The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898

Wilmington, North Carolina wasn’t just another Southern city in 1898—it was a rare Black-led government in the post-Reconstruction South. And that scared the hell out of white supremacists. So they overthrew it. Armed mobs burned Black businesses, murdered residents in the street, and forced elected leaders to resign at gunpoint. This wasn’t a riot. It was a coup. The only successful one in U.S. history. And for over a century, America refused to call it what it was: a violent attack on democracy because Black people had the nerve to lead.