2026年7月12日 美国东部时间上午9:18 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
在北卡罗来纳州威尔明顿市中心，矗立着一座极易被路过的人忽略的纪念碑——六座青铜桨叶直指天空。牌匾上的文字有些地方难以辨认，倒不是因为字迹被雨水冲刷褪色，而是因为上面记载的内容令人难以置信。
很少有导览会讲述这段历史，但塞德里克·哈里森决心让世人知晓。“解决这个问题的第一步就是教育，”他说，“我的一位长辈总是告诉我，知晓更多，才能做得更好。”
塞德里克·哈里森在北卡罗来纳州威尔明顿的1898纪念公园发表演讲，纪念1898年11月10日白人至上主义者暴力推翻该市合法选举产生的政府。哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
不远处就是威尔明顿第一长老会教堂，这段历史的部分痕迹也留存于此。
劳伦·柯林斯如今是《纽约客》杂志的记者，她在这座教堂长大并在此受洗。她带我们参观了后方一扇献给沃克·泰勒上校的彩色玻璃窗。孩童时期的她并不了解泰勒这类人物背后的故事，但她说，这些谜团只是她家乡诸多未解之谜中的一个。“我总觉得这里有些不对劲，有些地方不合常理，”她说。
企鹅出版社
后来人们才发现，早在19世纪90年代末，泰勒上校就是一名声名显赫的白人至上主义者，教堂的牧师佩顿·哈里森·霍格牧师亦是如此。“得知此事时，我感到震惊，而且这与我切身相关，”柯林斯说，“热爱一个地方，并不意味着要为它掩盖真相，或是为它说谎。”
这座教堂正努力正视这段过往；然而，威尔明顿全市的步调则要缓慢得多。
在将于本周二出版的新书《他们偷走了一座城市》中，柯林斯揭开了威尔明顿最黑暗的篇章：美国历史上唯一一次成功政变。没听说过这件事？没关系，大多数人都没听过。
柯林斯表示：“我曾邀请一些人接受采访，他们不愿与我有任何牵扯。但也有很多人已经做好了准备。”
“这场行动不会有好结果”
1898年的威尔明顿是一座繁荣的种族融合城市。黑人和白人共享政治权力与领导职位，是“新南方”的典范。尽管如此，并非所有人都接受威尔明顿的发展道路，尤其是昔日的奴隶主阶层（大多为南方民主党人）。“他们明确将竞选活动的核心围绕在白人至上议题上，”柯林斯说。
汤姆·基思表示，当地政客实际上拥有一本关于如何开展白人至上主义运动的手册。“这并不像如今那样是秘密行动，”他说。
基思的祖父是B.F.基思，威尔明顿为数不多的白人精英之一，他曾站出来反对这场运动。“随着白人至上主义运动愈演愈烈，他给所有人写了信——州长、参议员——‘会有人丧命的。这场行动不会有好结果。’”
当时甚至还起草了一份“白人独立宣言”，部分内容由富商休·麦克雷执笔。当被问及曾祖父是否为白人至上主义者时，休·麦克雷三世回答：“按定义来说，是的。最令人不寒而栗的是，我确信这些人认为自己在做正确的事。”
在他们看来，所谓正确的事，就是清除威尔明顿所有的黑人影响力——1898年11月10日上午，他们正是这么做的，行动始于该市唯一的黑人报纸。一群暴徒冲向《每日记录报》报社，纵火烧毁了大楼，随后还拍下照片留念。
1898年11月10日，一群武装暴徒在纵火烧毁北卡罗来纳州威尔明顿唯一的黑人 owned报纸《每日记录报》后得意地合影。新汉诺威县公共图书馆
柯林斯说，每次看到这张照片，“都让我脊背发凉……他们脸上洋溢着满足感，仿佛这是一件战利品。”
但这仅仅是开始。暴徒随后前往第四街和哈尼特街的十字路口。一声枪响划过路口，随即三名黑人男子中弹身亡。
在接下来的几个小时里，一辆加装速射机枪的卡车如入无人之境般穿梭于城镇，宛如一辆原始坦克，向手无寸铁的黑人居民肆意扫射。没人确切知道当天下午暴徒杀害了多少人，但历史学家普遍认为，死亡人数从数十人到数百人不等。
武装白人驾驶机枪在北卡罗来纳州威尔明顿的街道上巡逻。无数黑人居民惨遭杀害。开普菲尔历史与科学博物馆
受害者之一是约书亚·哈尔西，一名黑人劳工，也是四个女孩的父亲。根据阴谋者会议记录的笔记，他被列为暗杀目标。
“会议纪要里写着：‘看到那个黑鬼乔希，就干掉那个黑鬼乔希，’”他的曾孙女伊莱恩·布朗说道。
哈尔西的妻子萨莉在一座维护不善的桥梁上绊倒受伤后，他起诉了市政府。这场正当的法律诉讼给他招来了杀身之祸。“他们本可以过上安稳的生活，拥有自己的住房，是受人尊敬的公民，”布朗说，“他们唯一的罪过就是身为黑人。”
她说，哈尔西头部中弹14枪，妻子萨莉亲眼目睹了这一切。萨莉和其他许多黑人妇女、儿童最终被赶出了城镇。
当天暴行的最后一环，就是夺取政治权力。白人民主党人冲进威尔明顿市政厅，当时的多族裔政府正坐镇于此。柯林斯说：“他们走进房间时，市议会有七名白人和三名黑人。当他们离开时，所有官员都辞职了——完全是在枪口威胁下。”
没有任何人因此受到起诉，部分原因是报纸头条将这场暴力事件描述为白人抵御黑人“种族骚乱”的自卫行为。随着镇上唯一的黑人报纸不复存在，无人能驳斥这一虚假叙事。
“政变后在威尔明顿受苦受难的人们向麦金莱总统求助，但他什么也没做，”柯林斯说。
“谎言换不来和解”
在随后的岁月里，这场政变被越来越少人提及，但它却像一股阴险的暗流，不断将黑人赶出威尔明顿。政变发生时，该市56%的人口为黑人。如今，这一比例已锐减至约15%。
影响至今仍在这片土地上蔓延。那些反对政变的人，比如汤姆·基思的祖父，至今仍被视为叛徒，他的远房亲属也是如此。汤姆·基思说：“我四岁那年，我的一个表兄朱利安·基思在421号公路旁搭便车。一位老农夫让他上了车，和他聊了起来。最后问道：‘孩子，你叫什么名字？’他回答：‘朱利安·基思。’那人猛地踩下刹车，说：‘你这个该死的共和党人，立刻从我车上滚下去！’这都过去五十年了！”
