They Stole a City: Wilmington's White Supremacist Coup and the Families Who Live with Its Legacy

by Lauren Collins

In this ambitious and groundbreaking history, Lauren Collins weaves together stories of four Wilmington, NC families over 125 years to create a full accounting of the long-term effects of the 1898 white supremacist massacre and coup and its critical role in subverting American democracy

After the Civil War, Reconstruction ushered in an era of political equality and economic opportunity for Black people, and it lasted longer in Wilmington than almost anywhere else. In 1898, Wilmington was a bastion of Black Black cultural life flourished, while a thriving Black middle class brimmed with lawyers, educators, and elected officials. The city became a symbol of Black hope—only for all of it to come to a violent end on November 10th, 1898.

In this epic, multigenerational narrative, Lauren Collins traces the fates of four Wilmington families, the Howes, the Halseys, the Moores, and the Bellamy/MacRaes, all of whom were present on the day when hundreds of white supremacists launched a murderous coup to “take the city.” After issuing a “White Declaration of Independence,”  white men gunned down scores of Black men, chasing their families into hiding. Then they marched to City Hall, where they overthrew the democratically elected, biracial local government at gunpoint in what is thought to be the only successful coup d’état on American soil. No one knows exactly how many Black citizens they murdered—surely dozens, likely hundreds—while driving thousands of survivors out of town. Folklore amongst both Black and white Wilmingtonians holds that the Cape Fear River ran red. While the effects of this episode of racial terrorism would ricochet through the next century of our nation’s history, no one was ever prosecuted or punished, and most of the details have been largely—and deliberately—forgotten.

In collaboration with living descendants of Black and white families, Collins seeks to create a fuller understanding of 1898 than can be drawn solely from the archives. She follows these four families and their descendants through the eras of segregation and Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the Civil Rights movement, and school desegregation, all the way up to the Black Lives Matter and racial justice protests in 2020, emphasizing the lasting and consequential effects of 1898 on the city and people of Wilmington.

Weaving together each generation’s reckoning with their past and how it has imprinted on their present, They Stole a City is an ambitious and revelatory examination of American racial terror as it has played out in one Southern city, written in the conviction that the story of the 1898 Wilmington massacre and coup is, in fact, a story about America in 2025.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Politics, Crime, Social Justice, American History

523 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 14, 2026

Reviews

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read several books about the 1898 Wilmington coup, nonfiction and fiction; this book examines this topic from a different lens. They Stole a City tells what happened in Wilmington through the lives of four families (two Black, two white) beginning in 1775 and ending in 2026. The inclusion of the families makes the narrative more personal. The reader gets to see what happened through the eyes of the families' ancestors and their descendants.

83% of the book covers what happened before and after the coup. I was fascinated with how the residents of Wilmington and the four families kept harkening back to the coup in the succeeding years, especially during very tense points in history such as the civil rights movement/desegregation battles, the Wilmington 10 trial, and the racial justice protests of 2020. Collins also gives special attention to the times that books caused a stir in Wilmington and led to bigger discussions to address the hidden truths about the coup.

I liked how Collins, at times, tied what happened to Wilmington then and now to what was happening nationally; for example, the forms of erasure of the coup that occurred in the early 1900s aligned with the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Dunning School's erasure of the accurate history of Reconstruction, and the current forms of "suppression and erasure" going on today.

This is a great follow-up to Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy

[Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a much better exploration of the 1898 White Supremacist Coup that murdered or ran out of town (and government) Black residents of North Carolina. Unlike 'Wilmington Lies', an earlier book about 1898, this book goes much deeper into what has happened AFTER the event, only about the first quarter of the book is about the November 10th Coup. You can easily see how, inspite of what people say, the Blacks that remained in Wilmington, and their descendents, still feared the White population of Wilmington even if it was only in the back of their mind. Some people whose families were involved from the White side, when asked about reparations or donations to the many projects that have grown around 1898, say 'I wasn't responsible, why should I do or donate anything.' They are clearly not acknowledging that their wealth, their standing is a direct result of what their ancestors did. It is clear that DEI is still needed, in spite of the current political atmosphere that calls it 'woke'.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars plus. This should be required reading for anyone who is interested in American history.

