At the close of the nineteenth century, the Democratic Party in North Carolina engineered a white supremacy revolution. Frustrated by decades of African American self-assertion and threatened by an interracial coalition advocating democratic reforms, white conservatives used violence, demagoguery, and fraud to seize political power and disenfranchise black citizens. The most notorious episode of the campaign was the Wilmington “race riot” of 1898, which claimed the lives of many black residents and rolled back decades of progress for African Americans in the state. Published on the centennial of the Wilmington race riot, Democracy Betrayed draws together the best new scholarship on the events of 1898 and their aftermath. Contributors to this important book hope to draw public attention to the tragedy, to honor its victims, and to bring a clear and timely historical voice to the debate over its legacy. The contributors are David S. Cecelski, William H. Chafe, Laura F. Edwards, Raymond Gavins, Glenda E. Gilmore, John Haley, Michael Honey, Stephen Kantrowitz, H. Leon Prather Sr., Timothy B. Tyson, LeeAnn Whites, and Richard Yarborough. “This book’s influence need not be limited to Wilmington. Because it shows national trends and social processes with local concreteness, Democracy Betrayed will be useful in courses on southern history or U.S. race relations.” — Southern Cultures “Anyone hoping to advance the process of racial healing in the United States could do worse than to read these essays and pass on the stories and lessons contained within them.” — American Historical Review “While the explicit purpose of this volume is to commemorate the centennial of the 1898 Wilmington race riot, it goes further, much further. The essays offer us a rich understanding of the complex historical interplay of race, gender, and social class — how these factors interweave to form a context promoting and justifying the 1890s wave of racial violence directed at African Americans in the South in general and in Wilmington in particular.” — Journal of Southern History “An extraordinarily rich and thoughtful collection of essays.” — Journal of American History “ Democracy Betrayed makes a major contribution to the literature about the history of race in North Carolina, adding considerably to what we know about the origins, impact, and aftermath of a watershed event in American History.” — North Carolina Historical Review “Writers often transcend themselves when they are willing to confront something ugly in their own society. These writers focus on the overthrow of the last interracial government in the post–Civil War South and the massacre two days later that confirmed as final the national settlement between conservative Northern Republicans and reactionary Southern Democrats. This is scholarship that matters.” — William Evans, author of Ballots and Fence Rails: Reconstruction on the Lower Cape Fear “Just as there are lessons to be learned from the recent past, there are lessons to be learned from the events of a century ago. This volume will inform some and remind others that our past can help us understand the challenges that this nation confronts as it undertakes to deal with the problem of race in the twenty-first century.” ― John Hope Franklin, from the Foreword “Just as there are lessons to be learned from the recent past, there are lessons to be learned from the events of a century ago. This volume will inform some and remind others that our past can help us understand the challenges that this nation confronts as it undertakes to deal with the problem of race in the twenty-first century.” — John Hope Franklin, from the Foreword The tragic end of North Carolina’s experiment in interracial democracy Twelve essays on the Wilmington "race riot" of 1898?the most notorious episode of a white supremacy campaign in which white conservatives used violence, demagoguery, and fraud to seize political power and disenfranchise black citizens. Twelve essays on the Wilmington "race riot" of 1898?the most notorious episode of a white supremacy campaign in which white conservatives used violence, demagoguery, and fraud to seize political power and disenfranchise black citizens. David S. Cecelski is author of The Waterman’s Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina . Timothy B. Tyson is senior scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and adjunct professor of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is author of Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story and Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power . John Hope Franklin (1915-2009) was James B. Duke Professor of History Emeritus at Duke University. His many books include Racial Equality in America and From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans .