https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Wilmington_vigilantes_B-680×295.jpg
Wilmington, N.C. race riot, 1898: Armed rioters in front of the burned-down “Record” press building – Public Domain
Can a racist coup happen in America? I was in Wilmington, North Carolina on the day the congressional hearings into the events of January 6th began, and to this question I heard a resounding, “Yes.”
“It would be easier for people to understand what could have happened on January 6th in D.C. if they knew what actually happened on November 10th in 1898 in Wilmington,” Cedric Harrison told me.
Harrison leads Black heritage tours around Wilmington. It was on a different scale from January 6th. In 1898, bleeding bodies filled the rivers and the streets. Men drove through residential neighborhoods with guns—including a machine gun—firing bullets. Families ran away and hid in the cemetery and the swamps.
“But a lot of folks will go about their days denying that things like this ever happened,” said Harrision. “It happened, and January 6th is clear proof that the same mindset exists today.”
— source counterpunch.org | Laura Flanders | Jul 21, 2022