Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky. As a rule,
Speaker 1: people are afraid of change. With change comes uncertainty, of
Speaker 1: feeling that life is out of control. As creatures of habit,
Speaker 1: the status quo feels safer, and there are often consequences
Speaker 1: from prior actions to consider. It's easy to see that
Speaker 1: fear can be a strong motivator. Such was the case
Speaker 1: in Louisiana in eighteen seventy two. Like the rest of
Speaker 1: the South, the end of the Civil War brought economic, social,
Speaker 1: and political changes known as the Reconstruction Era. White Southerners
Speaker 1: struggled to adjust to life that didn't include slavery or
Speaker 1: Confederates shion. As the nation's political powers began to shift,
Speaker 1: some felt that elections were their only voice. Eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: two was also the year the gubernatorial election in Louisiana
Speaker 1: pitted lawyer and conservative Democrat John mcgennery against Republican Senator
Speaker 1: William Kellogg. Before election day, rumors of intended voter fraud
Speaker 1: began to circulate, adding to the turmoil and resentment. It
Speaker 1: came as no surprise then, that when mckennery was declared
Speaker 1: the winner. Republicans contested the accuracy of the ballots and
Speaker 1: filed a complaint. Federal court decided in the Republican's favor
Speaker 1: and reversed the election results, putting Kellogg in power, and
Speaker 1: some members of the public thought the federal government had
Speaker 1: not only interfered, they had dismissed the will of the voters.
Speaker 1: Back then, the Republican Party was considered liberal, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't particularly popular with the conservative segments of the South.
Speaker 1: Lincoln had been a Republican after all, and Kellogg's political
Speaker 1: base was primarily black, which didn't go over well with
Speaker 1: some Louisiana's population, who harbored resentment from being on a
Speaker 1: losing end of the war. In an attempt to keep
Speaker 1: some sense of control, the Democrats ignored the Republican victory
Speaker 1: and established a shadow government. In January of eighteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: mcgennery called upon the volunteer militia to attack the Metropolitan
Speaker 1: Police and overthrow Kellogg's government by force. When the coup failed,
Speaker 1: the police broke up the shadow government, though no arrests
Speaker 1: were made and mcgennery went unpunished. With Kellogg's enforcement of
Speaker 1: civil rights legislation. Some white people in the South harbored
Speaker 1: of fear that black people would soon retaliate and dominate
Speaker 1: their way of life. The White League formed and assembled
Speaker 1: enough men to defeat the state militia and the Metropolitan Police.
Speaker 1: The group released propaganda playing on citizens fears regarding the
Speaker 1: state's direction. A call for volunteers to rise up began
Speaker 1: in Earnest, and fi hundred men, many of whom were
Speaker 1: bitter soldiers from the war, signed up. Others who had
Speaker 1: been raised to believe in the tyranny of the federal
Speaker 1: government also joined. Word leaked to the Metropolitan Police that
Speaker 1: the League planned on receiving a large shipment of arms
Speaker 1: on September four of eighteen seventy four. A confrontation was
Speaker 1: brewing at the worst possible time, during an outbreak of
Speaker 1: yellow fever. On September, the League announced a meeting of
Speaker 1: the people at the intersections of Royal and Canal Streets
Speaker 1: and Saint Charles Avenue. Five thousand people showed up, each
Speaker 1: chanting and calling for Kellogg's resignation. Kellogg refused. The White
Speaker 1: League promptly severed the telegraph lines. The mob headed downtown,
Speaker 1: where they clashed with the Metropolitan Police. Within fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: the League had control of the city. Eighteen people were
Speaker 1: dead and countless others injured. With the city overtaken, the
Speaker 1: League set up their own government, with the risk of
Speaker 1: yellow fever looming. The federal government arrived soon after and
Speaker 1: reinstated Kellogg as governor. Despite the second coup's failure, the
Speaker 1: White League had done what they had set out to accomplish.
