— By Lucy McCauley
I learned only a few years ago, while watching a documentary, that my great-grandfather, William Berry McKoy, played a significant part in the violence of the Wilmington, NC, 1898 Massacre and Coup d’état. He was a leader of the White Government Unions, and he gave a public speech designed to incite the Red Shirt mob. He was armed and in the streets on November 10, 1898. And as a property-title lawyer, there’s evidence that he likely “transferred” properties left behind by fleeing Black residents back to local banks. He was not one of the Secret Nine, those men who planned the coup d’état in back rooms over a year or more. Nevertheless, he was a white supremacist who felt threatened by the prosperous Black community whose numbers had risen in the 1890s.
Family stories about my great-grandfather McKoy focused on his brilliance and accomplishments, his good deeds, tales repeated down through generations. Eventually, no one remembered or even seemed to know what was true anymore.
We can call such omissions and mischaracterizations “lies,” as David Zucchino does in his 2020 book, Wilmington’s Lie, one of several works over the last decades documenting the century-long cover-up of the massacre and coup.
Yet my parents, grandparents, and great-aunts and uncles—all buried now—probably wouldn’t see Wilmington’s history that way. Such was the nature of their privilege: they were never forced to confront the lie.
We understand now that the day of the massacre and coup, as horrific as it was, wasn’t just a single event. On the heels of 1898, a litany of losses followed. Along with the destroyed businesses and potential for inherited wealth that vanished overnight, Wilmington’s Black citizens had to contend with widespread lynching and massacres in cities across the South. Meanwhile, Jim Crow laws blocked access to voting, education, professions, and healthcare.
Today I live in Texas, where my husband’s job brought us many years ago. Even in that deeply conservative state, people are visibly shocked when I tell them I never learned, growing up, about a massacre and coup that occurred in my own hometown. They can hardly believe I never knew my own ancestor was part of it. Looking back on that embarrassing lack of knowledge, I see why. No one talked about it—not at home, not at John T. Hoggard High School in the 1970s, not during four years of college in North Carolina.
Among the repercussions of secrets and deceit, such as what surrounded Wilmington’s massacre and coup for so long, is how they worm their way through the minds, hearts, and bodies of individuals—whole communities, even––leaving a poisonous dissonance and disorientation in their wake. I hardly know what to do with the inner storm of emotions when I think of decades upon decades of half-truths I learned in my family, the pablum on which I was spoon-fed by people I trusted.
I’m committed to ensuring that the lying stops in my generation. I want more for my daughter and others in the McKoy family line. I have to believe that when presented with the facts, young people will find a way to sort through them.
Students in North Carolina classrooms today, however, might not have that chance, in the same way I didn’t forty-plus years ago. How—or if—the facts of history should be taught is currently being questioned in NC as well as other states, including Texas and Florida.
But many of those states’ citizens believe that school children should have access to both the laudable and the sometimes-unsavory norms, attitudes, and actions found in U.S. history and among our founders. That they be granted the dignity of learning hard realities and given the chance to explore and confront them.
What can those of us who, like me, feel distressed by the revisionism in our own educations do today to right that wrong? What, if anything, do descendants of massacre instigators owe to the living families and communities that were affected? What’s owed by the cities and states where they took place? I believe that what’s owed––along with direct financial reparations to descendants of 1898, among other things––is the truth.
Although researchers have examined property titles from the years surrounding 1898, at this point no one has uncovered clear evidence of stolen properties. This of course defies logic, given the hundreds of people, by some counts, who were murdered that day or driven from town––along with hundreds more who fled over the following year. Research continues, however, including by nonprofits and UNC-Wilmington departments that are actively working on the case. Meantime, the CTTT-Wilmington group is calling for reparations, especially for descendants of 1898 victims, some of whom are also active in our chapter. One of those is Elaine Brown (aka Poet E Spoken), who performed at the November 2021 Soil Collection event co-sponsored by EJI. A Reparations Week is planned for the fall (2023) and the CTTT chapter is actively involved.
Especially in this 125th anniversary year of 1898, which Wilmington will remember with events in November, we must demand that the facts of history be taught in our children’s classrooms. Moreover, we can make sure we teach them in our families, to our own children and grandchildren and cousins. In Wilmington, we can work to educate visitors and newcomers to the town and its beaches about the realities of the city, past and present. Rather than perpetuating the wishful thinking of “sun-n-fun” Wilmington and its nearby beaches, why not grant visitors the dignity of being offered a balanced and more complete history of the city?
The last time Wilmington was truly prosperous, where both Black and white people were advancing together, was 1897. More than a century later, the legacy of that single day in November 1898 has wrought a long list of ills for Wilmington, among them: Pockets of searing poverty in (overwhelmingly Black) areas without reasonable access to nutritious food or health services. A host of underlying barriers that make home ownership for many minorities an uphill battle. An almost wholly segregated society and school system in which the resources of “neighborhood schools” in Black areas of town pale compared with those in white areas. What kind of future might Wilmington’s children of color be able to imagine or expect?
Acknowledging and addressing historical wrongs is essential to any process of racial justice. This is how we can begin to heal the wounds that continue to fester in Wilmington. This is how we can reclaim “Wilmington’s Truth” rather than perpetuating the “Lie” that David Zucchino called out in his book. People have undergone such processes of reckoning, of restorative justice and truth-telling in other countries, from Germany to South Africa. It’s a process that’s never really complete; it takes generations continually uncovering new levels of understanding.
