American Coup: Wilmington 1898 | movie | 2024 | Official Trailer - video Dailymotion

The little-known story of a deadly race massacre and carefully orchestrated insurrection in North Carolina’s largest c | dG1fN1JUc1pIWDQwSnM

Transcript

00:00We have taken a city as thoroughly, as completely as it captured in battle.

00:11It was the only armed overthrow of an elected government.

00:14We really don't know how many people were murdered that day.

00:18Whole families have broken up and scattered.

00:21The homes representing their savings are deserted.

00:24I've always felt like this story was always meant to be told.

00:31In North Carolina, the Negro holds the balance of power.

00:35There was really no other major city in the South like Wilmington.

00:39You have the black leadership with college degrees.

00:43And there was a professional class there, doctors and teachers and lawyers.

00:47White vendors are having to compete with black vendors for customers.

00:51And black men are able to hold public office at multiple levels of government.

00:55Wilmington is essentially a promised land for African Americans.

01:00It was a different vision of what American democracy could be.

01:04That it could actually be multiracial and work.

01:08Men, do your duty.

01:12This city, county, and state shall be rid of Negro domination once and forever.

01:19The Confederacy was trying to take power back.

01:21And white supremacy is going to be the rallying cry.

01:24So leaders of the conspiracy turned to actually taking over the city government at gunpoint.

01:30A definition of a coup d'etat is an armed overthrow of a legally elected government,

01:34which is what happened on this day in Wilmington.

01:37This was a coup based on the devaluation of African American citizenship.

01:42You think about the loss of wealth, the stealing of their generational legacies.

01:48What Wilmington tells us is how fragile American democracy is.