these officials resign. The mayor had expressed a willingness to quit, but not during the crisis. He changed his mind, however, when he saw white citizens walking the streets with revolvers in their hands. The Negroes, too, had suddenly turned submissive, they were carrying their hats in their hands.…
“African continued to cringe before Caucasian as the troops paraded the streets, as the guns barked and the bayonets flared, for a new municipal administration of the ‘White Supremacy’ persuasion had been established in a day! The old order of Negro domination over the white citizenry had ended.”