[Turquoise Brennan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topic alone is a 5 and the need for this story to be told in the most accurate way.
Readability was challenging - each sentence was heavy laden with so many historical facts, dates, people that it was just overwhelming to take in one paragraph ....
I wanted this to have a better flow.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
This shocking illegal take-over of a city government and the cold-blooded murder of Black citizens by White Supremascists occurred in 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina. Yet, until I found this book I had never heard of it. Not in any undergraduate or graduate class or my fairly extensive reading of American history! I really make an effort to be informed, but I had learned of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre only a little more than a decade ago. These tragic and violent attacks of White Supremacists on their African-American neighbors had been that successfully removed from our common history.

Books like this one are of vital importance. As citizens we all must know the truth about our nation's past--all of it, not only the sanitized version. I applaud Lauren Collins for her diligent research and the efforts she has made to expose this dark part of Wilmington's history. It should be taught in the schools as part of our nation's past along with our shining moments when we lived up to our potential as truly good people. This is the only way we can continue to "become a more perfect union."

While I am impressed with the detail provided in this book along with the genealogies of the families portrayed, I will admit to getting bogged down at times. The author's style of narrative did not always engage me in spite of a very strong interest in the subject. However, I did begin to perceive significant similarities between the events of 1898 and what we are all experiencing in America today.

At that point the true relevance of knowing a more complete history of our country became clear. I saw echoes of Wilmingon when, horrified, I watched from our home the attempted violent coup at the nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021. And as Lauren Collins began to address similarities of the two awful events, the true significance of her book became crystal clear.

The last few chapters which related our past to our present were revelatory for me. Having completed the book, I took some time to listen again to its introductory chapters. This helped me to better place the numerous members of the four primary Wilmington families whose actions and lives dominated the majority of the text.

I'd like to go back and revisit it all eventually, but even more, I would love to find an accurate, carefully researched historical fiction version of this event. Nonfiction is vital to knowing the facts themselves, but excellent fiction is the true key to empathy...at least for me. Both are indispensable to my best understanding.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a thorough history of the 1898 coup by white supremacists in Wilmington NC that displaced lawfully elected office holders in the city and murdered/banished hundreds of successful Black citizens, you should read David Zucchino's Wilmington's Lie, the 2021 Pulitzer Prize Winner in General Nonfiction. But Collins' new book takes a different direction, looking at the historical record through the stories of a number of Wilmington families, both the powerful white elite and the Black residents who, at that time, were successful across a broad range of professions including elected office. She covers the families, and Wilmington/NC/southern history, from pre-Civil War until the present day. There was a lot of interesting material, but I thought the brief chapter about the current president's Wilmington daughter-in-law was irrelevant and out of place. However, the comparison of the violent coup of 1898 to the January 6 riot at the US Capitol is relevant and should be a caution for all.
I moved to Wilmington in 2002, barely more than 100 years after the white rampage that murdered, banished and disenfranchised Black citizens. But only then was it beginning to be a topic of study and conversation with panel discussions at the university, a documentary film, and finally some inclusion in the school history curriculum. After forcefully achieving the dominance they thought they deserved, the white establishment since 1898 had kept the subject pretty much undiscussed for 100+ years.
For those interested in more current history, the book continues beyond 1898 into Wilmington's long-term inequality of public schools (well beyond the 1954 Supreme Court decision), the famous Wilmington 10 case, and other aspects of race-related history in Wilmington and NC. Collins' approach to the subject does a great job of explaining the impact of inherited wealth, or lack of, that persists for generations upon generations.

