November 10 is the anniversary of The Wilmington Coup in 1898.
Wilmington, North Carolina was the largest city in the state, and had a majority black population, who were starting to prosper. This did not go unnoticed by the white populace. Calls for lynching were made openly.
1898 was an election year. White people did their best to intimidate black people into not voting. The white gun store owners would not sell black people weapons. The newspapers villified and scare mongered the black population. Roving gangs of white people would harass black people. US Democrat Alfred Moore Waddell gave a speech the day before the election calling for white people to do their “duty”, and look for black people voting:
“tell him to leave the polls and if he refuses kill, shoot him down in his tracks. We shall win tomorrow if we have to do it with guns.”
The Democrats of course won big time in the state. But Wilmington retained a majority black city government. Waddell, a man of his word, rode into town with hundreds of white men and even a gatling gun. They killed as many black people as they could find, and destroyed their businesses. They replaced elected politicians with their own picks.
The ethnic cleansing was a success. The day left hundreds dead. Black people left the city in droves. New laws were put in place to make sure that black people would never again hold power in the state. The number of black voters in the next election had dropped from 125,000 to 6,000. The coup was swept under the rug and forgotten about for 100 years.
Today, we once again see white supremacists attempting a coup. This time it’s not even at the threat of a black person in power. It’s that the man with a quite racist history and would go on to speak for genocide wasn’t quite racist enough.
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Honourable mentions to:
The Osage Tribe was forced to abandon their land in 1808, by way of the Osage Treaty with the US regime.
33 women were arrested and beaten in a “Night of Terror” in 1917 for the crime of protesting in front of the white house for the right to vote.
International disputes over the Adriatic were fought in the streets of Trieste, dividing the city between “foreign agents”—Slavs and socialists, many of whom were Italian—and “true Italians,” the Fascists and nationalists. Fascist bands targeted Slavic spaces throughout the city with relentless bombings, street fights, and the looting and destruction of residential buildings and businesses. One of the most devastating and well‐known attacks occurred on 13 July 1920, when a large group of Fascist Blackshirts attacked and set fire to the Narodni Dom (National House or Hotel Balkan) one of the most important centres of Slavic cultural life in the region, in addition to other Slavic institutions. The attack was coordinated by Francesco Giunta, one of the rising stars of D’Annunzio’s coup in Fiume sent to Trieste to head its Fascist movement in April 1920.
(Emphasis added. Source.)
I know that this is tangential to your topic (it’s just a coincidence), but it helps me remember your history lesson. I hope that it’s no trouble.
Not at all. Most of the purpose of this comm is for my own education. I post it here in case anyone else might be interested, and I might want to link back to it from time to time. I’m always amazed people read my posts at all.