Speaker 1: The Metropolitan Police force was shattered, and national opinion on
Speaker 1: Kellogg was split. Federal government was the only thing keeping
Speaker 1: him in power. But this conflict wasn't the first attempted
Speaker 1: coup on American soil, and sadly it wouldn't be the last.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Bogelbaum. Welcome to American Shadows. The port city
Speaker 1: along the Cape Fear River had seemingly adjusted to life
Speaker 1: after the Civil War. Are Many emuncipated people found the
Speaker 1: town of Wilmington, North Carolina, a good place to call home.
Speaker 1: They set up shops alongside wide owned businesses, purchased fine
Speaker 1: homes with lace curtains and pianos, and some were wealthy
Speaker 1: enough to have servants. They found jobs as health inspectors
Speaker 1: and sorted and delivered mail alongside white female clerks. All
Speaker 1: but one of the city's restaurants were black. Owned of
Speaker 1: the barbers were black, and so were thirty percent of
Speaker 1: the skilled laborers. The black police officers could arrest white people.
Speaker 1: The jailer corner and county treasurer were black. President Benjamin
Speaker 1: Harrison appointed John C. Darcy, a black Republican, as the
Speaker 1: federal customs collector for the port of Wilmington's African American
Speaker 1: holidays were celebrated without fear of retaliation. The city had
Speaker 1: one of the highest literacy rates among black people in
Speaker 1: the state, while almost a quarter of the state's white
Speaker 1: population was still illiterate. In eighteen black and white people
Speaker 1: alike packed the Opera House side by side to hear poetry,
Speaker 1: listened to choirs, and hear Patrick Henry's speech on liberty
Speaker 1: and Death. That's not to say racism didn't exist. It did,
Speaker 1: but Wilmington had a reputation of being one of the
Speaker 1: most progressive cities for its time when it came to race.
Speaker 1: Alexander Manley was a North Carolina native. Those who passed
Speaker 1: him on the street probably assumed he was white, but
Speaker 1: alex Manly had both white and black family. His grandmother
Speaker 1: had been an enslaved woman the property of his grandfather,
Speaker 1: the former state governor Charles Manly. Charles had released all
Speaker 1: his children from slavery and granted them farmland and farming equipment.
Speaker 1: According to the eight nine census, Alex grew up in
Speaker 1: a successful working class household. He attended the Hampton Normal
Speaker 1: and Agriculture Institute in Virginia. When he returned home, though,
Speaker 1: finding work in his hometown of Rally proved difficult, so
Speaker 1: he moved to Wilmington's. There he found social, political, and
Speaker 1: economic prospects more to his liking. Instead of becoming a laborer,
Speaker 1: he set up the city's only black newspaper, called The
Speaker 1: Daily Record. By the mid eighteen nineties, Alex Manly dove
Speaker 1: into the political foray, writing articles that challenged white power structures,
Speaker 1: and for some the paper posed note threat. It even
Speaker 1: had plenty of white advertisers who called Manly a friend.
Speaker 1: By the lady eighteen nineties, the Daily Record had become
Speaker 1: immensely popular. Manly was appointed to Deputy Register of Deeds
Speaker 1: and he taught Sunday school. He had even fallen in
Speaker 1: love and was set to marry for Manly. Life was
Speaker 1: good right up until August of eight. That's when one
Speaker 1: Rebecca Latimer felt In, a prominent societal woman who believed
Speaker 1: in prison reform, women's suffrage, and white supremacy, gave a
Speaker 1: speech on lynching as a form of punishment for black
Speaker 1: men who assaulted white women. She also insisted that giving
Speaker 1: black men the right to vote led directly to these assaults,
Speaker 1: and the Conservative Democratic Party delighted in her speech and
Speaker 1: in newspapers printing it. They knew that small fires often grow.
