Out of all those tabs I closed recently, there were a few that I couldn't close right away because they contained audio or video I just had to watch. One was an episode of This American Life about people who have taken the climate crisis to heart so much that it has disrupted their families. That was a hard listen.
Another was an episode of "Criminal" called If It Ever Happens, Run about the Wilmington Massacre of 1898.
I've written before about the massacre, which was not only a white race riot but a successful coup d'etat, in which white supremacist Democrats overthrew the city's post-Reconstruction government of Black and white Republican elected officials, reinstituting white rule in the city to this day.
This episode of Criminal brings together the voice of a survivor's descendant with a writer who has recently written a book on it. It brings what happened to life in ways I have not heard before. It also makes it clear how the story was covered nationwide at the time, and why.
Whenever you hear someone say the events of January 6, 2021, were the first time someone tried to carry out a coup in the U.S., remind them of Wilmington.
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Past posts about the Wilmington Massacre:
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