EXCLUSIVE
CHANGES COMING TO
1898 “COUP” MARKER
by Cash Michaels
contributing writer
Armed crowd met, Nov. 10, 1898, at armory
here, marched 6 blocks S.E., and burned office of Daily Record, black-owned
newspaper edited by Alex Manley. Violence left up to 60 blacks dead. Led to
overthrow of city government and the installation of coup leader Alfred Moore
Waddell as mayor. “Race riot” was part of a statewide political campaign based
on calls for white supremacy & exploitation of racial tensions.
Current inscription for planned 1898
Historical Marker to be unveiled in the
fall
The NC Historical highway marker
commemorating the 1898 Wilmington race massacre has already been approved by
the NC Highway Historical Marker Advisory Committee, but when it is finally
unveiled on Market Street between Fourth and Fifth streets later this fall,
expect changes to the marker’s controversial inscription describing the bloody
events that started on Nov. 10, 1898.
The primary change will be to the
sentence, “ Violence left up to 60 blacks dead,” which several in the
community, including the NHC NAACP, have indicated is incorrect because a
six-year inquiry into the massacre by the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission
noted that the number of known dead was “unknown.”
The new inscription will indicate
that number of African-Americans killed during the massacre was undetermined
In
an exclusive interview this week with The
Wilmington Journal, Michael Hill, Research Supervisor at the NC Office of
Archives and History, a division of the NC Dept. of Natural and Cultural Resources,
confirmed that staff at the NC Highway Historical Program met last Friday, and
determined that some the proposed language of the planned 1898 marker needed to
be changed before it is unveiled.
“We
wish to seek input from the local community. We’ve received several emails,
including from the local NAACP, and probably about a half dozen others,” Mr.
Hill told The Journal.
Hill
went on to say that the agency has “set aside plans to order the sign,” and
plan at the next marker committee meeting in May to revisit the 1898 marker
language issue. “The point of the reassessment is to revisit the text, and to
accommodate people’s wishes and suggestions.”
Mr.
Hill added that Ansley Wegner, the administrator of the NC Highway Historical
Marker Program, has been working on redrafts of the 1898 marker inscription.
As
indicated before, per the inscription, the number of blacks killed will be
changed to “unknown,” in addition to the term “race riot” deleted. The name of
the 1898 massacre leader, Alfred Moore Waddell will also be dropped, and the
name of Alex Manley, the publisher of the black newspaper that was burned to
the ground, The Daily Record, will
also be dropped, though the Record
will continue to be cited by name on the marker.
There
already is a historical marker citing Manley by name on Seventh Street where the Daily Record was torched by an
angry mob of white supremacists on Nov. 10, 1898. The new marker on Market
Street will denote the spot from where that mob gathered at the armory, and
then proceeded to Seventh Street to burn down the Record.
“The
next stage will be to share the new drafts with all interested local parties,”
Hill continued, including Rend Smith of the nonprofit group, Working
Narratives, which made the original application for the 1898 marker, and
Deborah Dicks Maxwell, president of the NHC NAACP.
The
New Hanover African-American Heritage commission will also be included.
Smith,
as the applicant, will then have the right of first appeal to the marker
advisory committee when they meet in May.
Members
of the New Hanover County House delegation to the NC legislature seem to be in
agreement about making sure that the 1898 marker inscription is historically
accurate.
“The marker is
long overdue and I hope that it will serve to inform the public of the horrific
events of 1898 so that our community in time can heal,” Representative Deb
Butler [D-New Hanover] told The Journal.
“To that end, and in order to prevent any further revisionist views of history,
it must be as accurate as possible.”
Her
Republican colleague in the state House from New Hanover County, Rep. Holly
Grange, agreed.
“Not only do I support a historical marker
commemorating such a notable event in the History of Wilmington, I believe it
also important that the marker be historically and factually accurate.
Therefore I agree with the report by the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission
and [the public’s] request to modify the historical marker.”
Editor’s note – Those wishing to
write the NC Highway Historical Marker Program to express your concerns about
the proposed inscription on the 1898 race massacre marker, should address your
correspondence to : 4610 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-4610, attention
Ansley Wegner, administrator., or email Ms. Wegner at ansley.wegner@ncdcr.gov.
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“We’re enormously gratified on behalf of our clients and all voters in North Carolina that no one will have to endure another congressional election under an unconstitutional map. The court was clear in demanding a real remedy before the 2018 elections, and we expect the General Assembly to respect that order.”
STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 01-11-18
FEDERAL COURT STRIKES
DOWN NC CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING
AS “UNCONSTITUTIONAL
PARTISAN GERRYMANDER
[GREENSBORO] A federal three-judge panel for North Carolina’s Middle District struck down North Carolina’s 2016
congressional plan Tuesday as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. That
2016 plan was developed after a federal court invalidated two congressional
districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. When the legislature
purported to “remedy” that racially gerrymandered plan with an unabashed and admitted
partisan gerrymander, the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and several
voters from across the state filed suit.
Allison Riggs, senior voting rights
attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, offered the following statement after
the opinion was released:
“A
bipartisan three-judge federal panel agreed with us today that partisan
gerrymandering is an affront to our Equal Protection Clause. They
recognized the egregious nature of what the North Carolina General Assembly did
in 2016, purportedly to remedy another unconstitutional congressional
redistricting plan.” “We’re enormously gratified on behalf of our clients and all voters in North Carolina that no one will have to endure another congressional election under an unconstitutional map. The court was clear in demanding a real remedy before the 2018 elections, and we expect the General Assembly to respect that order.”
Per the ruling, the North Carolina General Assembly
has until January 29 to enact a remedial plan; the federal court plans to
employ a special master to draw an alternative remedial plan, and the remedial
plan should be enacted before the 2018 congressional elections.
