Editing Wilmington, North Carolina (section)

===Reconstruction era and 1898 insurrection===
{{Main|Wilmington Insurrection of 1898}}
[[File:Wilmington 1898.jpg|thumb|Wilmington {{circa|1898}}]]
During the [[Reconstruction era]], former free Blacks and newly emancipated [[freedmen]] built a community in the city. About 55% of its residents were Black people.<ref name=Star>{{cite news|author=Angela Mack|title=Over a century later, facts of 1898 race riots released|url=http://www.starnewsonline.com/news/20051216/over-a-century-later-facts-of-1898-race-riots-released|date=December 16, 2005|newspaper=Star-News|location=Wilmington, NC}}</ref><ref name=Pop>{{cite news|title=The Commercial & Financial Chronicle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EDNOAAAAYAAJ&q=lending+rates+north+carolina+1898+per+cent&pg=RA2-PA165|year=1899|publisher=William B. Dana Company}}</ref> At the time, Wilmington was the largest city and the economic capital of the state.

Three of the city's aldermen were Black. Black people were also in positions of justice of the peace, deputy clerk of court, street superintendent, coroners, policemen, mail clerks, and mail carriers.<ref name=BlackNCpols>{{cite news|title=NORTH CAROLINA'S NEGROES: Offices Which They Hold in Several Counties of the State|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1898/11/06/archives/north-carolinas-negroes-offices-which-they-hold-in-several-counties.html|date=November 6, 1898|newspaper=New York Times}}</ref>

At the time, Black people accounted for over 30% of Wilmington's skilled craftsmen, such as mechanics, carpenters, jewelers, watchmakers, painters, plasterers, plumbers, stevedores, blacksmiths, masons, and wheelwrights. In addition, they owned 10 of the city's 11 restaurants and were 90% of the city's 22 barbers. The city had more Black bootmakers/shoemakers than White ones, and half of the city's tailors were Black. Lastly, two brothers, [[Alexander Manly|Alexander]] and Frank Manly, owned the ''[[Daily Record (Wilmington)|Wilmington Daily Record]]'', the only Black-owned newspaper in the state, and one of the few in the country at that time.<ref name=Betrayed2>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4bpMAgAAQBAJ&q=Wheelwrights |editor-first1=David |editor-last1=Cecelsi |editor-first2=Timothy |editor-last2=Tyson |first=Leon H. |last=Prather Sr. |chapter=We have taken a city |title=Democracy Betrayed: The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy |year=1998 |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]] |isbn=0807824518 |location=Chapel Hill |pages=15–41}}</ref>

In the 1890s, a coalition of Republicans and [[People's Party (United States)|Populists]] had gained state and federal offices. The Democrats were determined to reassert their control. Violence increased around elections in this period, as armed White [[paramilitary]] insurgents, known as [[Red Shirts (Southern United States)|Red Shirts]], worked to suppress Black and [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] voting. White Democrats regained control of the state legislature and sought to impose [[white supremacy]], but some Blacks continued to be elected to local offices.<ref>{{Citation|title=When white supremacists overthrew a government| date=June 20, 2019 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVQomlXMeek| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211030/LVQomlXMeek| archive-date=October 30, 2021|language=en|access-date=September 8, 2019}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

The [[Wilmington Insurrection of 1898]] (also known as the Wilmington Race Riot) occurred as a result of the racially charged political conflict that had occurred in the decades after the Civil War and efforts by White Democrats to re-establish white supremacy and overturn Black voting. In 1898, a cadre of White Democrats, professionals, and businessmen planned to overthrow the city government if their candidates were not elected. Two days after the election, in which a White Republican was elected mayor and both White and Black aldermen were elected, more than 1500 White men (led by Democrat [[Alfred M. Waddell]], an unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate in 1896) attacked and burned the only Black-owned daily newspaper in the state and ran off the new officers. They overthrew the legitimately elected municipal government. Waddell and his men forced the elected Republican city officials to resign at gunpoint and replaced them with men selected by leading White Democrats. Waddell was elected mayor by the newly seated board of aldermen that day. Prominent Black Americans and White Republicans were banished from the city in the following days.<ref name="Commission"/> This is the only such ''[[coup d'état]] ''in United States history.<ref name="Commission">[http://www.history.ncdcr.gov/1898-wrrc/report/Chapter5.pdf "Chapter 5"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090321002041/http://www.history.ncdcr.gov/1898-wrrc/report/Chapter5.pdf |date=March 21, 2009 }}, ''1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Report'', North Carolina Dept. of Cultural Resources</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Sugar Hill Neighborhood Walking Tour|url=https://www.c-span.org/video/?424635-1/sugar-hill-neighborhood-walking-tour|author=Islah Speller|publisher=[[C-SPAN]]|date=March 19, 2017}}</ref>

Whites attacked and killed an estimated 10–100 Blacks; no Whites died in the violence. As a result of the attacks, more than 2100 Blacks permanently left the city, leaving a hole among its professional and middle classes. The demographic change was so large that the city became majority White, rather than the majority Black it was before the coup.<ref name="Commission"/>

Following these events, the North Carolina legislature passed a new constitution that raised barriers to [[Voter registration in the United States|voter registration]], imposing requirements for [[poll tax (United States)|poll taxes]] and [[literacy tests]] that effectively [[Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era|disfranchised]] most Black voters, following the example of Mississippi. Blacks were essentially excluded from the political system until after the enactment of the federal [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]].<ref name="Commission"/>