休·麦克雷三世也同样饱受此事的余波困扰。令他意外的是，有些人竟将曾祖父参与政变视为英雄壮举。一名男子称他的曾祖父“拯救”了威尔明顿：“我当时震惊了。我们以为这些都已成往事，但很多影响至今仍未消散。”
当被问及是否认为仍有宽恕的空间时，伊莱恩·布朗回答：“永远都有宽恕的空间。我们必须开始如实讲述这个故事，因为我们需要正义，需要和解。而谎言换不来和解，只有直面残酷的真相才能做到。我们必须揭开这段历史。”
至于劳伦·柯林斯，那些关于家乡威尔明顿的疑惑终于有了答案。尽管她仍未释怀，也未被完全理解，但真相已经水落石出。“我感觉自己与这段故事息息相关，”她说，“同时我也认为，像我这样的白人有责任了解这段历史，认真面对它，肩负起知晓全部真相的责任，哪怕真相令人不适。”
How white supremacists staged the only successful coup in U.S. history
2026-07-12 09:18 AM EDT / CBS News
In downtown Wilmington, North Carolina, stands a memorial that’s easy to pass – six bronze paddles stretching toward the sky. The plaque is hard to read in places, not because the words have washed away, but because what they say is so hard to believe.
There aren’t many tours that tell the tale, but Cedric Harrison says he’s determined to make it known. “The first thing we have to do to solve this problem is education,” he said. “One of my elders always told me, if you knew better, you do better.”
Cedric Harrison gives a talk at the 1898 Memorial Park in Wilmington, N.C., commemorating the violent overthrow of the city’s legally-elected government by white supremacists on Nov. 10, 1898. CBS News
Not far away is Wilmington’s First Presbyterian Church, where parts of that story live, too.
Lauren Collins, now a journalist at The New Yorker magazine, grew up in this church, and was baptized here. She pointed us to a stained-glass window in the back dedicated to Col. Walker Taylor. As a kid she didn’t know the stories behind men like him, but she says, they weren’t the only mysteries about her hometown. “I always had this sense that there was something a little off, a little amiss,” she said.
Penguin Press
It turns out that, back in the late 1890s, Col. Taylor was a celebrated white supremacist – and so was the church’s pastor, Rev. Peyton Harrison Hoge. “When I learned this, it was shocking, and it was personal,” Collins said. “Loving a place doesn’t mean lying about it, or lying for it.”
The church is making efforts to come to terms with the past; the city of Wilmington as a whole, however, has been a bit slower.
In her new book, “They Stole a City” (to be published Tuesday), Collins unravels Wilmington’s darkest chapter: the only successful coup in our nation’s history. Never heard about it? Well, most folks haven’t.
Collins said, “There are people that I’ve asked to talk to, who haven’t wanted anything to do with me. But there have also been a lot of people who are ready.”
