Civil War: The Wilmington Uprising

On November 10th, 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina became the site of the only coup d’état in American history. The uprising of 1898 was complicated, with deep roots and lasting effects, yet this momentous event has gone largely ignored, relegated to an obscure corner of history where it is remembered only as a petty riot. It is rarely acknowledged as the incident that led to the overthrow of North Carolinian Reconstruction governments in favor of the Democratic assemblies that instituted the infamous Jim Crow laws, leading to a century of segregation. The Democrats of North Carolina staged this uprising as a reaction to the laws placed on them by Reconstruction—laws that were alien, diametrically opposed to the views held by the Old South,
What had formerly been ruled by Democratic hardliners was now governed by equally radical Republicans intent on changing the ways of the South. One of the primary goals of Reconstruction was to integrate blacks into Southern society and readmit the states that seceded, but only after blacks had won full political and civil equality (Wormser, “Reconstruction”). This, however, did not align with the idea that most Southern leaders at the time held, and there was an obvious backlash to the Republican
These Democrats were men who feared their loss of power after the 1894 elections. Preceding 1894, the Democrats had control of the North Carolina General Assembly, with their major competitors being the Populists and the Republicans. During the 1894 elections, these two parties combined their platforms and ran together, creating a “Fusion” party that ousted Democratic hegemony in both houses of the General Assembly. What was truly insulting and infuriating to the Democrats, however, was the election of a Fusionist, Daniel Russell as the governor of North Carolina in 1896. In addition, Russell enacted a series of policies that expanded franchisement to include more blacks, leading to a biracial government in Wilmington