Speaker 1: Her words helped fuel fear among the ill informed white
Speaker 1: population and furthered their political agenda to reduce black rights
Speaker 1: and equality. We won't go into all of what felt
Speaker 1: in speech entailed, but it's safe to say that it
Speaker 1: did not sit well with Alex Manly. He debated, posting
Speaker 1: his response, and, deciding it was worth the risk, fired
Speaker 1: back with an editorial in his own paper. In it,
Speaker 1: he called out Felton's and other white writers and speakers
Speaker 1: racist pretense that only black men, or based on the
Speaker 1: guilt of a few, all black men, are criminals who
Speaker 1: commit assault. He turned her own words against her, agreeing
Speaker 1: with Felton that women should receive better educations in order
Speaker 1: to prevent abuse, and that white women should in general
Speaker 1: be better treated by white men, cannily pointing out not
Speaker 1: just Felton's racism, but her sexist placement of white women
Speaker 1: as white men's property. And he addressed the larger cultural
Speaker 1: discourse about interracial relationships, asserting the reality that white women
Speaker 1: sometimes fall in love with black men. In the end,
Speaker 1: his response was a lengthy and biding one, and the
Speaker 1: city had never read anything like it. Democratic Party Chairman
Speaker 1: Furnifold Simmons, who had been placed in charge of developing
Speaker 1: a campaign strategy for North Carolina's election, saw an opportunity
Speaker 1: to return power to the Democrats. He'd use the easiest
Speaker 1: method possible, fear. He'd use Manly's response to seed discord
Speaker 1: among the population about a potential black uprising. Since the
Speaker 1: Republican Party had several black leaders, kindling a racial divide
Speaker 1: would mean more votes for the predominantly white Democrats. Simmons
Speaker 1: recruited media outlets sympathetic to his cause. Then he hired
Speaker 1: speakers to spread rumors, fear, and misconceptions. One of those
Speaker 1: men was Alfred Waddell, a former congressman and die hard
Speaker 1: white supremacist adept at inciting racism, shaming so called race traders,
Speaker 1: and painting the Republicans as liberals set out to destroy
Speaker 1: white citizen's way of life. Waddell had a long reputation
Speaker 1: for being combative and power hungry. During the Civil War,
Speaker 1: he became part of the white Resistance, and while serving
Speaker 1: as Congressman, he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Speaker 1: He had grown up wealthy, wanting for nothing. His family
Speaker 1: hadn't been a stranger to politics either. His grandfather had
Speaker 1: been a U. S. Supreme Court justice. Though Waddell had
Speaker 1: once been in the political limelight as a lawyer, historian,
Speaker 1: and public speaker, had long faded had long since faded
Speaker 1: from the public eye. Simmons offer had put him back
Speaker 1: into the spotlight, and Waddell wasted no opportunity to speak.
Speaker 1: As the election approached, he employed a group known as
Speaker 1: the White Government Union, who began demanding that every white
Speaker 1: man in Wilmington join any method would do, shame, fear,
Speaker 1: and even bullying those who befriended or stood alongside the
Speaker 1: black population. Under the beliefs that the Fusionist Republican political
Speaker 1: party reforms had been fixed and that the laws favored
Speaker 1: black people over white people. Nine men banded together, known
Speaker 1: as the Secret Nine. They began to work closely with
Speaker 1: Waddell to present the black community is insolent and disrespectful.
Speaker 1: The Republican Party, due to their sympathy with the black community,
Speaker 1: was effectively painted in the same light. That August, the
Speaker 1: atmosphere in the city shifted and tension grew as thick
Speaker 1: as the humidity. Neighbors, once friendly, began to look at
Speaker 1: each other differently. Manly fully expected a backlash from his
Speaker 1: rebuttal to Felton little came. Although he could feel a
Speaker 1: storm brewing, everyone could. What they didn't know was just
Speaker 1: how catastrophic it would be. The Winchester Repeating Arms Company
Speaker 1: in New Jersey received a couple of alarming requests. In
Speaker 1: mid September. Two men in Wilmington's placed an order for
Speaker 1: dozens of sixteen shot pistols. The company manager had read
Speaker 1: the headlines about the upcoming election. Given the party tactics
Speaker 1: and placement in the South, he figured a race war
Speaker 1: was brewing. He refused to fulfill the orders and promptly
Speaker 1: contacted the Rally newspaper. Unfortunately, the paper saw a headline
Speaker 1: grabbing story and printed the company's concern as proof that
Speaker 1: black men were buying guns and planning and uprising against
Speaker 1: the white community. The odd thing, though the manager never
Speaker 1: revealed who the would be customers were. A month later,
Speaker 1: Democrats held a rally in Fayetteville. Among the attendees were
Speaker 1: three hundred Red Shirts, a paramilitary supremacist group that openly
Speaker 1: engaged in acts of violence to keep the Democrats in power.
