Wilmington's Lie

by Zucchino, David

  The procession turned up Front Street, where white bystanders hissed and mocked the three Fusionists, sarcastically waving good-bye. At one point, several men in the crowd broke through the soldiers’ lines and tried to beat Melton with clubs. One of them shouted: “White nigger!” The soldiers shoved the men aside and continued to the depot.

  There were more jeering whites at the station, but the soldiers pushed past them and put Melton, Bunting, and Gilbert aboard a train bound for New Bern. They were ordered to sit inside a compartment where they were confronted by a tall, muscular white man who began screaming at Bunting, warning him that if he ever returned to Wilmington, he would kill him on sight. The man then turned on Melton and Gilbert, cursing and threatening both men before abruptly exiting the compartment.

  At 3:30 p.m., as the train rumbled out of the station, the roar of the locomotive was drowned out by a crescendo of cheers and taunts from white men and women gaily waving good-bye. Bunting and Gilbert began to weep.

  With almost all leading Fusionists removed from the city, the soldiers of the Wilmington Light Infantry assembled on Market Street to celebrate later in the day on November 11. They were joined by uniformed men of the Naval Reserves, as well as the state militiamen deployed from other towns by Governor Russell the day before. Led by Colonel Taylor on horseback, the soldiers paraded through downtown in military formation, rifles on their shoulders and pistols on their hips. They were trailed by horse-drawn wagons pulling the heavy Colt and Hotchkiss rapid-fire guns. White families lined the streets, cheering and singing. Women waved white handkerchiefs and delivered coffee and sandwiches for the soldiers.

  The Atlanta Constitution correspondent on the scene wrote that the parade served “the double purpose of teaching the negroes the utter foolishness of further resistance and would inspire the white people with confidence in the city government and its ability to protect them and their property.”

  Mayor Waddell now turned his attention to the black families hiding in the swamps and cemetery. He feared they were becoming a political liability for his new city government. Wilmington’s white business leaders, though certainly satisfied by the banishment of troublesome black leaders, complained that their best black workers were among the terrified people who had fled to the countryside. Several businessmen went to Waddell and asked him to try to lure the blacks back into town.

  Among them was James Sprunt. More than a third of his black employees had failed to report for work at the cotton compress following the November 10 killings. Sprunt needed them to restart his export operations. Seven steamships were backed up at the port, awaiting cargoes of cotton. Nonetheless, Sprunt told a reporter he was confident that the city’s blacks would be reassured by Mayor Waddell’s public declarations of equal treatment for both races.

  But before black families were likely to feel safe enough to return, Waddell realized, he had to first rein in the Red Shirts. Some remained in the streets, drinking and carousing and brandishing their guns. Waddell called a board of aldermen meeting on the afternoon of November 11 to address the matter. It was the new board’s first formal meeting. Waddell disparaged the Secret Nine, complaining that “self-appointed vigilantes are responsible for much of this misery because of the indiscriminate way they have gone about banishing objectionable persons.” Though Waddell had helped put six innocent black men aboard a train to Richmond earlier that day, he had not been involved in the banishment selection process. As mayor, Waddell felt entitled to some say in the process.

  That night, Waddell wrote a statement advising “all good citizens” to remain in their homes and allow the Wilmington Light Infantry and Naval Reserves to patrol the streets unhindered. Waddell singled out the Red Shirts, telling them that no other armed patrols would be allowed.

  Waddell was also authorized to appoint another temporary police force, to serve for thirty days. Many of the new officers he selected had been part of the mob that he had led to the Daily Record two days earlier. Their task now , he told them, was to help the military men restore order.

  The only prominent Fusionist politician who remained in the city was the deposed mayor, Silas Wright. Like Melton and other former officeholders, Wright assumed that his resignation had satisfied Wilmington’s new leaders. But on the morning of November 11, a delegation from the Secret Nine confronted Wright at his home. He agreed to leave the city but pleaded for another day to wrap up his affairs. He was granted a twenty-four-hour grace period.

  That afternoon, Wright learned that his fellow Fusionist politicians had been marched through the city, harangued by white onlookers and shoved aboard trains at gunpoint. He decided to leave that night under the cover of darkness. Wright had lived in Wilmington for nearly three decades, having arrived from Massachusetts in 1870, but he had no time to gather his possessions or say good-bye. He abandoned his home and bought a ticket to New York City.

  That evening, Wright was boarding a northbound train when he heard shouting and laughing. He saw a squad of Wilmington Light Infantry soldiers escorting a tall, unsmiling man to the waiting train. It was William Henderson, trailed by his wife and children. A crowd of whites taunted them.

  Earlier that day, Henderson had gone to Colonel Waddell to ask for protection from the white mob that had barged into his home the night before. He told the new mayor that he had been given twenty-four hours to flee the city. Waddell surprised Henderson by informing him that he could remain in Wilmington under his personal protection.

  Henderson had dealt with Waddell long enough to know that he could not trust him.

  “No, you will not protect me,” he told Waddell flatly. “I ask for protection today while I am settling up my business.”

