The winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Wilmington's Lie gives an account of a white supremacist strategy to take back the North Carolina state legislature in 1898 "by ballot or bullet or both" and then leverage a controversial editorial on consensual mixed race relationships written by Alexander Manly, the editor of an African American newspaper, The Record, to foment a "race riot" that would collapse Wilmington's multi-racial government. The campaign included rallies, sensational newspaper editorials and fabricated news stories, and ended in a coup during which Wilmington's city officials were forced to resign at gunpoint.
To receive a Zoom link, please email Fay Iudicello at [email protected] by Thursday, Jan. 16. Those who RSVP should expect to receive the invitation at 9 a.m. on Jan. 18.
Planning ahead? The group will discuss It Can't Happen Here, a novel by Sinclair Lewis, at its meeting on Saturday, Feb. 15.