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FEDERAL COURT CLOSE
TO
DECIDING ON NEW
DISTRICTS
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
If
political body language means anything, Republican legislative leaders in the
NC General Assembly, and their attorneys in the Covington vs. North Carolina
redistricting case, seem almost resolved that the federal three-judge panel
hearing the case is going to rule against them sometime soon, and implement the
special master’s redrawn voting maps in place of their own.
That
much seemed clear during the Jan. 5th hearing in Federal Court in
Greensboro last Friday, as attorneys for the state did their best attacking Special
Master Nathaniel Persily’s work, which effectively removed the illegal racial
gerrymanders evident in the GOP’s 2011 voting maps, and their 2017 redrawn
districts that the three-judge panel found 29 to be legally problematic as
well.
At
stake is the 2018 NC legislative mid-term elections coming up in November. With
Democrats energized to retake the state legislature from the Republican
majority, many political observers expect Republican attorneys to appeal an
expected negative ruling to the US Supreme Court, thereby delaying the
scheduled Feb. 12 through 28th candidate filing dates for
the May primaries, and possibly throwing off the entire election year schedule
until they can get a favorable ruling that will help them retain legislative
power.
Led
by Republican attorney Phil Strach, the Republican argument was the special
master redrew certain districts with race in mind, contrary to what they
believe the judicial panel originally wanted.
"The way you remedy the use of a
quota is you take the quota out," attorney Strach told the court.
Strach added that Persily was never
needed because GOP lawmakers were fully capable of redrawing their own maps,
and should have been given the opportunity to do so by the federal court.
Strach
even called their own expert witness, who submitted his own maps, to the stand
to testify that Persily used black voting age percentages in the districts he
redraw. The special master denied the charge.
Persily,
a Stanford University law professor and considered an expert in redistricting
mapping, defended his work saying that his job was to follow the directives of
the three-judge panel to correct nine NC House and Senate districts, making
sure that there was no racial stacking and packing, which the Republicans had
previously employed in order to lessen black Democratic voter influence
throughout the state.
Federal
Appellate Court Judge James Wynn chastised Strach and the Republican attorneys,
alleging that instead to working to undermine Persily’s work, they could have had
their expert work with him to produce maps both sides could live with.
Attorneys
for Sharon Covington and her co-plaintiffs suing the state, gave a rhetorical
thumbs up to Persily’s work, and urged the court to adopt his redrawn maps.
“I think they’ve been pretty honest that they intend to
seek appellate review,” plaintiff’s attorney Allison Riggs told
reporters after the four-hour hearing. “So we’ll
be prepared.”
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GOP SPECIAL SESSION
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
On
Wednesday, supporters of the NCNAACP came from all across the state to rally at
the NC General Assembly to protest why they believe the state legislature is
back in session weeks before they’re officially scheduled to come back.
“The
independent judiciary is under attack in North Carolina,” says Rev. Dr. T.
Anthony Spearman, president of the NCNAACP,”…and the people understand that
this attack…is a threat to our democracy.”
Thus,
the reason for “Fair Courts Day of Action.”
A
coalition of social justice groups, led by the NCNAACP, Democracy North
Carolina and Progress NC, reacting to bills either passed or introduced by the
Republican-led legislature in 2017 that gerrymanders the state’s judicial
districts targeting black judges by packing them so they would compete against
each other (passed), or would cut judicial terms from the state Supreme Court
to Superior Court from eight years and four years, down to just two years
(proposed), or even institute a merit selection system where state lawmakers
appoint the judges they want to the bench (also proposed).
No
other state in the nation has such a system in place.
“It targets black judges and women judges and black
voters, which is really racist,” Linda Sutton, organizer for Democracy N.C. told the Times-News. “[The Republicans] plan to take over the courts to
appoint their own judges … so when we challenge them, we won’t have anywhere
else to go.”
Indeed, one of the key legislative
measures passed last year was in the state House, canceling the 2018 primaries
for judicial candidates. Earlier last year, the GOP majority also passed HB 239,
which reduced the number of judges on the state Court of Appeals from 15 to 12,
in an effort to deny Democratic Gov. Cooper the ability to fill the three court
vacancies that would occur during his term.
That
plan was partially thwarted when Appellate Court Judge Douglas McCullough
retired early, allowing Cooper to appoint his replacement before the bill could
be enacted.
So
exactly what are both the state House and Senate planning in terms of revamping
the state’s judiciary – the one branch of government that in recent years, has
successfully countered much of the Republican social agenda for North Carolina?
Last
week, during a special Senate committee appointed by Senate Pres. Pro-tem Phil
Berger (Rockingham), four possible plans were revealed to be under
consideration -
1.
The Blue Plan – where judicial elections for
appellate judges are suspended; the governor nominates candidates; both state
houses confirm the nominations within 60 days; and a general election is held
for voters to either accept of reject the legislative confirmation.
2. The
Orange Plan – a 15-member Judicial Nominating Commission picks two candidates.
The governor appoints one of the two, with that judicial appointee serving a
14-year term, and is eligible for re-nomination by the Commission.
3. The
Red Plan – The General Assembly appoints a candidate when a judicial vacancy
occurs. That judicial appointee serves for life or until the age of 72.
4. The
Purple Plan – a non-partisan independent Merit Selection Commission appointed
by the state Supreme Court Chief Justice. That 7 or 9 member panel will forward
all nominations to the NC General Assembly for further consideration. Local
commissions will do the same for superior court and district court nominees.
Upon review, state lawmakers forward the three best nominees to the governor,
who then appoints. Voters vote to confirm or reject
the governor’s choice, which is
confirmed would serve ten-year
term. That appointee is not eligible to be re-appointed to the same court.
What
plan the NC General assembly ultimately chooses will become evident during the
Special Session.
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