Pulitzer Prize General Non Fiction Winner
Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
by David Zucchino
Summary
A gripping account of the 1898 overthrow of the elected government in Wilmington, North Carolina, a Black-majority city, revealing a violent white supremacist coup that destroyed Black political power and prosperity.
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Historical Context & Significance
Zucchino untangled a complicated set of power dynamics cutting across race, class, and gender, exposing a massacre and coup that had been systematically erased from American history for over a century.