[Dawn Michelle]

9.1 - 9.2.2026
DNF@15%
Kindle Fire/NetGalley [NLO]
Scribd Audiobook
Nonfiction/History/Politics - Current Affairs

For such an important book/story [that absolutely needs to be told and remembered], this was the driest, really confusing, and uninspiring book I have tried to read in a long time. Add in the monotone of the narrator [the author narrates; just because you can does not mean you should IMO], and this just became unreadable for me. As this was a book I was really anxious to read [as I had never heard of this massacre before this book], I am very, very, disappointed.

I was invited to read/review this book by the publisher [The Penguin Press/Penguin Press] and I thank them, Lauren Collins and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Roxanne Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very powerful.

[Bob Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another piece of American history I was never taught.

[Michael Duguay · Rating 2 out of 5]

They Stole the City is a very confusing book. The opening section provides a compelling history of a massacre that deserves far more public attention. But then the second half pivots to Donald Trump and January 6th, and that turn feels more like a bid for cable news relevance than a continuation of the story. It comes off as pitching to an MSNBC audience rather than deepening the history. In my view, staying with the original history would have made for a stronger, more coherent book.

[Books Data · Rating 4 out of 5]

They Stole a City: Wilmington's White Supremacist Coup and the Families Who Live with Its Legacy by Lauren Collins is a deeply researched, emotionally powerful exploration of the 1898 white supremacist coup in Wilmington, North Carolina, and the way that violent event has shaped families, politics, and memory for more than a century. Collins begins by bringing readers into the thriving Black-majority port city that Wilmington once was in the late 19th century—a place where Black citizens voted, held office, owned businesses, edited newspapers, and participated actively in civic life. It was an imperfect society still marked by racism, but it was also a rare example of multiracial democracy in the post–Civil War South. Against this backdrop, she traces the systematic effort by white supremacist leaders—Democrats, business elites, and paramilitary groups—to destroy that experiment in democracy. Through speeches, newspaper propaganda, paramilitary organization, and explicit plans, they made clear that they wanted to “redeem” the city and state from Black political power. Collins reconstructs how, on November 10, 1898, these men carried out their plan: they marched on the offices of the Black-owned Daily Record newspaper, burned it to the ground, murdered Black residents in the streets, and forced duly elected local officials—many of them Black or allied with Black voters—to resign at gunpoint. In doing so, they literally stole a city, turning Wilmington overnight from a symbol of Black political possibility into a warning that any challenge to white rule could end in bloodshed.

Rather than treating this coup as a distant, static historical episode, Collins centers its human consequences. She follows several families whose ancestors were directly affected—some descended from the Black residents who fled or were killed, others descended from the white men who staged and benefited from the coup. Much of the book’s power comes from these intertwined narratives. On the Black side, Collins highlights stories of families who lost property, businesses, and homes; who were forced into exile in other states; and who carried the trauma of sudden terror and displacement across generations. She shows how the coup severed economic opportunity: land and houses were abandoned under duress, positions and careers vanished, and the wealth and political influence that might have been passed down were replaced by silence, fear, and often poverty. On the white side, she illustrates how many descendants grew up with a very different story—or no story at all. For some, the coup was long framed in family lore as a “riot” or a defense of order and civilization; for others, it was barely mentioned, an absence that itself speaks volumes about how injustice can be hidden in plain sight. Collins carefully captures the discomfort, denial, and gradual awakening of white descendants as they confront the reality that their ancestors participated in or profited from an organized campaign of racial terror.

The book devotes substantial attention to the machinery of propaganda and myth that followed the violence. Collins shows how white supremacist leaders, journalists, and politicians quickly rewrote the story of November 1898 to justify their actions and normalize the regime that followed. The event was mislabeled a “race riot,” as if chaos had erupted spontaneously, rather than a planned coup against a legally elected government. Textbooks, official histories, and local commemorations echoed this false narrative for decades, presenting white participants as heroes and erasing Black experiences. Collins underscores that this rewriting wasn’t just symbolic—it had concrete effects. By recording the coup as a justified response rather than a crime, officials avoided accountability, preserved the political power structure that arose from the violence, and created a civic memory that made it difficult for later generations to recognize the injustice. In this sense, the book argues, the coup succeeded twice: first in bodies and bullets, and later in words and silence.

