A Democratic party coup?

In 1898, one of the most shameful episodes in American political history occurred. Today called a coup d'etat, it is the only known case in the United States in which a municipal government was overthrown by violence. On May 31, 2006, the state of North Carolina issued a report on this event, which took place in the city of Wilmington.

The story begins in the aftermath of the Civil War. During Reconstruction, the federal government guaranteed voting rights for blacks in the South, most of whom became Republicans. This led to the election of many blacks and Republicans to federal and state offices in states such as North Carolina, which had been part of the Confederacy.

But the end of Reconstruction in 1877 saw the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, leaving blacks and white Republicans vulnerable to attack by the Ku Klux Klan, which was essentially an arm of the Democratic Party. With the suppression of black and Republican votes, Democrats quickly regained power and acted to keep it by disenfranchising black voters with gerrymandering, literacy tests and poll taxes.

Bruce Bartlett