Panel advises reparations for 1898 coup

Panel advises reparations for 1898 coup
Whites hijacked N.C. town, killed blacks.

Published Thursday, June 1, 2006

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina should compensate victims of racial violence that led to the overthrow of a racially mixed city government a century ago and ushered in a new political era in the Jim Crow South, a fact-finding commission recommended yesterday.

The murders and terrorizing of blacks by white supremacists in 1898 led to a Democratic takeover from Republicans who were in control during Reconstruction.

The commission’s report - produced after six years of study - urged lawmakers to consider economic reparations for the coastal town, including incentives for minority small businesses, compensation to heirs of victims and help for minority home ownership.

The commission did not provide any cost estimates, although compensation advocate Larry Thomas of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill said the economic losses could be in the billions of dollars today. "A crime was committed," said Thomas, a Wilmington native who has pursued the issue for years. "Regardless of the race issue, you’d have to come to the conclusion that somebody lost property and someone needs to be compensated."

By murdering and terrorizing blacks in Wilmington on Nov. 10, 1898, white supremacists were able to overthrow government officials at gunpoint - the only recorded violent government overthrow in U.S. history, according to the 500-page report.

Democratic state Rep. Thomas Wright, who helped establish the panel and served as its chairman, said the next step is to file a bill with the recommendations, which also includes the parties responsible for the violence atone for their own involvement and that the history of the incident be taught in public schools.

Before the violence, black men in North Carolina had been able to vote for about three decades. The attacks killed as many as 60 people and sparked an exodus of 2,100 blacks, the commission concluded. Then the largest city in the state, Wilmington flipped from a black majority to a white majority within months.