Marker calls 1898 violence a coup
N.C. is moving away from using the phrase “race riot” to describe the violent government overthrow.
RALEIGH, N.C. — The state of North Carolina is moving away from using the phrase “race riot” to describe the violent overthrow of the Wilmington government in 1898 and is instead using the word “coup” on the highway historical marker that will commemorate the dark event.
The heading on the marker reads “Wilmington
Coup,” but the originally approved text referred to a “race riot,” which eventually was deleted.
“You don’t call it that anymore because the African Americans weren’t rioting,” said Ansley Herring Wegner, administrator of the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program, said Thursday. “They were being massacred.”
In 1898, white Democrats violently overthrew the fusion government of elected blacks and white Republicans in Wilmington. The Democrats burned and killed their way to power in the only successful coup in American history.
The marker, dedicated Friday, stands outside the Wilmington Light Infantry building, where white supremacists gathered before they marched to The Daily Record, the African American newspaper, and burned it down. Alfred Moore Waddell, who led the march, took over as mayor.
The ceremony included a moment of silence for those killed in the coup, the StarNews of Wilmington reported.
The highway marker for the editor of the paper, Alex Manly, includes the phrase “race riot,” but it was dedicated 25 years ago.
Meanwhile, in Chapel Hill, a temporary logo has been placed over one of the plaques at the University of North Carolina football stadium that’s dedicated to a man who was a coup leader. A newspaper report at the time said William Rand Kenan Sr. was in charge of the machine gun used during the coup.