Speaker 1: One of their tactics was to show up at the
Speaker 1: polls wearing red shirts to intimidate black men and white
Speaker 1: Republicans from voting. One of the speakers openly chastised white
Speaker 1: men in North Carolina for not burning down family's paper
Speaker 1: and lynching him. Four days later, Waddell followed up with
Speaker 1: his own speech on white supremacy, stating that race was
Speaker 1: the most important issue in the upcoming election. His rallying
Speaker 1: cry was that the white men would never surrender to
Speaker 1: black authority, even if they had to fill the Cape
Speaker 1: Fear River with bodies to maintain their freedom. The rallies
Speaker 1: became nothing short of brimstone and fire at a fever
Speaker 1: pitch calling for white people to stand up against the
Speaker 1: black community. Within days, late night attacks began as men
Speaker 1: raided the homes of black people and white sympathizers, ostensibly
Speaker 1: looking first dashes of weapons. Governor Russell ordered an immediate
Speaker 1: cease of the raids and attacks instead of a decrease
Speaker 1: in crimes. The call for peace incensed the Red Shirts
Speaker 1: and other groups like them, spurring a fresh wave of violence.
Speaker 1: Continuing to fan the flames, Simmons spoke before a large crowd,
Speaker 1: telling them that Alexander Manley's letter was instigating black men
Speaker 1: to rise up, and that he had insulted the purity
Speaker 1: of white women and must be dealt with. The crowd
Speaker 1: chanted lynch him. Simmons assigned twenty five Red Shirt members
Speaker 1: to be observers at the polls. Their job was to
Speaker 1: strong arm all white men to vote Democrat and prevent
Speaker 1: black men from voting at all. Later, they planned to
Speaker 1: remove Republican ballots and replace them with votes for the Democrats.
Speaker 1: Waddell continued to speak at rallies, shouting that white men
Speaker 1: should be armed and ready to do their duty in
Speaker 1: preventing the black vote by force if necessary. Simmons authorized
Speaker 1: him to select a group of twenty five citizens, two
Speaker 1: of whom were reverends to assist in getting the word out,
Speaker 1: called the Committee of twenty five. They knew that the
Speaker 1: more people who repeated their rhetoric, the more believable that
Speaker 1: rhetoric would become. By now, so much of the city
Speaker 1: had lost sight of the real issues behind the democrats
Speaker 1: agenda for tax laws, stockholder shares, and shifting railroad regulations
Speaker 1: that it was difficult for those with holdings to capitalize
Speaker 1: on them, but making race the only issue was the
Speaker 1: easiest path to victory at the Poles. November eighth election
Speaker 1: day started sunny and clear. When the polls opened at
Speaker 1: seven a m. Anxious voters were already waiting. Of the
Speaker 1: one thousand, four hundred and nineteen registered black voters, eight
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty went to the Poles. To avoid tensions
Speaker 1: that might very well build throughout the day, people voted
Speaker 1: early and promptly went home. The Red Shirts, however, walked
Speaker 1: the streets carrying firearms and kerosene as means to intimidate.
Speaker 1: Black men. Weren't the only ones targeted. The Red Shirts
Speaker 1: were after black sympathizers statewide. White and black voters, having
Speaker 1: been convinced trouble would surely start at the polls, carried
Speaker 1: weapons just in case, and rally Republican Governor Daniel Lindsay
Speaker 1: Russell received numerous death threats for him, voting day required
Speaker 1: both preparation and protection. He took the train to Wilmington's,
Speaker 1: telling a waiting reporter that he realized voting might just
Speaker 1: get him killed. Two men accompanied Russell, one of whom
Speaker 1: was a commander in the Wilmington Light Infantry, and despite
Speaker 1: the bodyguards, the governor became the target of taunts. Someone
Speaker 1: in the jeering crowd asked him what he thought about
Speaker 1: the anticipated violence from the black community. All wrought, he replied,
Speaker 1: his return trip proved to be more perilous. They had
Speaker 1: been informed that Red Shirt's plan to intercept him on
Speaker 1: one of the train stops, so he took a different route.
