MS NOW, Sharpton Compare 2016 Trump Election to 1898 White Supremacist Coup #Political
Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's Morning Joe, New Yorker staff writer Lauren Collins joined show regular Al Sharpton in comparing the election of Donald Trump in 2016 to an 1898 coup by white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Host Joe Scarborough began the segment by recalling the violent episode written about in Collins's book, They Stole a City. Here's Scarborough:
A groundbreaking new book is shedding light on what's thought to be the only successful coup in U.S. history. In They Stole a City, our next guest chronicles the city of Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898, then considered a bastion of black success with a black middle class brimming with lawyers, educators, and elected officials. But in November of that year, white supremacists issued a white declaration of independence, gunning down scores of black men while chasing their families into hiding. They then marched to city hall and overthrew the democratically elected multiracial government at gunpoint.
After Collins recalled how she became interested in the topic, and the basics of what happened, Sharpton invoked Trump in a follow-up question:
Lauren, talk about how there is the underlying principles of some of that when they see black advancement coming out of slavery, Reconstruction era, that they never lose the feeling of white supremacy that we are supposed to be in charge. And that's the underlying feeling that led to what happened in Wilmington.
And some of us feeling that, in a less violent way, it has happened in modern times -- in our times of where you had a Barack Obama as President, black making advancement, and saw that a lot of the reaction was Donald Trump and a backlash, or even Donald Trump and a backlash to Kamala Harris. Talk about how that kind of underlying feeling may be the core of what we saw in Wilmington and still see some segments of that now.
Collins began her response:
Absolutely. I mean, we have to remember, this was only 30 years after slavery and emancipation. These people should have been celebrated for what they've done -- what they had done. It was a huge achievement. But instead it did it -- Wilmington is a case study, a flagrant case study of this pattern of white backlash to black political process -- progress. So pursue reconstruction, you get 1898 -- pursue desegregation, you're met with massive resistance -- elect a black President, endure a white nationalist one who claims that his predecessor was not a citizen.
Transcript follows:
MS NOW's Morning Joe
July 21, 2026
6:47 a.m. Eastern
JOE SCARBOROUGH: A groundbreaking new book is shedding light on what's thought to be the only successful coup in U.S. history. In They Stole a City, our next guest chronicles the city of Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898, then considered a bastion of black success with a black middle class brimming with lawyers, educators, and elected officials. But in November of that year, white supremacists issued a white declaration of independence, gunning down scores of black men while chasing their families into hiding. They then marched to city hall and overthrew the democratically elected multiracial government at gunpoint.
Nearly 130 years later, the new book weaves together the stories of four Wilmington families who were present at the time, two white families who contributed to the violence, and two black families who survived it. And the author of that book, Lauren Collins, joins us now. She's a staff writer at the New Yorker, and Wilmington, North Carolina, is her home town.
Thank you so much for being with us. You know, I think it was about a year ago that a lot of Americans who had never heard about the Tulsa race riots, never been taught it in school, heard about all the horrors of that. I think you could say the same thing about what happened in 1898 in your hometown. Talk about it. Talk about why it was so significant and why you wrote the book.
(...)
6:51 a.m. Eastern
AL SHARPTON: Lauren, talk about how there is the underlying principles of some of that when they see black advancement coming out of slavery, Reconstruction era, that they never lose the feeling of white supremacy that we are supposed to be in charge. And that's the underlying feeling that led to what happened in Wilmington. And some of us feeling that, in a less violent way, it has happened in modern times -- in our times of where you had a Barack Obama as President, black making advancement, and saw that a lot of the reaction was Donald Trump and a backlash, or even Donald Trump and a backlash to Kamala Harris. Talk about how that kind of underlying feeling may be the core of what we saw in Wilmington and still see some segments of that now.
LAUREN COLLINS, THE NEW YORKER: Absolutely. I mean, we have to remember, this was only 30 years after slavery and emancipation. These people should have been celebrated for what they've done -- what they had done. It was a huge achievement. But instead it did it -- Wilmington is a case study, a flagrant case study of this pattern of white backlash to black political process -- progress. So pursue reconstruction, you get 1898 -- pursue desegregation, you're met with massive resistance -- elect a black President, endure a white nationalist one who claims that his predecessor was not a citizen.
I think it's very important to keep in mind that white supremacy is not a blip. It's not a regression. It's a through line of our nation's history. And what Wilmington and the story of 1898 demonstrates is that white supremacists will continue to take what they think is theirs until the costs outweigh the spoils. You know, I think it's very important to keep in mind both the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have designated white supremacy as the most persistent and lethal terrorist threat in America. So, absolutely, this is living history. The story is not over. And I think the origins of many of our current crises are here, right, you know, can be seen in our own violent past.
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