Wilmington 1898: When white supremacists overthrew a US government

[icymist]

Following state elections in 1898, white supremacists moved into the US port of Wilmington, North Carolina, then the largest city in the state. They destroyed black-owned businesses, murdered black residents, and forced the elected local government - a coalition of white and black politicians - to resign en masse.

Historians have described it as the only coup in US history. Its ringleaders took power the same day as the insurrection and swiftly brought in laws to strip voting and civil rights from the state's black population. They faced no consequences.

Wilmington's story has been thrust into the spotlight after a violent mob assaulted the US Capitol on 6 January, seeking to stop the certification of November's presidential election result. More than 120 years after its insurrection, the city is still grappling with its violent past.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55648011?fbclid=IwAR2zEq5EJsPMeUCacOkZkS_-9Ze9gXzuhmyZ3QTh5aytxZ37H5rR3FZDgoI

[RussBLib]

2. this has been repeated throughout the US' history

Fucking white people (of which I am one) just have had a really hard time accepting black folks. After subjugating them forever, they still have a hard time seeing them "get ahead".

1874 - Battle of Liberty Place
1898 - Wilmington Massacre
1908 - Springfield Massacre
1917 - East St Louis Massacre
1919 - Elaine (AR) Massacre
1921 - Tulsa Massacre

The East St. Louis Massacre launched a reign of racial terror throughout the U.S. that historians say stretched from 1917 to 1923, when the all-Black town of Rosewood, Florida, was destroyed. During that period, known as the Red Summer, at least 97 lynchings were recorded, thousands of Black people were killed, and thousands of Black-owned homes and businesses were burned to the ground. Fire and fury fueled massacres in at least 26 cities, including Washington, D.C.; Chicago, Illinois; Omaha, Nebraska; Elaine, Arkansas; Charleston, South Carolina; Columbia, Tennessee; Houston, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/06/remembering-red-summer-white-mobs-massacred-blacks-tulsa-dc/

One wonders how many more murders have been committed that did not rise to the level of "massacre".