Collins also places Wilmington within the broader context of American history, showing that the 1898 coup was not an isolated incident but part of a larger backlash against Reconstruction and Black political participation. She draws connections to efforts across the South to roll back voting rights through terror, legal suppression, and constitutional changes, including poll taxes, literacy tests, and Jim Crow segregation. In Wilmington, the coup served as both symbol and model: after white supremacists seized control locally, they used their newfound power to push statewide policies that disenfranchised Black citizens for generations. Collins argues that understanding Wilmington is crucial to understanding how American democracy itself was undermined, not just by individual acts of racism but by organized political movements that treated white supremacy as a legitimate governing principle. She shows how the legacy of those decisions can be traced into present-day fights over voting rights, policing, education, and monuments.

At the heart of the narrative are the emotional journeys of the families Collins profiles. She spends time with descendants who are only now piecing together their own histories thanks to archives, oral stories, and recent scholarship. Some Black descendants are engaged in efforts to reclaim or document stolen property, to honor ancestors whose names were omitted from official accounts, or to educate their children about both the pain and resilience in their family tree. The book describes the complexity of navigating a legacy that holds both pride—ancestors who built lives and institutions under difficult conditions—and profound loss, knowing that a city that once belonged to them politically and culturally was violently taken away. On the white side, Collins explores how descendants grapple emotionally with inherited privilege, inherited narratives, and the question of responsibility. Some feel deep shame and seek ways to support reparative work; others struggle with defensiveness or a desire to separate themselves from what their ancestors did. Collins doesn’t flatten these experiences into simple moral categories; instead, she portrays them as ongoing, often uncomfortable processes of learning and reckoning.

Throughout the book, Collins writes with a balance of journalistic clarity and literary sensitivity. She reconstructs scenes from 1898 using historical documents, eyewitness accounts, and contemporary reports, but she also slows down to capture the sensory and emotional dimensions of the people involved—what it meant to hear gunfire on a street where one’s children walked, to see smoke from a newspaper office that had symbolized Black voice and dignity, to leave home with only what could be carried, not knowing if it could ever be reclaimed. In the present day, she sits in living rooms, attends community events, and joins descendants as they visit historical sites and memorials. Through these moments, she shows how history lives not only in archives but in bodies, conversations, and family dynamics. The city of Wilmington itself becomes a character: its streets, parks, waterfront, and neighborhoods quietly carry the visible and invisible markers of where violence occurred and where power shifted.

Collins also addresses the question of what repair might look like. While the book does not offer easy solutions or claim that any set of policies could fully undo the harm, it highlights possibilities: public acknowledgment of the coup as a coup, not a riot; inclusive memorials that center Black experiences; research that maps and values stolen or abandoned property; educational efforts that replace propaganda with honest history; and community dialogues that give space to grief, anger, and hope. She emphasizes that reckoning is not a single event but a continuous practice, one that requires both Black and white residents—and, more broadly, Americans—to confront the ways that racial violence and political theft remain embedded in structures that still shape who has power, who has wealth, and whose stories are believed.

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are only so many books that come along that leave you wondering, "How on Earth did I never hear about this event before?" The Stole a City by Lauren Collins is the story of the 1898 Wilmington, N.C. race massacre. You know, the one where a bunch of white supremacists killed a bunch of people (we still don't know how many), expelled the legitimately elected government, and took over. The country shrugged. A coup was conducted post-Civil War, and seemingly no one cared.

Collins tells the story of four families intimately involved in the massacre. She follows them from right before the massacre through today. Along the way, Collins looks at the social structure of Wilmington and how it went from a shining example of race power-sharing to a KKK member's dream.

