The next morning, about five hundred white Wilmingtonians went to the armory, armed themselves, and burned down the office of Manly’s newspaper. By the time they reached the Black section of town, the mob had grown to around two thousand. After killing a few Black people on the way, they forced the Fusionist mayor, police chief, and aldermen to resign at gunpoint. As Blacks fled the city, the terrorists dragged the most prominent Black businessmen to the train station and, in front of a crowd of applauding white people, forced them to board the train. Since 1898, Wilmington has been a
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