Strange Country Ep.172: 1898 Wilmington Coup

Strange Country

What is about losers and coups? While we battle our current takedown of democracy, residents of Wilmington, N.C, dealt with the real thing in 1898. Angry over the loss of the war and the meager rights gained by black men, Democrats gunned down black residents and took control away from the rightly elected. And no traitor suffered any consequence. Even 100 years later, whites didn't feel it was their place to say "Whoops, my bad." Strange country indeed.

Theme music: Big White Lie by A Cast of Thousands

Cite your sources:

Bittner, Jochen. “1918 Germany Has a Warning for America.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Nov. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/opinion/trump-conspiracy-germany-1918.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage.

Crain, Caleb. “What a White-Supremacist Coup Looks Like.” The New Yorker, 27 Apr. 2020, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/27/what-a-white-supremacist-coup-looks-like.

LaFrance, Adrienne and Vann R. Newkirk II. “The Lost History of an American Coup D'État.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 12 Aug. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/wilmington-massacre/536457/.

Weller, Frances. “1898: A Tale of Two Descendants.” Wect.com, 26 Nov. 2019, www.wect.com/2019/11/26/tale-two-descendants/.

Zucchino, David. Wilmongton's Lie the Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020.