I just finished reading Lauren Collins’s new book * They Stole A City: Wilmington’s White Supremacist Coup and the Families Who Live With Its Legacy*. It is a fantastic book that explores the history and legacy of the events of November 10, 1898, but the ways in which the families involved were impacted and how they reckoned with its legacy generations later.
It’s a timely book in many ways. Certainly the long history of white Wilmingtonians not wanting to acknowledge what took place on that day resonates with the current administration’s efforts to prevent agencies like the National Park Service and Smithsonian from exploring these important subjects for the public. At the same time, the recent efforts in Wilmington to commemorate and educate the public about what took place, beginning toward the end of the twentieth century, is a reminder of just how committed people are in making sure that we do not ignore this history.
Collins’s story is a reminder that the reach of the Wilmington Race Massacre is long and that we can never truly move on before facing our past together.