Intended Audience
The Media Literacy, Civic Engagement, and Democracy Project, a partnership of the College's Center for the Study of Democracy and Hilda C. Landers Library, is pleased to sponsor a film screening of "Wilmington on Fire," a 90-minute documentary directed and produced by Christopher Everett and released in 2015 that chronicles the Wilmington Massacre of 1898.
"The Wilmington Massacre of 1898 was a bloody attack on the African American community by a heavily armed white mob with the support of the North Carolina Democratic Party on November 10, 1898 in the port city of Wilmington, North Carolina. It is considered one of the only successful examples of a violent overthrow of an existing government and left countless numbers of African Americans dead and exiled from the city. This event was the spring board for the White Supremacy movement and Jim Crow segregation throughout the state of North Carolina and the American South. This incident has been barely mentioned and has been omitted from most history books. It was not until 2006, after the North Carolina General Assembly published a report on it, that the tragedy became known to the general public" (http://wilmingtononfire.com/).
Please note: This documentary includes racist language and accounts of racially-motivated violence that viewers may find disturbing.
Following the film screening will be a discussion and Q & A led by Charles J. Holden, professor of history at St. Mary's College of Maryland.