Speaker 1: It didn't work, though, and the group caught up with
Speaker 1: them just north of Wilmington's. He remained jovial and the
Speaker 1: terrorists let him go. At the next stop, another group
Speaker 1: of Red Shirts wasn't as accommodating. They stormed the train,
Speaker 1: loudly calling for the governor and threatening to lynch him.
Speaker 1: Like the black men he supported, Russell took refuge in
Speaker 1: the baggage car until the men left. His trip to
Speaker 1: the governor's mansion was equally difficult. Extra bodyguards and authorities
Speaker 1: had to escort him past a mob calling for his execution.
Speaker 1: Guards stood outside his home until the mob disbanded. Yet,
Speaker 1: despite the propaganda, there had been no shootings, no uprising.
Speaker 1: People sighed in relief, thinking that now with voting over,
Speaker 1: tensions would die down. Around nine p m. A hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty men surrounded the voting precinct. Some forced their
Speaker 1: way inside, shoving the policeman on guard into a water
Speaker 1: barrel while holding the vote counters at gunpoint. Men stuffed
Speaker 1: Democratic ballots into the ballot box. Two Democratic precinct judges
Speaker 1: and a populous Democrat sat and took over counting the
Speaker 1: votes as though nothing had happened. The scenario played out
Speaker 1: in other precincts throughout the city, finally announcing the conservative
Speaker 1: Democrats had swept the state in every single office that
Speaker 1: had been up for election. The newly elected officials immediately
Speaker 1: began the work of restoring only white men to appointed offices.
Speaker 1: The next morning, the Wilmington's paper published an article calling
Speaker 1: for all white men to show up at the courthouse
Speaker 1: at eleven am, many citizens, especially those in the black community,
Speaker 1: realized that the trouble was far from over. In fact,
Speaker 1: the worst was yet to come. The newspaper reporter had
Speaker 1: never seen so many people gathered at the court house.
Speaker 1: People jockeyed for a place to stand. Democratic stump speaker
Speaker 1: Alfred Waddell stood before the crowd and delivered a lengthy speech.
Speaker 1: He warned that the black man was still planning to
Speaker 1: overtake the city. He argued that the United States Constitution
Speaker 1: had envisioned a government of enlightened men, and it would
Speaker 1: not stand for the inclusion of an inferior race. They
Speaker 1: must act now, he said. He put forth seven resolutions
Speaker 1: that would prevent an imminent attack from the black community.
Speaker 1: White people would no longer be ruled by black people,
Speaker 1: he said, and only unscrupulous white men would associate with them.