“This is not gonna end well”
In 1898, Wilmington was a prosperous integrated city. Blacks and whites shared political power and leadership positions. It was a model for the New South. Still, not everyone accepted the path that Wilmington had taken, especially the former slave-owning class (mostly Southern Democrats). “They explicitly centered their campaign around the issue of white supremacy,” said Collins.
Tom Keith said local politicians literally had a handbook about how to build a white supremacy campaign. “It was not secret, like it would be today,” he said.
Keith’s grandfather was B.F. Keith, one of the few white elites in Wilmington who pushed back. “As he saw the white supremacy campaign develop, he wrote everybody – the governor, senators – ‘Somebody’s gonna get killed. This is not gonna end well.’”
There was even a “white Declaration of Independence” drawn up, written in part by a wealthy businessman named Hugh MacRae. Asked whether his great-grandfather was a white supremacist, Hugh MacRae III replied, “By definition, yes. The scary thing that strikes you is that I’m convinced that these folks thought they were doing the right thing.”
And the right thing, according to them, was to purge Wilmington of all Black influence – and on the morning of November 10, 1898, that’s just what they did, starting with the city’s only Black newspaper. A mob descended on The Daily Record. They set the building on fire – and then posed for this picture.
An armed mob poses proudly after setting fire to Wilmington, N.C.’s only Black-owned newspaper, the Daily Record, Nov. 10, 1898. New Hanover County Public Library
Collins said, every time she sees it, the photo “sends chills down my spine … They have this look of flushed satisfaction. It’s a trophy.”
But that was just the beginning. The mob then made its way to the crossroads of Fourth and Harnett Streets. A shot rang out across the intersection. Almost immediately, three Black men were dead.
In the hours that followed, a cart fixed with a rapid-fire machine gun advanced through town with impunity, like a primitive tank, firing at will on the largely un-armed Black residents. No one really knows how many the mob murdered that afternoon, but historians generally agree the number ranges from dozens to hundreds.
Whites armed with a machine gun prowled the streets of Wilmington, N.C. An untold number of Black residents were killed. Cape Fear Museum of History & Science
One of the victims was Joshua Halsey, a Black laborer and father of four girls, who, according to notes taken during the conspirators’ meeting, was singled out to be killed.
“It’s in the minutes: ‘When you see that n—– Josh, get that n—– Josh,’” said Elaine Brown, his great-granddaughter.
Halsey had sued the city after his wife, Sallie, tripped and injured herself on what was then a poorly-maintained bridge. His rightful legal action put a target on his back. “They were building a life, they owned a home, they were upstanding citizens,” said Brown. “The only guilt was being Black.”
She says Halsey was shot 14 times in the head as his wife, Sallie, watched. She, like many other Black women and children, was eventually driven out of town.
The last piece of the murderous puzzle that day was to seize political power. White Democrats stormed Wilmington’s city hall, where its multi-racial government sat. Collins said, “When they walked into the room, the Board of Aldermen had seven white men and three Black men. And when they walked out, all of those officials had resigned – literally at gunpoint.”
Not a single person was ever prosecuted, in part because newspaper headlines characterized the violence as whites defending themselves against a Black “race riot.” With the only Black newspaper in town gone, there was no one to refute that false narrative.
“People who were suffering in Wilmington in the aftermath of the coup appealed to President McKinley, and he did nothing,” Collins said.
“Healing doesn’t come with lies”
In the years that followed, the coup was talked about less and less, and yet it had a kind of insidious undertow that kept yanking Black people away from Wilmington. At the time of coup, 56% of the city was Black. Today, that percentage has dwindled to only about 15%.
The ripples still roll across this place. Those who opposed the coup, like Tom Keith’s grandfather, are still often thought of as traitors, just as his distant relatives are. Tom Keith said, “One of my cousins, when I was about four, he’s thumbing down 421. Some old farmer picks him up, starts talking to him. Finally says, ‘Well, what’s your name, son?’ Says, ‘Julian Keith.’ The guy slams on the brakes, says ‘You’re a damn Republican, get the hell outta my car!’ Fifty years later!”
The echoes are just as strong for Hugh MacRae III. Much to his surprise, some see his great-grandfather’s participation in the coup as heroic. One man said his great-grandfather “saved” Wilmington: “I was shocked. We think it’s then, but a lot of that is still with us.”
Asked if she believes there is room for forgiveness still, Elaine Brown replied, “There’s always room for forgiveness. We have to start telling this story the way that it is, because we need justice, and we need healing. And healing doesn’t come with lies. It comes with the ugly truth of things. We gotta pluck that out.”
As for Lauren Collins, those odd questions about her hometown of Wilmington have been answered. Not satisfied, not understood, but answered, factually. “I feel a part of this story,” she said, “and I also feel that it’s incumbent upon white people like me to know this history, and to grapple with it, and to shoulder the full truth of it, even when it’s uncomfortable.”