White supremacists overthrew a democratically elected biracial government in Wilmington in 1898

Evidence

In 1898, for example, a group of white residents orchestrated a successful coup to overthrow the city government in Wilmington, North Carolina, home to a thriving majority-Black population. Four years earlier, the Populist movement had joined with the Republican Party to form the “Fusion Party,” a political organization that managed to unite poor and working-class white people, formerly enslaved people and their descendants, and liberal Republicans in a movement for economic justice. This racially diverse party defeated old-guard politicians (many of whom were white supremacists and former Confederates) in a series of state and local elections, including in places like Wilmington. In response, the disgruntled white establishment plotted a coup to regain power and reinstate white-only rule that culminated in the murder of Black residents, burning of Black neighborhoods, and the unveiling of a “White Declaration of Independence” at a mass meeting led by a former congressman. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 387

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘White Declaration of Independence’ framing is a striking inversion of the nation’s founding document — material for an essay on how white supremacy has repeatedly seized the language of American liberty.
• XREF: Connects to the Wilentz-letter dispute over whether the 1619 framework decenters or misstates the Revolutionary tradition — Wilmington’s ‘White Declaration’ shows elites weaponizing revolutionary language in the same contested register.