I have a not insignificant criticism for Collins' narrative, but it is way more important to cover the great parts first. The beginning 90% of the book is absolutely riveting. Collins makes her characters so memorable that she scarcely needs to remind the reader who is who. Her choices on where to focus the story are exceptional. This is a deeply researched book which is heavy at times but never feels like a slog. I was reaching the final section of chapters and thought this book was near perfection.

Unfortunately, Collins does not stick the landing, but not fatally. Earlier in the book, she makes word choices which can be a bit charged. It certainly doesn't bother me when talking about murdering racists. However, when she gets to contemporary times, her word choices start to pull the reader out of the narrative into today's morass of partisan politics. The most egregious choice is to have a chapter focused entirely on the January 6th riot in Washington, D.C. Every single chapter before and after has direct ties to Wilmington and its people. This is the only one that does not. While I can see the tenuous connection to today's racism, it felt like a reach and more about the author wanting to discuss it rather than a solid storytelling choice. There are other lines here and there which further distract from the main thesis in this manner, but they are not numerous.

For those who read my reviews, I am loathe to deal with contemporary politics when not necessary. That said, even if my criticism above makes you wary, I still urge you to read this book. While Collins' choices at the end of this book made me scratch my head, everything else around it is so exceptional that I can't help but highly recommend it. What happened in 1898 is too important to continue to be overlooked, and Collins wrote a book that demands to be read.

(This book was provided as an advanced reader copy by Penguin Press.)

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book details the events of a white supremacist massacre and coup in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898--an event that, like the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 in Oklahoma, deserves to be much more widely known and taught, especially in this day (2026) when white supremacy seems to be again on the ascendant even after the gains of the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter movements and when leaders are suppressing any mention of slavery or discrimination against minority groups in educational settings. But this ugly pattern of progress, then backlash, can be seen throughout American history. The author skillfully writes of the events leading to the Wilmington massacre. She does not, however, describe much about the Fusion (that is, Reconstructionist) government that had been elected in Wilmington and which the organizers of the massacre overthrew in what can only be described as a coup. The book also traces the effects of the 1898 events in the lives of the people affected and in the city of Wilmington to the present day. Outrageously, the city is still asking permission of the descendants of the massacre leaders to rename schools, parks, and the like after someone or something other than their murderous forebears. More outrageously, some of them are still justifying their ancestors' actions by calling them "men of their times," when conspiracy, theft, and murder--and profiting thereby--have been wrong since the days of Cain and Abel. Lauren Collins is an excellent writer.

[Maliika Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read about horrific race riots like Tulsa, but this was my first time learning about Wilmington, North Carolina, in November of 1898. I was so angry reading this, but it’s vital history that people need to know. Lauren Collins delivers an eye-opening account of how systemic oppression is crippling to the people impacted. I kept thinking about the Fusion candidates and the allied Black and white families whose lives were shattered by this violence. The book does an incredible job detailing the buildup to the massacre and tracking its painful, lingering impact over the decades.

The author also connects this dark historical period to our current administration and the events of January 6th. While those two events are simply not the same, reading this book made me appreciate the history shared here so much more, and it is a reminder that we must never forget the terror and murder that happened to these people. Black banks, businesses were destroyed and their families were impacted forever!

Ultimately, this book is an absolute must-read. It exposes an unfiltered truth about American history that has been buried for far too long, and it forces us to confront how the past still shapes our world today. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc!

[Duane Nickell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a big disappointment. I thought I was going to read an account of the racial coup that took place in Wilmington, N.C. in 1898. Instead, I read a lot of Wilmington history and history about some prominent Wilmington families. The book is divided into four parts - the shortest part deals directly with the coup. That section is about 60 pages out of 408 page book. Maybe there wasn't enough material on the coup to fill a book, but the author and the publisher should have been honest about it. Ah, but the goal is not to be honest with the reader, but to sell books and make money. The title misleads the reader into thinking they're going to read about how "They Stole a City," but most of the book is about the part of the subtitle that says: "and the Families Who Live with Its Legacy." To me, the most interesting part of the book (and there were some interesting parts) wasn't even about the coup, but rather about the attempts to desegregate the schools. Also, I just didn't think the writing was all that great - too choppy - it didn't flow. I ran out and bought this book immediately after it came out because I was interested in learning more about the coup. What a letdown!