Speaker 1: He said that the black community was antagonistic and incapable
Speaker 1: of putting the community's interests first. Therefore, he continued to
Speaker 1: rant the majority of jobs held by black men were
Speaker 1: to be turned over to white men. But he didn't
Speaker 1: stop there. He said that the Daily Record was to
Speaker 1: cease immediately, that the printing press must be shipped out
Speaker 1: of the city. Alex Manly should also be forever banished
Speaker 1: from the city for publishing such a vile and slanderous
Speaker 1: article against their white women. Slyly he seated the idea
Speaker 1: that in any other proper city, Manly would have already
Speaker 1: been lynched. The speech had been designed to incite fear
Speaker 1: and hate, and it worked. The crowd began to call
Speaker 1: for Manly's death. Appearing to show compassion, Waddell told them
Speaker 1: that the paper editor had twenty four hours to obey
Speaker 1: if he dismantled the press and left the city. Waddell
Speaker 1: said that white men should show some restraint. Having convinced
Speaker 1: the white men that their black neighbors posed a threat
Speaker 1: to their safety and livelihoods, Waddell presented his proclamation to
Speaker 1: sign men added their names. While crowds gathered outside the
Speaker 1: court house. One of Manly's white friends arrived at the
Speaker 1: paper and told him what had just happened. Since Manly
Speaker 1: passed for white, his friends supplied him with the money
Speaker 1: and passwords needed to get past the red Shirts guarding
Speaker 1: roots in and out of the city. Manly easily passed
Speaker 1: the checkpoints. One red shirt even invited him to the
Speaker 1: lynching they had planned for. The No Good newspaper owner,
Speaker 1: Waddell and Simmons drew up a list of names of
Speaker 1: non white leaders to inform them of the proclamation, including
Speaker 1: one Native American. All told, there were seven names left
Speaker 1: off the list had been Federal customs collector John Darcy
Speaker 1: and his deputy. Waddell, Simmons, and the other organizers knew
Speaker 1: that including them might bring federal investigation. Armed Red Shirts
Speaker 1: were sent to inform the rest of the men on
Speaker 1: the list that they had until six p m. To
Speaker 1: show up at the court house. When they arrived, Waddell
Speaker 1: read the proclamation. They sat and stunned silence as he
Speaker 1: informed them that they had until seven and thirty the
Speaker 1: following morning to give him their response in writing. What
Speaker 1: he didn't tell them was that he planned on reading
Speaker 1: that response to a group of armed white supremacists half
Speaker 1: an hour later. This had been the plan for months,
Speaker 1: and on the morning of November tenth, the Red Shirts,
Speaker 1: secret nine and armed white citizens stood in the streets
Speaker 1: waiting for Waddell's word. When no one arrived at Wadel's
Speaker 1: home with a letter of concession, he walked down the
Speaker 1: street to the waiting men. By now the crowd was
Speaker 1: five hundred strong. Once in front of the waiting mob,
Speaker 1: Waddell told them that the black leaders had ignored their request,
Speaker 1: an intolerable act of defiance. The men cried out for
Speaker 1: Captain Thomas James, the commander of the Wilmington Light Infantry,
Speaker 1: to lead them to the Daily Records Office. It was
Speaker 1: time to stand up against the black community. James wanted
Speaker 1: no part of the mob and said to telegraph to
Speaker 1: his superiors asking for advice. Relieved that his orders were
Speaker 1: to stay put and report back once the mob moved off,
Speaker 1: he returned to the crowd outside. Unfortunately, some of his men,
Speaker 1: having believed what else lies, now, wanted to join the terrorists.
Speaker 1: To prevent his men from becoming part of the escalating problem,
Speaker 1: James ordered them to march around the field. Realizing the
Speaker 1: infantry wouldn't join them, Waddell led his mob to the newspaper.
Speaker 1: By the time they reached the building, the crowd had
Speaker 1: grown to a thousand men. James sent the telegraph to
Speaker 1: his superior informing him of the situation. Soon Governor Russell
Speaker 1: heard the news and ordered the infantry to intervene. There
Speaker 1: was a problem though most of the infantry now sided
Speaker 1: with the mob. The crowd of angry men vandalized the
Speaker 1: newspaper then set it on fire. Afterward, Waddell led them
Speaker 1: back to the armory, where he suggested they had done
Speaker 1: their duty for now and to go home, knowing some
Speaker 1: of them would not. While the majority did go home,
Speaker 1: a few hundred men remained, convinced that they needed to
Speaker 1: search for the weapons that had been told the black
Speaker 1: community planned to use against them. Stoked on the hatred
Speaker 1: lies in mob mentality, the men marched into the city,
Speaker 1: targeting businesses that employed mostly black workers. Three black men
Speaker 1: were shot as they tried to flee. In another part
Speaker 1: of the city, six more black men were shot and killed.
Speaker 1: The black community wasn't entirely unarmed, and they fired back,
Speaker 1: fueling the conspiracy that Waddell and Simmonds had started. Doctors
Speaker 1: and nurses rushed to tend to the injured black and
Speaker 1: white while the gunfire continued around them. A white reporter
Speaker 1: found an injured black man and followed him as he fled.
