Early in 1998 the Wilmington in Black and White lecture series was repeated in St. Stephens A.M.E. Church, one of Wilmington’s oldest and most influential black congregations, located not far from the site of much of the violence of 1898. The second lecture featured speakers who had not participated in the original series: John Haley, an African American and a historian of race relations from the university, and George Rountree III, a noted local attorney, the grandson of one of the leaders of the 1898 violence, and a former member of the UNC-Wilmington Board of Trustees. Rountree was the first prominent white Wilmingtonian directly descended from one of the leaders of the white Democratic forces in 1898 to participate openly in the foundation’s activities, although Hugh MacRae II, the grandson and namesake of another leader of the 1898 violence, had made substantial financial contributions. Word of Rountree’s participation quickly spread through the community grapevine, and the program, originally scheduled for the church’s educational hall, was moved to the larger sanctuary to accommodate an anticipated larger audience.

A near capacity crowd with a slight African American majority sat in a hushed, tension-filled atmosphere while John Haley set the stage with a brief, objective account of the events of 1898. He concluded with an introduction of Rountree as the namesake and grandson of the man who had led the rioting in 1898 and introduced legislation in the North Carolina legislature that had disenfranchised the state’s African American citizens some ninety-seven years ago. Rountree then rose to address a hushed audience. He began with a declaration of his support for equality by evoking his appreciation of a childhood mammy, and the silence thickened. He refused to apologize for his grandfather’s actions, insisting that he was the product of his times. He then spoke of his personal relationship to his grandfather, of his boyhood image of this almost God-like figure. What emerged was Rountree’s perception of his grandfather as a devoted family man, dedicated community leader, a man of strong religious beliefs and unyielding moral principles. Such was the man he knew and such was the man he remembered; it was only the times that had been out of joint.

An audience participation period followed, and Rountree was immediately challenged. Kenneth Davis, an African American employed by Corning and a stalwart in the foundation, rose to tell Rountree of the achievements of a generation of African Americans in Wilmington after the Civil War, achievements his grandfather had snuffed out. His past, and the past of Wilmington’s black community, Davis made clear, was not the past Rountree preferred. Rountree acknowledged Davis’s view of the past, but did not retreat from his position. Inez Easom, a young African American and the descendant of individuals whose lives had been transformed by the rioting, called for reparations to the black community for what it had suffered and lost, and younger African Americans supported her call with muffled shouts of approval. Rountree countered with the notion of private charity to address what he acknowledged were inequalities within the community, saying that he bore no responsibility for what had occurred a hundred years ago. Anne Russell, also a descendant of Wilmington’s old white elite, tried without success to elicit from Rountree an acknowledgement that although he bore no responsibility for those events, he personally had benefited from them. Finally, Kenneth Davis again rose to speak, and, while making clear his disagreement with Rountree’s assessment of his grandfather, thanked him for coming to St. Stephens to share his views with the audience. John Haley drew the presentation to a close, and the members of the over-forty generation of blacks and whites went forward to speak personally to both presenters, while young African Americans left conversing among themselves.

I mean, good Lord! that must have been just riveting. There’s a movie or a play in that isn’t there?

John, thanks for mentioning that event again. The 1898 Wilmington Insurrection was definitely a milestone in the violent making of a Jim Crow South; you’ve prompted me to have a closer look, via the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Report. For his part, Blight mentions it as a kind of kickoff to a truly awful decade — 884 lynchings between 1897 and 1906. But blatant terrorization of blacks to keep them from playing a role in post-war Southern politics was widespread well before 1898. Here’s Blight on the 1876 election:

“So effective was Democratic intimidation of Republicans in Mississippi that a federal official there called the white population ‘one vast mob.’ Cowed Republicans in several states begged the Congress and Grant for protection. Several hundred deputy marshals were dispatched to precincts across the South for the November elections, but their presence turned out to be only symbolic and wholly ineffective against the abuse they encountered. In many largely Republican (meaning black) precincts, few votes were cast.”

I guess what I’m gleaning from the report is that the 1898 Wilmington riots closed the door on one of the handful of points of light in the darkness that had already claimed most of the South, and maybe one of the few possible ways out of that darkness. That way out was based on both (1) the unique qualities of Wilmington (economically well situated as a key port and railroad terminus; unusually strong black freedmen community *prior* to the Civil War; and perhaps an unusually diverse upper white class of both planters and (often ex-pat) merchants), and (2) the rise the NC Populist/Fusion movement, which is new to me and which I’m still reading up on.

This was a turning point. It was the Populists’ last gasp. Notably, the national Republicans did nothing, but accepted the destruction of the NC Republican party (and effect, the Republican Party through the South) without resistance. It took 50 years before restoring democracy was even discussed, and almost 20 years more before mcuh of anything was done about it.