[Dimitri Chacharone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Learned a lot here — I'd honestly never heard of the Wilmington race riots before this, so as an entry point into that history it did its job. That said, going in with zero background made some stretches drag; I was often playing catch-up rather than getting pulled along.

Part of the slowness for me was personal — I have no real connection to Wilmington, so a lot of the local color didn't land. But there's a more interesting thread buried in here: the book seems to be laying groundwork to eventually trace these families forward, from the fire up through today. I can see where it's headed — the way white descendants misremember or soften this history because the myth is just more comfortable to live with. If Wright Thompson had written this, that's the thesis he'd have built the whole thing around. Here it feels more implied than argued, which is probably why it reads as a slower, quieter book than it could've been.

Worth reading for the history alone. Just don't expect the emotional throughline to fully arrive.

[Bill P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compulsively readable history and current events commentary that revolves around the 1898 murders and destruction that took place in Wilmington, NC when the white citizens of the city took revenge for Reconstruction on the black populace. At the time, thanks for to the post-Civil War Reconstruction policies of the federal government, many black citizens had established successful businesses and professions in the city and were active members of some seniority in the city and county government. Tracing the lives of four families, two black and two white, Collins presents the story of the November 1898 event and its generational impacts and brings the reader up thru the years into present day. With the 2026 Supreme Court ruling that allowed southern states to wipe out black majority districts for voting, "The Wilmington Way" of insuring that white supremacy continues to win out over racial equality makes this story of what lead up to and after the 1898 massacre of black citizens in Wilmington all the more resonate today.

[Frank Thomson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be closer to a 4.25 if fractional stars were a thing. An essential read for anyone looking for the history they were denied going to school in the 1980's. I liked that the author told parts of the story through the lens of descendants, both those whose ancestors were victims and those who were perpetrators. It gave a personalized feel to much of the historical context, but sometimes clouded the narrative with extraneous and tangential details.

The inclusion of modern perspectives and a detailed analysis of the legacy of the massacre/coup enhances the potential impact of the book. At first glance, a detailed history of race relations in Wilmington may seem like an undertaking beyond the scope of the book's focus. However, the author does an excellent job of connecting elements of Wilmington's post-1900 history to threads that stem from 1898. The book seems to be thoroughly researched and benefits from an author that lived parts of the history in the city of her upbringing.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a well written book! At times I found it so hard to read as I was boiling over with anger and shock! I lived 30 miles south of Wilmington, NC in 2006-2021 and never heard anything about these events on the TV (I don’t read physical newspapers), I guess this secret was being closely guarded. Before I started this book my hope was that it would keep me interested and wanting to read it - it did. I’m glad that someone took the time and made the effort to write such a thorough accounting of what happened on November 10, 1898. Events like this never need to be ignored and hidden; they need to be brought out into the open and laid open for everyone to see and hear about them. I’m glad that names were named and that the perpetrators didn’t go unidentified as it was bad enough that they were never held to account for their crimes.

[Raven · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging and informative read!

Having grown up in a neighboring county of New Hanover, my first time learning about the Wilmington Coup was in my freshman history class at UNCW. It was a small introduction and really only touched the surface, but I was so intrigued by this huge part of local history that had essentially been forgotten, even though it was of national significance.

I think Collins’ does a fantastic job of weaving together past and present to illustrate how history is always ever reaching, touching on the parallels and similarities of our current political climate. This is certainly a must read.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had never heard of the Wilmington massacre of 1898. I can say that no more.

