In 1898, there was a little known coup d’état, the only successful one in American history, in Wilmington, North Carolina. The Red Shirts, heavily armed white supremacists, stormed the city’s thriving Black community. The resulting massacre changed the political and demographic landscape of the city overnight. Yet, just a little over 120 years later, the event is virtually unknown, even by those who grew up in the region.
David Zucchino’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy” is an in-depth account of the massacre and the political and media campaign that followed. Join Zucchino on April 8 at 6 p.m. in UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center, Manheimer Room 102, as he discusses his book and the events of 1898 for the Spring 2024 UNC Asheville Common Word Community Read series.
“Wilmington’s Lie” is the selected work for this semester’s Common Word Community Read Series, a collection of lectures and discussions centered around a shared text with the goal of engaging in a collective educational experience. Wiley Cash ’00, New York Times bestselling author and UNC Asheville’s executive director of literary arts, is the series organizer.
An Evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning Author David Zucchino is the last of three events for the Spring 2024 Common Word Community Read series. Leading up to the event, Mark Gibney, Carol G. Belk Distinguished Professor of Political Science at UNC Asheville, will discuss the link between politics, violence, and terror, relating the events of “Wilmington’s Lie,” to contemporary crises around the globe. Gibney’s talk, “Political Violence as Terrorism,” will be held on March 18 at 6 p.m. in UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center, Manheimer Room 102.
Both events are free and open to the public. Livestreaming of both events will be available.
“Political Violence as Terrorism”
March 18, 6-8 p.m.
UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center, Manheimer Room 102
Register to attend here.
An Evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning Author David Zucchino
April 8, 6-8 p.m.
UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center, Manheimer Room 102
Register to attend here.
For more information, visit: giving.unca.edu/alumni/the-common-word-community-read/
About the speakers:
Since 1984, Mark Gibney has directed the Political Terror Scale (PTS), which measures levels of physical integrity violations in more than 185 countries. He is also one of the founding members of the Extraterritorial Obligations (ETO) Human Rights Consortium, which in November 2011 produced the Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In 2011, Gibney was recognized by the Human Rights Section of the American Political Science Association as a Distinguished Human Rights Scholar, and in 2006 he received the International Human Rights Award from the North Carolina Coalition on Human Rights.
David Zucchino is the winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for “Wilmington’s Lie.” He is a contributing writer for The New York Times. He has covered wars and civil conflicts in more than two dozen countries. He was previously awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his dispatches from apartheid South Africa and is a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for his reporting from Iraq, Lebanon, Africa, and Philadelphia. He is the author of “Thunder Run” and “Myth of the Welfare Queen.”
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