New documentary on Wilmington's 1898 coup and massacre to get nationwide audience

(This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.)

Nov. 10 marks the 126th anniversary of a dark day in Wilmington's history: the coup and massacre of 1898, when armed white supremacists organized by some of the town's leading citizens killed dozens of Black people, drove some 2,000 others out of town under threat of death, and forced the resignation of several local elected officials who were part of a biracial coalition.

Information about the coup was suppressed for decades, but the history is now well-known in Wilmington. It will reach a much wider audience 9 p.m. Nov. 12, when the documentary "American Coup: Wilmington 1898" premieres on PBS stations nationwide as part of the long-running American Experience series. The film will also be available at PBS.org and on the PBS app.

"American Coup" will have its North Carolina premiere Nov. 7 at Thalian Hall, where it will screen for a sold-out audience of invited guests.

Many of the interviews in the doc were shot in Thalian Hall, where white citizens rallied in the days leading up to the 1898 coup to hear racist speeches encouraging violence against their Black neighbors.

Other interviews were conducted at sites with ties to 1898, including the Wilmington Light Infantry building on Market Street, where groups of armed white men gathered in the lead-up to the violence.

"American Coup" was written, produced and directed by award-winning documentary filmmakers Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein. Richen is a four-time Emmy nominee whose 2020 film "The Killing of Breonna Taylor" won an NAACP Image Award. Lichtenstein was nominated for an Emmy for his 2022 gun violence documentary "When Claude Got Shot."

Wilmington 1898 coup and massacre: 'Healing forward' with more work to be done

"I'm always interested in telling stories that should be more known, and making them compelling and engaging and relevant to today, which this story is," Richen said.

Lichtenstein said that "125 years, it's really not that long ago. We try to bring that home, that truth of, if you don't know your history you're bound to repeat it."

After the violence, Wilmington's population went from majority Black to majority white nearly overnight, and 1898 remains the only known violent overthrow of a local government in American history. Wilmington would not elect another Black person to office until 1972.

Wilmington filmmaker Christopher Everett's 2015 film "Wilmington on Fire" was the first feature-length documentary on 1898.

A number of books have been written about 1898, including LeRae Sykes Umfleet's "A Day of Blood: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot" and David Zucchino's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy." Both authors appear in the film.

Lichtenstein called "American Coup" a "comprehensive, journalistic approach" to the events of 1898, saying the film was "deeply fact checked" and uses all manner of historic documents and photographs, as well as interviews with historians, scholars and descendants to tell the story.

The film also uses striking black-and-white animation inspired by the work of painter Kara Walker, as well as original songs by Grammy-winning North Carolina singer Rhiannon Giddens. For years, Giddens has been working with Wilmington writer John Jeremiah Sullivan on a possible musical or opera based on the events of 1898. Giddens also narrates some passages in "American Coup."

Sullivan, whose Third Person Project has worked to unearth the history of 1898, is one of several Wilmington residents or natives who appear in the film.

There's also Inez Campbell Eason, the great-great-granddaughter of Isham Quick, whose businesses, including a Black-owned bank, were stolen by white supremacists, and Meg MacRae, whose great-grandfather, Hugh MacRae, was on the committee that drew up a “White Declaration of Independence” during meetings at his house at 715 Market St. MacRae also became an alderman after the mayor and other aldermen, some of them Black, were forced to resign.

Playing a prominent role in "American Coup" is Kieran Haile, a great-great-grandson of Alex Manly, editor and publisher of The Daily Record, Wilmington’s only Black-owned newspaper in 1898. Manly's editorial disputing wild but widely publicized stories of an epidemic of "burly black brutes" raping white women, while also calling out white men for raping Black women, was reprinted in white-owned newspapers of the day, including the predecessor of the StarNews, and used to whip up racial animus.

Manly left town before Nov. 10 to avoid being killed, but a white mob burned The Daily Record's offices. One of the film's most powerful moments has Haile reading, with great emotion, his great-great-grandfather's words.

Haile, who's from Los Angeles, came to Wilmington for last year's 125th anniversary commemoration of 1898 and will be at the premiere at Thalian Hall with other members of his family.

Haile said that for the most part his family's connection to 1898 "was known but not really talked about" when he was growing up. When he was in college, Haile said he started studying Black history and psychology, and wrote papers on 1898.

He said he sees his participation in the film as "setting the record straight. Part of me was glad we were taking time to visit this history that's not widely known, not taught, not talked about."

Even so, he said, when it comes to his family's connection to 1898, "I wouldn't say I'm at peace with it."

Haile said it bothers him that "to this day, nothing has been offered in payment to the families," even as he realizes that "the general consensus is that government and the justice system is not set up to deal with crimes of this magnitude.

"I would like to find a way to pay the families. We need to invent a mechanism. I don't know how it would work, but I'd like to see that happen."

The filmmakers noted that violence against Black people was common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with some 170 documented massacres taking place between the Civil War and the Tulsa massacre in 1921.

"Wilmington wasn't in isolation. This is not a part of American history that's really talked about," Richen said, adding that she hopes "American Coup" inspires people "to find out more. There is so much history, and we obviously can't tell everything in one film."

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: PBS documentary 'American Coup: Wilmington 1898' to premiere Nov. 12