Collins does a masterful job of tracking the lead up to the massacre and the 128 years of impact later through two white and two black families.

She weaves in pertinent national history as she examines the impact that a bleak November day had on a community and the families that played an outsider role in the events of 1898.

From the Civil War, to the 1968 riots and the Wilmington 10, to the talk of reparations and the challenges of a new era of increasingly fragile relationships between black and white communities, Collins' work deserves a place next to Isabel Wilkersons words, Caste and Warnth if Other Suns.

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, well researched and organized, nonfiction book about a shameful event in US history I hadn't known about -- as well as what led up to it and the fallout from it. Collins chooses to follow four families, two Black and two white, who lived in Wilmington, NC, at the time of the coup in 1898, some of whom still live there today.

Unfortunately, I did sometimes feel bogged down in detail, particularly about Wilmington's history, leading some parts of the book to feel like a slog.

The audiobook narrator, Emma Ladji, was OK.

[Maria Odijk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heel interessant: een stukje Amerikaanse geschiedenis waarover ik nog niets had gelezen. De schrijfster laat aan de hand van 4 familiegeschiedenissen weten wat er destijds in 1898 gebeurd is, maar vooral ook hoe dat doorwerkt tot in onze tijd.
Wel goed geschreven, maar voor mij mist er iets. De personen raken je niet echt zoals b.v. wel in de boeken van Isabel Wilkerson. Hoe dan ook is dit boek zeker een belangrijke aanvulling van de literatuur over de segregatie, reconstructie en de daarop volgende terugval.

[Dan Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently saw a national news broadcast highlighting this story and thought it sounded like something I need to know more about. I was quite interested throughout but found it a bit challenging to keep track of who was who. The author does provide family trees at the beginning of the book and I should have used them. Failing to do that I lost track several times. The only drawback I found with the entire book was that, since the author is a journalist, she does give her own slant on solutions which I don't necessarily agree with. Otherwise, well worth the read.

[Alissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a child born and educated in Wilmington - like so many others - who knew nothing of this massacre until adulthood, I am always grateful to see new scholarship on this topic. The author's care in tying history to present conditions for descendants of the massacre make this a particularly noteworthy document. Even the Philly Deli makes an appearance. Excellent work, which gives me hope more will eventually come to light in my lifetime.

[Christopher Gould · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very ambitious, taking in the entirety of the history of Wilmington, NC to the present day - but it’s even more ambitious than that, because it’s basically a story about the history of white supremacist ideology and behavior in America to the present day. Yet, at the same time, the book manages to be specific and even personally intimate with the individual characters in the history. Really well-done book! Highly recommended!

[Ken Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it possible to rate something as higher than ‘Five Stars’? This amazing history of Wilmington, NC, ranks with Isabel Wilkerson’s masterpieces in capturing not only where we have been, but just how far we have yet to go to finally come to grips with our tarnished history of race relations, particularly in the Trump era. It should certainly be required reading in classrooms in NC, regardless of white opposition. It should definitely be one of the top reads for 2026.

[Dorothy Hutchinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling account and deep portrayal of the event itself and the lingering historical ripples of impact leading into the present day. Easy to read and should be included in every U.S. Highschool History class curriculum. Inspires thought about what being a more perfect society means and what actions could we take as a united community to advance ourselves along that path.

[Nancy Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely magnificent history of Wilmington, NC's, 1898 massacre; what preceded it, and the rampant racism that has continued ever since. Outstanding. Not an easy read but totally worth it - on a level with Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns. Deserves the NBA, a Pulitzer, you name it. Should be required reading in Wilmington, in North Carolina, in....everywhere.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wilmington massacre of 1898 actually takes up very little of this 40-page book. Instead it follows four families - black and white - prior to, during and after those events and makes the case quite convincingly, that the elements and attitudes which brought about the bloodshed 128 years ago, are with us today. Bigotry remains - overt and subtle - and must be opposed.