Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy

David Zucchino reconstructs the 1898 coup in Wilmington, North Carolina—an organized overthrow of a multiracial government—through meticulous reporting and narrative drive. The book shows how propaganda, political ambition, and racist terror combined into coordinated violence. Zucchino details the mechanics of the coup, making clear it was not a riot but a planned seizure of power. He tracks the human consequences: murdered citizens, exiled leaders, and a community reshaped by intimidation. The narrative reveals how white supremacy learned to launder itself through respectable institutions. Zucchino’s prose is accessible, but the research is relentless. He also confronts the ways the event was misremembered, minimized, and mythologized for generations. The book clarifies how democratic backsliding has deep roots in American history. It reads as both a historical account and a warning. You finish with a sharpened sense of how easily lies can become civic “truth.”