Massacre of 1898

Main article: Wilmington Insurrection of 1898

In November 1898 Wilmington was the scene of a violent attack by a well-organized group of whites who ruined the printing press of the African American newspaper The Daily Record   and set fire to the building in respond to an editorial that “insulted white womanhood”, which was credited to editor Alex Manly. The mob then went to the north side of town, where an unknown number of African Americans were murdered by lynching and many hundreds more were run out of town. No whites were killed during the incident.

At the same time, the Republican mayor and city council were forced to resign their offices and the leader of the white mob was then installed as mayor , effectively establishing a de facto coup d’état. The events in Wilmington—which was the largest city in the state at the time—helped make North Carolina into a controlled state. They also helped set Jim Crow and disenfranchisement which lasted until the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the second half of the 20th century.

In 2006 the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission completed its official report on the event .  Consisting of thirteen commissioners appointed by the legislature, the governor, mayor and city council of Wilmington, the commission was helped by the staff of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. They used the experience of the Rosewood Report (completed 1993), and the Tulsa Report (completed 2001) as a model and set out to provide detailed explanations for the causes and effects of the riots and to propose a series of recommendations to address the wrongs perpetrated by earlier generations. The resolution also apologized to those affected by the riots and their repercussions and renounced these actions. In 2008, six 16 ft. tall bronze sculptures by Ayokunle Odeleye went on display as part of a memorial for the City of Wilmington.

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