Report Calls 1898 N.C. Riot an Insurrection

[FVZA_Colonel]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051219/ap_on_re_us/race_riots_1


Report Calls 1898 N.C. Riot an Insurrection
Mon Dec 19,11:01 AM ET

WILMINGTON, N.C. - Violence in 1898 that resulted in the only known forceful overthrow of a city government in U.S. history has historically been called a race riot but actually was an insurrection that white supremacists had planned for months, a state commission concludes.

The violence in Wilmington, which resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of black people, "was part of a statewide effort to put white supremacist Democrats in office and stem the political advances of black citizens," the 1898 Wilmington Riot Commission concludes in a draft report.

Afterward, white supremacists in state office passed laws that disfranchised blacks until the civil rights movement and Voting Rights Act of the 1960s.

"Essentially, it crippled a segment of our population that hasn't recovered in 107 years," said Harper Peterson, a commission member and former mayor of Wilmington. "It's a major event that went unnoticed."