We can’t ask forgiveness for our white ancestors’ actions. Yet we can say what really happened, and that it should not have happened; that what our ancestors did was unutterably, hideously wrong. History has a sure and insidious effect on the present, but it doesn’t have to have the final word about the future. Instead, we can forge friendships across Black and white communities and work toward justice as unlikely co-conspirators. It’s time to get started.
Additional Resources:
https://www.npr.org/2021/11/10/1053562371/1898-wilmington-coup-massacre
https://www.history.com/news/wilmington-massacre-1898-coup
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/wilmington-massacre/536457/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/wilmington-massacre-2/
Elaine Cynthia Brown (aka Poet E Spoken) is a descendant of Joshua Halsey, one of the Wilmington massacre victims from 1898. She is a CTTT Wilmington member, a spoken word poet and author, with an upcoming book about her family. Here is her Twitter account, and here and here are a few samples of her poetry.
Author: Lucy McCauley has been a member of CTTT since 2016 and serves as a facilitator for the National Virtual Group. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Dallas Peace Times, and The Los Angeles Times, among others. Her film, “Facing the Nazi Era,” was screened internationally and she worked as a researcher on the PBS documentary, “The Fire and the Forgotten,” which focused on the Tulsa 1921 Massacre.
©2023, Lucy McCauley. All rights reserved.
— PLEASE SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN FOR COMMENTS —
Lucy, your story about the 1898 Wilmington massacre and coup was eye-opening and deeply moving. It’s shocking to realize how much history can be hidden or misrepresented, especially when it involves such profound injustices. As a local, I can’t help but wonder how many other untold stories lie beneath the surface of our city’s past. Your commitment to uncovering the truth and advocating for reparations is inspiring, and it’s clear that we all have a responsibility to ensure that future generations are educated about these dark chapters in our history. Thank you for sharing your journey and encouraging us to confront uncomfortable truths for the sake of justice and healing. 🙏
Thank you for sharing this story Lucy and for the comments posted by Lee and by Lucy again. I want to highlight a book that focuses on the racial cleansing that took place in the US well into the 1950s that is documented by Elliot Jaspin in his book, Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America. His book is the necessary companion to Sundown Towns by James Loewen. Many of these occurrences relied on the threat of violence, but they were no less hurtful. We pay attention to the worst of the worst, but as Jaspin writes, “In addition to being numerous, possibly even common, what is striking about racial cleansings is that they were unlike the all-too-familiar lynchings or race riots. While people were lynched during some racial cleansings, there were expulsions where no one was killed. And, although the threat of violence always hung in the air, there were racial cleansings, unlike race riots, where no one was attacked. What sets a racial cleansing apart from other kinds of violence against blacks is its intent. In every case whites would deliver an ultimatum: Leave by some deadline or die. Afterwards residents might post signs telling blacks not to enter a town or county—so-called sundown towns—but that was not always necessary. The reputation these places earned because of a racial cleansing was often enough notice.”
Allison, I’m sorry to be seeing your comment only now–but very glad to know about Jaspin’s book and appreciate your observations. They made me think of another “silent” way that racial cleansing occurred throughout the 20th century US: eugenics. In NC and many others, racial motivated “medical sterilizations” were encouraged, and Black women were even pressured by social workers to get sterilized– with threats of withdrawal of any state financial benefits they normally received if they did not comply. The play “The Fertile River” by Vincent Terrell Durham documents one such case in the rural NC in the late 1950s.
I would call forced sterilization genocide!
Thank you to everyone who commented on my story. I have learned from Lee Guion another piece to the puzzle: that in New Bern, North Carolina there was also a successful coup d’etat–fortunately bloodless. But that shines light on the current story of Wilmington in 1898: it was *not* the “only successful coup in the United States,” as often has been claimed. We can see now that, especially after Wilmington’s example, across the state and across the South elected City officials were quietly forced out of their legally won positions.
Lucy, thank you for sharing the true story of Wilmington in 1898 – the destruction of a vibrant and successful post Reconstruction Black community, the murder and banishment of its residents by white supremacists. The human loss is incalculable but must be addressed nevertheless.
I am finding that the coup d’etat in Wilmington served as a blue print for a white supremacy campaign throughout the state. Black elected officials were removed from office and civil service jobs were reserved solely for whites. The Jim Crow era of disenfranchisement, racial discrimination, and increased white violence against African Americans began and lasted over 60 years.
Thank you, too, for emphasizing what must the done to address the loss of lives and property through reparations, restitution, truth telling, and building alliances to heal and create a just future for all.
As a descendant of the Lees of Virginia, I couldn’t agree more with the story about Wilmington, NC. On April 22nd, 2023, at Arlington House in Virginia, descendants of the enslaver families (Lee and Custis) and enslaved families (Syphax, Branham, Gray, Norris, Henry and Parks) will gather for the first multi-family reunion in 160 years. The weekend activities – private for the families and public for families and casual visitors to Arlington House – promise to bring reconciliation and friendships, just as Lucy McCauley mentioned above. It brings me hope in a world with far too much bad news.
I remember clearly how shocked I was to learn about the Wilmington massacre and coup, and I didn’t grow up in NC, nor do I have family connections in the state. So I can only imagine the shock of uncovering a nest of such secrets as a native to the area whose family was directly involved in perpetrating harms. It is also encouraging to hear that reparative action is underway. Thank you for your story.