By: North Carolina's two largest daily newspapers have produced a 16-page special section on the 1898 race riot and state-labled "coup d'etat" that drove hundreds of Wilmington's black residents from the coastal city, and are offering the section to newspapers statewide.
Tim Tyson, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of a book on the Wilmington riot, is the lead writer for the section produced by The News & Observer of Raleigh with help from The Charlotte Observer.
The section, to be published in the two papers as a tabloid on Nov. 17, will include photos, graphics and an examination of newspapers' role in fanning white discontent in advance of the 1898 elections.
The full section and a one-page summary designed for smaller papers are being offered to all members of the North Carolina Press Association for same-day publication. The material may be downloaded beginning Thursday; users must pay only their own printing costs.
"Our goal is to get as many people as possible to know this story," said News & Observer executive editor Melanie Sill.
The Wilmington Star-News and several smaller papers have said they will run the section, she said. Its release is timed to coincide roughly with the 108th anniversary of the riots, which unfolded in the days after Election Day on Nov. 8, 1898.
Sill and News & Observer publisher Orage Quarles III began discussing the idea this summer as a state-appointed commission prepared a report on the violence that claimed as many as 60 lives, drove out the city's Republican government and sparked an exodus of 2,100 black residents.
The 500-page report, produced after six years of study, said the violence was not a spontaneous riot but the nation's only recorded coup d'etat.
The commission's recommendations included state-paid compensation to victims' descendants, incentives for minority small businesses and help for minority home ownership.
It also recommended that the history of the incident be taught in public schools, and that the state's newspapers should acknowledge their role in the events and prepare a summary of the report for statewide distribution.
Sill said the recommendation "kind of cemented" plans for the section. Tyson's participation, apart from his expertise, offered a necessary objective eye, she said.
"We felt that, since the newspapers are part of the story, that we wanted somebody who is independent of the papers to write it," she said. "It's a powerful story. ... But also, you know, the report itself is a tremendous document, but it's 400-some pages with all the footnotes and documents."
State lawmakers have not had a chance to consider legislation addressing the recommendations, which came too late for inclusion in the General Assembly's last session.
Newspaper staff writers, editors and designers completed the package, using photos and other historic illustrations from the state archives and the newspaper's files.
The Observer's help became possible in late June, when it joined the Raleigh paper as a McClatchy Co. holding when Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy bought Knight-Ridder Inc.
Before the purchase, the newspapers and other media outlets statewide cooperated several times in the 1990s on an election-season package called "Your Voice, Your Vote," Sill said.
She declined to say how much the project will cost The News & Observer.
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