Speaker 1: The man ran into a house with the reporter in pursuit.
Speaker 1: Inside he found three terrified women and one dead man
Speaker 1: who had been shot several times. The reporter ran for help,
Speaker 1: and the injured man survived. Others weren't as fortunate. As
Speaker 1: the black community fled, the angry mob kept firing. When
Speaker 1: the streets were empty, the mob went from house to
Speaker 1: house looking for the armed black men and weapons that
Speaker 1: Simmons and Waddell had warned them about. Reports from that
Speaker 1: day are horrifying. One minister witnessed the reverend from another
Speaker 1: church shooting at black residents. Corpses were scattered in the streets.
Speaker 1: By mid afternoon, most of the surviving black community had
Speaker 1: fled the city. The mob, however, continued to search for
Speaker 1: the invading Black army, chasing shadows that didn't exist. While
Speaker 1: the massacre continued, Waddell led a group of men to
Speaker 1: city Hall to complete the coup. They burst in, holding
Speaker 1: the mayor, police chief, and alderman at gunpoint. Waddell leveled
Speaker 1: his gun at the mayor and demanded his resignation. By
Speaker 1: four p m. Waddell had declared himself the new mayor.
Speaker 1: As his first order of business, he appointed a new
Speaker 1: police chief and new city Alderman from the Committee of
Speaker 1: twenty five. When the magazine Collier's Weekly published an article
Speaker 1: on the massacre, Wadell painted himself as a reluctant and
Speaker 1: non violent participant. He stated that he'd merely had been
Speaker 1: called upon to lead in a time of need, adding
Speaker 1: that any violence had been accidental and purely in self defense.
Speaker 1: In recounting what had happened at the Daily Record, Waddell
Speaker 1: insisted he hadn't been the one to break down the
Speaker 1: door nor start the fire that he said had unintentionally
Speaker 1: been set. Playing the part of a reluctant hero, he
Speaker 1: claimed that the events that followed were indeed the strangest
Speaker 1: had ever seen, but as mayor he was called upon
Speaker 1: to end the violence. He went on to say that
Speaker 1: he and the others broke no laws and had acted
Speaker 1: appropriately given the circumstances. The leaders of the black militia
Speaker 1: had been captured and had marched them down to the
Speaker 1: train station the next morning, where he had personally paid
Speaker 1: for their tickets out of town. Had he not intervened,
Speaker 1: he said, the others would surely have killed them. After
Speaker 1: the chaos, he falsely claimed that the remaining black citizens
Speaker 1: had faith in him and that they were happy that
Speaker 1: order had been restored. History and other recorded accounts do
Speaker 1: not support his claims of black residence starting a riot.
Speaker 1: The aftermath of these tragic events doesn't offer a story
Speaker 1: book ending. When elections rolled round again, Wadell was re
Speaker 1: elected it and served as Wilmington's mayor until in fact,
Speaker 1: all of his allies were re elected, and unlike in Louisiana,
Speaker 1: no one from the federal government ever stepped in, including
Speaker 1: President McKinley, who claimed that he could not act without
Speaker 1: a call from the governor. Waddel, Simmons and their white
Speaker 1: supremacist groups had successfully pulled off the only coup diacht
Speaker 1: to occur on American soil. They overturned votes they didn't
Speaker 1: like and toppled a multiracial government with violence. Under Waddell's orders,
Speaker 1: upwards of sixty black citizens were murdered, all in the
Speaker 1: name of political control. There's more to this story. Stick
Speaker 1: around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.
Speaker 1: It's room that over six hundred attempts were made on
Speaker 1: his life. He once said that if surviving assassination attempts
Speaker 1: were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal.
