North Carolina Fusion Government: Biracial Democracy Rises and Falls 1894-1898

A Fusion coalition of Black Republicans and white Populists won control of North Carolina's legislature in 1894 and elected a biracial government that appointed hundreds of Black officeholders including sheriff, aldermen, and magistrates in eastern counties. White supremacist Democrats under Furnifold Simmons and Josephus Daniels mounted a coordinated campaign of terror and propaganda to destroy Fusion, culminating in the Wilmington massacre and coup of November 1898.