For several days, Wilmington's white leaders were silent, but in Raleigh, Josephus Daniels reprinted Manly's editorial under the headlines: "VILE AND VILLAINOUS." Another gift misused again to advantage white supremacy.
Now, black leadership is seeing red. John C. Dancy, the Republican customs collector, gathered other black men to approach Manly and demand that he "suspend" the paper. At least until white tempers settle down. But, Zucchino writes, Manly refused to acquiesce to demands to shut down the Record, even temporarily. Perhaps a retraction? To which Manly, again, said no. No retraction! What about an apology? Dancy himself wrote it. Just print it! Manly refused.
Back home, Dancy appealed to black readers of the Record: For the sake of all of us, let's agree that Manly needs to be removed from the Daily Record ! He doesn't wait for a response. Aware that whites were organizing for violence, Dancy believes that if blacks disassociate themselves from the "radical" Manly the majority of blacks in Wilmington will escape the violence whites are gunning for. Dancy places a letter in all the black churches' newspaper expressing the community's refusal to endorse Manly's editorial. That should do it, he believes. But a few days later, Manly receives a warning: His printing press will go up in flames! It's not just Manly! Not just one!
Manly, standing by his editorial, declares he spoke the truth. However, as Zucchino points out, "for the white men who sought to rule Wilmington, the truth was explosive."
Waddell wants nothing more than to prevent blacks from voting. His rival, a man who thinks Waddell a "has-been," George Rountree, was a Harvard-educated lawyer, even more determined to see to it that the "Negro Problem" is solved in ways suitable for the preservation of white supremacy. Roger Moore, commander of the Klu Klux Klan, who challenged Abraham Galloway's leadership thirty years before, and lost, never lost his fervor to eliminate black people from life in Wilmington.
On October 18, 1989, less than a month from election day, readers awoke to headlines in the News and Observer: "THE WILMINGTON NEGROES ARE TRYING TO BUY GUNS." Not all! Two men.
As Zucchino recounts, two black men wrote to Winchester Repeating Arms Company of New Jersey requesting "two dozen Winchester rifles and 16-shot pistols." Of course the company manager didn't reply; instead, he notified the authorities. News reached Wilmington. "'Sambo is seeking to furnish an armory here,'" according to the Messenger.
To the white leadership, this business of blacks reaching out to weapons manufacturers sounds like another "diabolical plotting" of an uprising. Rountree, writes Zucchino, hires a black detective to spy on the black community and report whether or not blacks aimed to attack white citizens. But when the detective reported that he hadn't seen or heard anything alarming, two black Pinkerton men were called upon to do some proper spying that would result in useful information. The two black men understood and reported back that they overheard two black women plotting to burn down their employee's houses.
Zucchino writes that the report spread from one white newspaper to another: Blacks were plotting against whites! Could the whites see Nat Turner handing out instructions?
By September, Manly assures black readers that there would be no "danger of bloodshed and riot." William Henderson, the black lawyer, told blacks to go to the polls, "'cast ballots quietly and go home.'"
But more and more, white men were appearing on the streets of Wilmington. And they were wearing red shirts.
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