Speaker 1: How many of those attempts were allegedly by the CIA,
Speaker 1: isn't exactly clear the bane of many world leaders. His
Speaker 1: reign spanned over eight US presidencies. Though he was aging,
Speaker 1: he still had plenty of aspirations and held high hopes
Speaker 1: for his country. He used to like walking the streets alone,
Speaker 1: giving him time to think and reflect. Now he had
Speaker 1: become a hunted man, with over twenty different addresses. He
Speaker 1: had overthrown the country's a military dictatorship in a coup
Speaker 1: when he was thirty three years old and ruled for
Speaker 1: fifty more years. In the time of his rule, he
Speaker 1: had created schools and reduced illiteracy. Hospitals were built, improving healthcare.
Speaker 1: The countryside now had electricity, and legal discrimination was a
Speaker 1: thing of the past. The positives didn't outweigh the negatives,
Speaker 1: though newspapers that opposed his views were shut down. The
Speaker 1: amount of land any one person could own was severely limited.
Speaker 1: Private businesses were banished, and he governed all matters of
Speaker 1: housing and distribution of consumer goods. When it came to challengers,
Speaker 1: thousands of his political opponents were jailed, though he had
Speaker 1: once himself run in an election. He then declared that
Speaker 1: any that were not under his control were illegal. In short,
Speaker 1: he had become the very thing he had sought to overthrow.
Speaker 1: Despite the advances in education and healthcare, his people lived
Speaker 1: in poverty, and even while living in deplorable conditions, many
Speaker 1: believed him nothing short of a messiah. He told his
Speaker 1: people that he lived frugally, though the opposite was true.
Speaker 1: Forbes magazine listed him as one of richest rulers, which
Speaker 1: he immediately and angrily declared a lie. He owned yachts
Speaker 1: and twenty different residences. Among the amenities and his homes
Speaker 1: were bowling alleys, saunas, basketball courts, seaside pools, a lagoon
Speaker 1: with dolphins, and an abundance of sea turtles. He even
Speaker 1: had a home where he met up with his countless mistresses.
Speaker 1: Having successfully converted his country into a one party socialist state,
Speaker 1: he began backing Marxist governments. In nineteen sixty President Eisenhower
Speaker 1: authorized the CIA to overthrow his government as retaliation. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, he managed to convince a large group
Speaker 1: of Americans to protest American imperialism in Eisenhower as well.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until after an instant involving the explosion of
Speaker 1: a French vessel, an alignment with Russia and the threat
Speaker 1: of nuclear war that he reportedly found himself the target
Speaker 1: of assassinations when the CIA bombed three of his air fields,
Speaker 1: he told his people the news was false. Later he
Speaker 1: claimed that the U S had purposely engaged in biowarfare
Speaker 1: against him. When an outbreak of dengie fever hit. It
Speaker 1: was blame shifting, sure, but perhaps he had grown a
Speaker 1: little fearful. His worst fear was being poisoned. He had
Speaker 1: his food grown locally and had his own cow to
Speaker 1: supply all his dairy products. A few of the plots
Speaker 1: to assassinate him involved of former classmate with a plan
Speaker 1: to shoot him in broad daylight as sniper, poisoned tea,
Speaker 1: and cooperation between the CIA, the mafia, and a former mistress.
Speaker 1: The mistress had been given pills laced with poison, and
Speaker 1: she put them into a jar of face cream. She
Speaker 1: couldn't quite get the cream off the pills and decided
Speaker 1: that placing pills in his mouth covered in cold cream
Speaker 1: wouldn't work, so she flushed them down the toilet and confessed.
Speaker 1: All the attempts killed, and he lived to the age
Speaker 1: of ninety. When he did die, no cause of death
Speaker 1: was given, though many of his people despised him, others
Speaker 1: adored him and mourned his passing. The biographer said the
Speaker 1: ruler was hard working and had a sense of humor,
Speaker 1: but added that he was a bad loser, through temper
Speaker 1: tantrums and was vindictive. Though he's gone, the United States
Speaker 1: still has an embargo against the country he ruled, and
Speaker 1: that man Fidel Castro. American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Michelle Muto with researcher Robin Miniter,
Speaker 1: and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive
Speaker 1: producers Aaron Minky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn
Speaker 1: more about the show, visit grim and mild dot com.
Speaker 1: For more PA podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. M M HM