  Waddell agreed to provide one of the newly deputized temporary policemen as Henderson’s escort for the day. The officer went home with Henderson and stood by as the family packed several suitcases and locked up the house. They left behind almost all their possessions, taking just a change of clothes each.

  Henderson went ahead to the train station to buy tickets for Richmond. But by two hours before the departure time, Sally Bettie and the children had not yet arrived. Henderson sent word to Waddell, who dispatched three more temporary police officers to escort the family to the station. At dusk, the officers pushed past a jeering crowd of whites and put the black family aboard the train.

  Henderson led Sally Bettie and their four children to a sleeping car. He felt safer there than in an open day coach. Everyone crowded inside. Henderson pulled down the shades and stepped into the passageway.

  In the next sleeping car, he discovered former mayor Wright, sitting alone. Wright said he wanted to get as far from Wilmington as possible. A reporter from the Messenger caught a glimpse of the crestfallen mayor. “A worse scared man I have seldom seen,” he wrote the next day.

  Although Wright had bought a ticket for New York City, he had been told that mobs of Red Shirts were waiting at several stations north of Wilmington. Henderson had heard the same reports. The two exiles commiserated as the train pulled away, headed north through the night.

  Later that evening, Waddell was told that Red Shirts were still patrolling the city, drinking and brandishing their rifles. He was annoyed that his two proclamations had been disregarded, first by the Secret Nine and now by some of the same gunmen he had inspired to violence on November 10. He did not note the obvious irony—that some of the new police officers charged with restoring order carried the same weapons they had fired at black men the day before.

  Word of Waddell’s hypocrisy reached John Spencer Bassett, a history professor at Trinity College in Durham, later renamed Duke University. In a letter to a friend, Bassett wrote: “The first act of the new government was to elect the leader of the mob Mayor of the town. He who had just led a mob issues a proclamation commanding that ‘all further violence’ shall stop. If he had any sense of humor he must have split his undergarments laughing at his own joke.”

  No matter what had taken place previ
ously, Waddell now considered himself Wilmington’s rightful custodian of law and order. He wrote yet another proclamation, this one more peevish, and had it delivered to the city’s newspapers.

  The comparatively few persons in the city who seem disposed to abuse the opportunity of carrying arms which recent events afforded and who are doing some very feverish talking are hereby notified that no further turbulence or disorderly conduct will be tolerated. They are notified that a regular police force will preserve order and every peaceable citizen, white and black, will be protected in his person or property.

  No armed patrol except those authorized by the Chief of Police will appear on the streets.

  Justice is satisfied, vengeance is cruel and accursed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Persons Unknown

  A FEW HOURS after the shooting erupted at North Fourth and Harnett Streets on November 10, David Jacobs had gone to the scene in a wagon. Jacobs was a barber, with a popular shop on Dock Street. Under the Fusionist city government, he had been appointed county coroner. It had now fallen to him to collect the dead so that a proper inquest could be conducted.

  It had not occurred to anyone in the Secret Nine or the new city government to replace Jacobs, a black man who was a member of the Committee of Colored Citizens. No one was thinking about an inquest. There was no mystery, after all, regarding the cause of death of the black men who had been shot. Only the identities of their white killers were in question, and no one in the city’s new power structure intended to pursue the matter.

  Jacobs dutifully carried out his coroner’s duties, rolling his wagon from one body to the next. He loaded at least six corpses; one account put the number at fourteen. On some, dark circles of dried blood marked the wounds in their backs. Others lay faceup, their eyes open. Some of the dead had already been collected by family members after the shooting stopped and then secretly buried. Other bodies, concealed in underbrush or under houses, were left to decompose; it was later estimated that more than sixty black men were killed on November 10. “Some were found by the stench and miasma that came forth from their decaying bodies,” Reverend J. Allen Kirk wrote.

  Jacobs hauled the dead men to the D. C. Evans Funeral Home, a rough shanty on Second Street near Princess Street. A throng of whites and blacks jammed the doorway, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the dead black men laid in a neat row on the floor. Some of the whites wanted to confirm that black rioters had indeed been shot dead. Some of the blacks were searching for missing relatives.

  The dead men wore work coveralls stained with dried blood. Above the corpses, three black men sawed pine boards to build crude coffins. Sawdust drifted to the floor. A reporter for the News and Observer pushed his way inside:

  On the bare floor stretch six dead negroes. Their stark bodies and staring faces tell the story of the previous day. They were dressed in their working clothes, just as they were shot down on the streets. Around them stood Negro women with sad faces. There were no men present, for the men feared to leave their homes.

  I could but feel pity for these poor, deluded creatures, and a certain amount of honor for them. No doubt they believed they were right … They were no brave men, these leaders of yours who incited you to murder and deeds of lawlessness, and they forsook you in your hour of need.

  Jacobs scheduled an inquest for the morning of November 11, the day after the shootings. When no officials from the new city government appeared, the inquest was rescheduled for 3:00 p.m. Again, no one in authority showed up. The inquest was moved to the courthouse and rescheduled for the following morning, November 12.

  “The coroner is a negro,” the Atlanta Constitution reported. “This fact, perhaps together with the possibility of getting witnesses, prevented the inquest being held.”

