Wilmington's Lie is a remarkable account of a distinctive historical moment: the only violent overthrow of an elected government in U.S. history. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Zucchino (Myth of the Welfare Queen) pierces layers of myth and invented history, built up by the successful perpetrators of the coup and their white supremacist allies, to depict the terrifying violence that set the stage for more than half a century of Jim Crow rule.
At the end of the 19th century, Wilmington, N.C., was a thriving mixed-race community with numerous black officials, including police officers. One of the wealthiest men in the city was a black man, and a sizable black middle class had developed. Republicans actively campaigned for black votes, and rewarded those votes with political appointments. It was a far cry from Southern states where white Democrats had already "redeemed" state and local governments.
The violence in Wilmington has sometimes been portrayed as a spontaneous outburst of racial animus. Wilmington's Lie definitively shows that the coup and the violence used to enforce it had been thoroughly planned by white supremacists. Zucchino describes how racial hatred was used as a tool by practical-minded Democrats who sought a way back into power.
Some of Zucchino's most provocative reflections come in the epilogue, where he draws comparisons between the voter suppression methods of the 19th century and the recent efforts of North Carolina's Republican politicians to limit black, and therefore Democratic, voting. Zucchino never needs to stretch to find connections between the 1898 coup and the present day. The trauma--as well as political and economic consequences--still linger. --Hank Stephenson, manuscript reader, the Sun magazine