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 reconstruction of the 1898 violent overthrow of the elected, biracial government of Wilmington, North Carolina, then a thriving Black-majority city. Zucchino draws on newspapers, letters, and court records to show how white supremacist Democrats orchestrated a propaganda campaign and armed insurrection that killed dozens and ousted Black officeholders. The book recovers a coup that was systematically erased from American memory for more than a century.
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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.