Thread by @ncarteron

January 6, 2021, was an attempted coup on American soil. It wasn't the first one, though.

A coup was attempted in 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina. It actually succeeded.

Here's a short story of the events, and an overview of its consequences.
🧵

At the end of the XIXth century, Wilmington was the largest, most populous city in North Carolina.

25,000 people lived there. 55% of the population was black, most of them freedmen and women.

During Reconstruction, a black middle class had emerged in Wilmington. Owning shops, most of the restaurants, and many businesses the town over, the black community was thriving.

Black people held elected offices in the city. For example, three of the city's aldermen were black.

The success of the black middle class fostered white resentment, even if the whites still owned over 95% of the land of the county.

Blacks were all but prevented from owning their own homes. They had to pay 2x interest on their mortgages, and couldn't pay in instalments.

The local government capitalised on the "white supremacy" movement to stir its base, foment revolt and violence against the black community and those who supported it.

In the 1898 elections, the Fusionist, bi-racial government of Wilmington won the election despite the white supremacist movement's cheating and ratf*cking.

The white supremacist did not accept the electoral victory of their adversaries.

They called for the overthrow of the duly elected government in a pamphlet titled "The White Declaration of Independence"

600 men gathered at the courthouse and, inflamed by their leaders' speeches, sent the town government an ultimatum.

They gave them 12 hours to resign or be deposed.

Having received no answer, they marched a mob of about 2,000 men across the city, destroying and looting black business, killing hundreds of people in the process.

They forced the government to resign and appointed their own officials.

The next morning, "Waddell, flanked by George L. Morton and the Wilmington Light Infantry, marched 6 prominent black people on the list out of Wilmington; the other blacks on the list had already fled. Waddell put them on a train headed north, in a special car with armed guards"

"Waddell then gathered the whites on the list and paraded them in front of a large crowd, allowing G. Z. French to be dragged on the ground and nearly lynched from a telephone pole, before he was allowed to board the train and leave the city."

The coup succeeded and installed a white supremacist government in Wilmington.

Of the 18 leaders of this armed insurrection that cost the lives of hundreds of innocent people:

4 became governors of North Carolina
5 ended up in Congress, 1 House Majority leader
1 served as Secretary of the Navy for Woodrow Wilson

None were ever convicted.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmingto…