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A Charge Toward the Past: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission and Its Political Implications

Felsenfeld, Kira Rachel
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1592472362013041

Abstract Details

2019, BA, Oberlin College, History.
On November 10th, 1898, a mob of White supremacists stormed Wilmington, North Carolina, destroying the town and overturning the predominantly Black government. However, to this day, no one knows exactly how many people died or left the city after November 10th, 1898. In response to this gap, The Wilmington Race Riot Commission operated between 2000 and 2006 with the goals of opening up a “vital dialogue” and establishing an official record for the events that occurred in 1898. My thesis explores the possibilities and limitations of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission. As a reparative body, the Commission had the potential to make widespread change throughout North Carolina. An official authority gave state-sanctioned approval and power behind this redress effort. However, this same authority also meant that any action in response to the Commission’s recommendations had to be approved by the governing body. Filling their role as writers of history, the Commission encountered many challenges that historians face: a need to corroborate oral reports and missing pieces of evidence. However, history-writing similarly came with an important power. The Commission could disrupt conceptions of history that upheld white supremacists as heros. Through an exploration of meeting minutes, state legislation, interviews, local and national media, the report itself, and the primary sources utilized by the Commission, I question the intentions, processes and impact of this state-sanctioned body.
Renee Christine Romano (Advisor)
Shelley Sang-Hee Lee (Committee Member)
Emer Sinéad O'Dwyer (Committee Member)
78 p.
African American Studies; History
Historical Redress; Historical justice; Wilmington race riot; Reconstruction; North Carolina; Truth commission

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Felsenfeld, K. R. (2019). A Charge Toward the Past: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission and Its Political Implications [Undergraduate thesis, Oberlin College]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1592472362013041

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Felsenfeld, Kira. A Charge Toward the Past: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission and Its Political Implications. 2019. Oberlin College, Undergraduate thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1592472362013041.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Felsenfeld, Kira. "A Charge Toward the Past: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission and Its Political Implications." Undergraduate thesis, Oberlin College, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1592472362013041

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

oberlin1592472362013041
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© 2019, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License A Charge Toward the Past: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission and Its Political Implications by Kira Rachel Felsenfeld is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Oberlin College Honors Theses and OhioLINK.