  At 9:00 a.m. on Saturday November 12, the inquest was convened at last, inside the courthouse on Princess Street. The bodies of the black men were brought over from the funeral home a block away. A coroner’s jury had been selected—four white supremacists, some of whom may have participated in the killings, and “two leading negroes.”

  The proceedings were brief and perfunctory. Just ten witnesses were called. “Their testimony was couched in profoundly vague terms,” a correspondent for the Charleston News and Courier wrote. White witnesses were able to recall clearly that black men fired first, but they said they could not provide the names of the white men they said returned fire. Though many whites in Wilmington were connected by blood, marriage, or work, the witnesses claimed not to know the killers.

  Dr. Bernice C. Moore, who had telephoned the armory after the first shots were fired, testified that he had seen “two pistol shots fired from the crowd of negroes” at North Fourth Street and Harnett. He said they were aimed at a group of white men who were “standing peaceably.”

  Aaron Lockamy, the white special police officer who had failed to persuade the blacks to disperse, testified that he was walking away from the corner when he heard a volley of shots. He said he did not know who fired them, and he did not go back to find out. (In a court hearing the following April, Lockamy would testify that he saw the white men fire first.)

  Dr. C. D. Bell, a white man, testified that he saw the bodies of two black men in front of Walker’s Store near North Fourth and Harnett, but he did not know their names. In his medical opinion, he said, their deaths were caused by gunshot wounds.

  Dr. J. T. Schonwald, another white physician, testified that he heard one or two pistol shots, then saw “a posse of whites fire a volley” that felled two Negroes. He said he felt for the pulse of each man and determined that they were dead.

  A lone black witness, Mildred Clinton, the sister of the murdered Josh Halsey, confirmed that the body she had been shown was indeed her brother. No one was charged with killing Halsey. (Waddell went to court five days later and charged a black man who had accompanied Halsey with attempted murder for allegedly shooting at whites).

  “For the most part,” the Morning Star told its readers the day after the inquest, testimony had been provided by “good reputable citizens.” Their accounts, the paper said, “prove conclusively that the negroes were the aggressors in the unfortunate affair and that the white men were forced to fire as a matter of protection.”

  It did not take the coroner’s jury long to render a verdict and put a hasty end to the first and only investigation of the killings of November 10: “The said deceased came to their deaths by gunshot wounds inflicted by some person or persons to this jury unknown.”

  For the remainder of Saturday, November 12, the streets were quiet. The last of the Red Shirts had finally gone home. Some had heeded Waddell’s proclamations. Others were weary and needed sleep. Aside from the Light Infantry soldiers and the uniformed men of the Naval Reserves, the only armed men in sight were a few white civilians wearing temporary police badges.

  Colonel Taylor, still operating under martial law, decided that the state militiamen called in from other towns were no longer needed. He sent them home. Then he sent a telegram to Governor Russell, his nominal boss, telling him that the situation in Wilmington was calm: “No probability of further race conflict. Military needed for some days to aid civil authorities in restoring peace and order.”

  Russell turned the matter over to his acting adjutant general, who sent a telegram telling Taylor he could keep the Light Infantry deployed for as long he thought necessary.

  By the next day, November 13, Waddell was convinced that neither the Red Shirts nor the city’s terrorized black community posed any threat of further violence. “I do not think there is any further need for the presence of the military forces in this city,” he told Colonel Taylor. Without consulting the governor, Taylor demobilized the two militia units in Wilmington. The infantrymen and sailors marched back to their barracks to the cheers of white bystanders and the sounds of “Dixie” played by a band.

  The two Secret Nine leaders, Hugh MacRae and J. Allan Taylor, relinquished their command of the city’
s armed citizens, who in any case had already gone home. The board of aldermen then voted to formally install MacRae and Taylor as aldermen.

  With Red Shirts off the streets, Waddell believed he could now persuade “frightened darkies,” as one newspaper described them, to return to the city.

  He dispatched several men he considered “well known negroes” to the woods and the cemetery to relay his assurances. A newly appointed white assistant police chief and several white officers made a separate foray, with little success. Black children ran screaming at the sight of armed white men.

  Waddell was undeterred. If the black families would simply return to their homes, he announced, they would see for themselves that Wilmington’s new white leadership intended to protect them. In his view, the white supremacist coup had made the city safer for both whites and blacks. “I believe the negroes are as much rejoiced as the white people that order has been evolved out of chaos,” he declared.

  Waddell and other white leaders did have one regret: the attack on the Record office had destroyed the building that housed the small newsroom. The structure was owned by “a worthy charitable association of colored women,” one newspaper reported. A group of white businessmen promised to raise money to pay to rebuild it.

  Like Waddell, the editors of the Messenger suggested that the city’s blacks had benefited from the white riot. It was the beginning of a myth that would last a century. “We must hope that by far the greater part of negroes in this city are anxious for the restoration of order and quiet and ‘the old order’—the rule of the white people,” the editors wrote. The Messenger, which proudly proclaimed just after the killings that it was “edited for the White Men,” now expressed sympathy for the cold and hungry families. One headline read : NEGROES WHO FLED TO THE WOODS SUFFERING .