National Press Celebrates Wilmington Coup as 'Restoration of Order'

Major Northern newspapers — including the New York Times — frame the Wilmington coup as a legitimate restoration of white governance against 'negro domination.' Press coverage adopts the white supremacist Democrats' narrative wholesale. President McKinley, who has received desperate telegrams from Wilmington's Black residents, takes no action. The federal government's silence confirms that the post-Reconstruction abandonment of Black citizens is complete at the century's end.