On November 10, 1898, a mob of white supremacists overthrew a democratically elected government and executed a racial massacre in the city of Wilmington, North Carolina. For decades, the truth of the only successful coup d'etat in American history was deliberately misconstrued and erased.
Over the last decade, 1898 has become more openly discussed and memorialized in the Wilmington area — but outside of the Cape Fear region the history is less well known. One hundred and twenty six years after the coup, on November 12, American Experience and PBS North Carolina will be telling the story to a much wider audience. The episode, premiering as part of the network’s long running documentary series, explores the events leading up to, during and after the 1898 Wilmington Massacre.
“Not examining our past has led to where we are today,” said co-director Yoruba Richen. “I hope that viewers understand that a lot of this misinformation, threats to democracy, the clamping down on voters’ rights [is] baked into this country.”
Production of American Coup: Wilmington 1898 began in 2021, when directors Richen and Brad Lichtenstein were approached by Rachel Raney, executive producer for PBS North Carolina, who offered them the project. Richen and Lichtenstein both boast long careers as filmmakers covering issues of racial injustice and white terror, and had previously collaborated on another such project, called American Reckoning, which is a documentary episode for the PBS series FRONTLINE.
“This story was deliberately buried, which is why people don’t know about it,” Lichtenstein said. “For me to have the opportunity to bring to light a story like this that’s so important in understanding who we are- it’s something that one must do.”
Neither Richen nor Lichtenstein had much knowledge of the events of the massacre prior to beginning the production. One of their first moves in preliminary research was to read “Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy,” the award-winning book by American journalist David Zucchino. Zucchino, who was also included in the on-camera interviews for “American Coup”, received the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his in-depth chronicle of the events that led up to the Wilmington massacre.
In selecting whom to interview for the documentary, the filmmakers sought out experts and scholars in subjects such as race, reconstruction, mass violence and North Carolinian history. They then conducted precursory phone calls and interviews in order to determine who would be a “good fit” for the project, and be able to effectively communicate on camera, as well. To reach descendants of those affected by the massacre in 1898, Richen and Lichtenstein connected with the Wilmington chapter of “Coming to the Table”, a national organization that brings together people with connections to issues of racial violence and requires open conversations and accountability, and also attended the 2021 commemoration event. They later held a summit to connect all of the individuals whom they met.
“They had already started the process of coming together, of creating community,” Richen said of the Wilmington “Coming to the Table” chapter. “I believe these films all come at the time they need to come. When we had our premiere at Hot Springs, they said that the fact that we were filming with them helped to solidify their relationship, because we were able to bring them together more so than if we [hadn’t] been there.”
One of the 1898 descendants interviewed for the documentary was Kieran Haile, the great great grandson of former Daily Record editor Alex Manly. The Daily Record was the Black-owned newspaper in Wilmington, NC. White supremacists burned it to the ground during the massacre.
Haile, who was raised without being taught much about his ancestors and family history, studied Black history and Black psychology at a community college in California, where he grew up. He began investigating his individual past after breaking his hip at 29 — a result of his brittle bone disease, passed to him through the generations as a result of slavery. After the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was moved to further his research.
“My dad’s grandfather was Alex Manly’s son — his name was Milo Manly and he had his own career in social justice and advocacy. He was actually one of the cofounders of the Urban League,” Haile explained. “The attitude that I learned from my dad, that my dad’s grandfather shared with him was, ‘Do not talk about it, do not think about it, just roll on and move forward. Try to focus on the next thing.’”
Haile noted that his family, but particularly the older generations, initially were not very receptive to him researching their past. His grandfather, who worked in Air Force intelligence during the Cold War, eventually settled the family in San Francisco. They rarely traveled back to the East Coast.
“Certainly that first visit I was wrestling with a lot of trepidation; Part of me was sort of flying under the radar,” Haile said of his initial visit to Wilmington, in 2021. “I deliberately did not come during one of the commemorations and came during the offseason, and I took my own time doing my own research. There definitely was a lot of insecurity and discomfort that I was constantly trying to brace myself for and work through.”
In addition to interviews with scholars and descendants, American Coup: Wilmington 1898 includes readings from primary and secondary sources, music by award-winning composers Kathryn Bostic and Rhiannon Giddens, and animations, to fill the absence of having actual footage from 1898. The end of the documentary presents the ongoing conversations of reparations and restorative justice that are being held by historians, descendants, and community leaders.
“There was a great moment during the Q&A [at Hot Springs], where a Black woman stood up and said, ‘One thing about your film that I really appreciate is that it proves that we’re not crazy,’” said Lichtenstein. “Wilmington is one of about 170 race massacres that happened between the end of the Civil War and Tulsa. After that we entered an era of Jim Crow and lynchings- I mean there was a point when there was over one lynching a day. When we talk about who we want to become as a country, we have to be honest about our past.”
The film runs for just under two hours. Richen and Lichtenstein expressed that there is more to the story to be told and invite viewers to seek out further information about the massacre.
“Understanding how many of these kinds of massacres happened is really important,” Richen said. “[I’m honored to be] part of the process of people — both Black and white — grappling with it and coming to terms with it.”
The film was first shown to audiences at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in mid-October. American Coup: Wilmington 1898 will premiere for the general public on Tuesday, November 12, 9–11 PM (ET), on PBS NC and PBS member stations across the country.
