““Backed by Klan-type organizations dubbed “Red Shirts” and “Rough Riders,” Democrats summoned thirty-two of the city’s prominent blacks and laid out their demands: All black officeholders in Wilmington must resign and Alex Manly must leave Wilmington. Then, while the black elite were formulating a response, the Democrats launched a wave of violence that steamrolled the scattered Negro opposition. The Republican-Populist administration was ousted and replaced with Democrats. More than 1,400 blacks abandoned their property and fled the city. One commentator called it “the nation’s first full-fledged coup d’état.”45””
