Wilmington Riot.

In Wilmington,North Carolina.Black men held offices in 1898 including seats on the city council.White Democrats were determined to drive them from power.During the tense

campaign,the young editor of a local black newspaper, Alex Manly,published an editorial condeming white men for the sexual exploitation of black women.He also suggested that black men had sexual liaison rural white women,which infuriated the white community."Poor white men are careless in the matter of protecting their women, especially on the farms...Tell your men that it is no worse for a black man to be intimate with a white woman than for white woman to be intimate with a colored man...Don't ever that your woman will remain pure while you are debauching ours."A white mob that included some of Wilmington's business and professionals leaders destroyed the newspaper office.Black officials resigned in a vain attempt to prevent further violance.A dozen black men were murdered.Some 1,500 black residents of Whilmington fled.White people then bought up black homes and property at bargain rates. Black Congressman George H.White,who represented Wilmington and North Carolina's second district,served out the remainder of his term and then moved north.He remarked "I can no longer live in North Carolina and be a man." He was the last African-American to serve in Congress from the South until the election of Andrew Young in Atlanta in 1972.