The 1898 race riots that traumatized Wilmington, North Carolina, are among the most seminal, and least known outside of the region, events in America's history. Now, a small and very underfunded group of citizens in Southeastern NC are trying to raise $50,000 to get a memorial built. They have $200,000 already, but need the rest to get the memorial built. Right now the only "memorial" is a sign on a vacant, weed-choked lot in downtown Wilmington.
More on the flip.
It was only in 2006 that any real historical documentation of the riots ever took place. In January 2007, the North Carolina Democratic Party officially apologized for the party's central role in the rioting.
In the words of reporter Timothy Tyson, the riots were "the climax of a carefully orchestrated statewide campaign led by some of the leading figures in North Carolina's history to end interracial cooperation and build a one-party state that would assure the power of North Carolina's business elite." Before the riots, Wilmington was a wealthy, and interracial, port city, with blacks enjoying status and power in the city unheard of in any other Southern city I'm aware of. Wilmington was run by a conglomerate of "Fusionist" political leaders -- Republicans and Populists, who stood in defiance of the white-supremacist Democrats.
On November 10, 1898, 2000 whites marched on Wilmington's center of government, burned buildings, killed up to 300 people, and forced the mayor, the police chief, and the board of aldermen to resign at gunpoint, and put their leader in as mayor in one of the most blatant, militarized coup d'etats in US history. In 1899, the NC legislature disenfranchised the state's black voters and helped codify what would be generations of Jim Crow laws. I don't need to tell you the historical significance of all this.
This is Tyson's article on the riots from the Raleigh News and Observer: The Ghosts of 1898. There are other articles and information on the Web. You can visit the Web site of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot commission by clicking here.
Here's an old WECT-TV article that gives a bit of info on the memorial: Link to article. The main site of WECT has other stories easily located through a site search. (Like most TV station sites, this one is larded with lots of graphics and videos, so be patient while it loads.)
More importantly, here's the address to send your hard-earned contributions:
1898 Memorial Fund
Community Foundation of Southeastern North Carolina
P.O. Box 119
Wilmington, NC 28402
The address is current; I saw the addy on a news story tonight. It doesn't seem like the Memorial Fund has a Web presence, but if you find one, please post the URL.
Even if you don't contribute, you should find out more about the 1898 riots. Teach it in your history classes. Tell your children. This is a shameful chapter of our history that deserves to be told.
We're going to try to make this a school project for our students -- car washes and the like, to raise money and awareness. Your contributions will be greatly, greatly appreciated. And don't forget the 0.01 (or is it 0.02?) addition to mark your donation as coming from the Kos community. If I get a decent response to this diary, I'll drop them a line and let them know where the $$ is coming from.
Thanks.