Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy

by David Zucchino

Murder, fraud, and voter intimidation had been effectively legalized, so long as the targets were black.

Men who had voted before 1867—the year Reconstruction laws instituted universal suffrage—or whose fathers or grandfathers had voted before 1867 were exempted from the state’s poll tax and literacy test.