The white supremacy campaign had demonstrated to the nation that the federal government would reproach whites for attacking and killing black citizens, but it would not punish them or even condemn them. No one was ever charged, much less convicted, of a crime stemming from what whites called their “white revolution.” Wilmington’s leading white citizens had pioneered a formula that was soon duplicated across the South: deny black citizens the vote, first through terror and violence and then by legislation.
