On Nov. 10, 1898, heavily armed columns of white men marched into the black neighborhoods of Wilmington. In the name of white supremacy, this well-ordered mob burned the offices of the local black newspaper, murdered perhaps dozens of black residents -- the precise number isn't known -- and banished many successful black citizens and their so-called "white nigger" allies. A new social order was born in the blood and the flames, rooted in what The News and Observer's publisher, Josephus Daniels, heralded as "permanent good government by the party of the White Man."

The Wilmington race riot of 1898 stands as one of the most important chapters in North Carolina's history. It is also an event of national historical significance. Occurring only two years after the Supreme Court had sanctioned "separate but equal" segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson, the riot marked the embrace of virulent Jim Crow racism, not merely in Wilmington, but across the United States.

Despite its importance, the riot has remained a hidden chapter in our state's history. It was only this year that North Carolina completed its official investigation of the violence. In addition to providing a thorough history of the event, the report of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission recommended payments to descendants of victims. And it advised media outlets, including The News & Observer, to tell the people the truth about 1898.

Those truths include that what occurred in Wilmington on that chilly autumn morning was not a spontaneous outbreak of mob violence. It was, instead, 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.

The black-white coalition

At the end of the 19th century, Wilmington was a symbol of black hope. Thanks to its busy port, the black majority city was North Carolina's largest and most important municipality. Blacks owned 10 of the city's 11 eating houses and 20 of its 22 barbershops. The black male literacy rate was higher than that of whites.

Black achievement, however, was always fragile. Wealthy whites were willing to accept some black advancement, so long as they held the reins of power. Through the Democratic Party, whites controlled the state and local governments from 1876 to 1894. However, the party's coalition of wealthy, working class and rural whites began to unravel in the late 1880s as America plunged into depression.

North Carolina became a hotbed of agrarian revolt as hard-pressed farmers soured on the Democrats because of policies that cottoned to banks and railroads. Many white dissidents eventually founded the People's Party, also known as the Populists. Soon they imagined what had been unimaginable: an alliance with blacks, who shared their economic grievances.

As the economic depression deepened, these white Populists joined forces with black Republicans, forming an interracial "Fusion" coalition that championed local self-government, free public education and electoral reforms that would give black men the same voting rights as whites. In the 1894 and 1896 elections, the Fusion movement won every statewide office, swept the legislature and elected its most prominent white leader, Daniel Russell, to the governorship.

In Wilmington, the Fusion triumph lifted black and white Republicans and white Populists to power. Horrified white Democrats vowed to regain control of the government.

Race baiting fuels vote

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