Alex Manly and the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection

Alex Manly was the editor of The Daily Record in Wilmington, NC and wrote the following editorial on August 18, 1898 (Source, P.C.1401.1 OS MSS in the NC Archives, Raleigh):

"MRS FELTON'S SPEECH "A Mrs. Felton from Georgia makes a speech before the agriculture Society at Tybor, Ga., in which she advocates lynching as an extreme measure. This woman makes a strong plea for womanhood and if the alleged crimes or rape were half so frequent as is oftentimes reported, her plea would be worthy of consideration. "Mrs. Felton, like many other so-called Christians, loses sight of the basic principle of the religion of Christ in her plea for our class of people as against another. If a missionary spirit is essential for the uplifting of the poor white girls, why is it? The morals of the poor white people are on a par with their colored neighbors of like conditions, and if any one doubts the statement let him visit among them. The whole lump needs to be leavened by those who profess so much religion and showing them that the preservation of virtue is an essential for the life of any people. "Mrs. Felton begins well for she admits that education will better protect the girls on the farm from the assaulter. This we admit and it should not be confined to the white any more than to the colored girls. The papers are filled often with reports of rapes of white women, and the subsequent lynching of the alleged rapists. The editors pour forth volleys of aspersions against all negroes because of the few who may be guilty. If the papers and speakers of the other race would condemn the commission of crime because it is a crime and not try to make it appear that the negroes were the only criminals, they would find their strongest allies in the intelligent negroes themselves, and together the whites and blacks would root the evil out of both races. "We suggest that the whites guard their women more closely, as Mrs. Felton says, thus giving no opportunity for the human fiend be he white or black. You leave your goods out of doors and then complain because they are taken away. "Poor white men are careless in the matter of protecting their women, especially on farms. They are careless of their conduct toward them, and our experience among poor white people in the country teaches us that the women of that race are not any more particular in the matter of clandestine meetings with colored men, than are the white men with colored women. Meetings of this kind go on for some time until the woman's infatuation or the man's boldness bring attention to them and the man is lynched for rape. Every negro lynched is called a 'big, burly, black brute,' when in fact many of those who have thus been dealt with had white men for their fathers, and were not only not 'black' and 'burly,' but were sufficiently attractive for white girls of culture and refinement to fall in love with them as is well known to all. "Mrs. Felton must begin at the fountain head if she wishes to purify the stream. "Teach your men purity. Let virtue be something more than an excuse for them to intimidate and torture a helpless people. Tell your men that it is no worse for a black man to be intimate with a white woman, than for a white man to be intimate with a colored woman. "You set yourselves down as a lot of carping hypocrites; in fact you cry aloud for the virtue of your women while you seek to destroy the morality of ours. Don't think ever that your women will remain pure while you are debauching ours. You sow the seeds -- the harvest will come in due time."

On August 24th, The Daily Record published the following: "The following resolutions were adopted at the regular session of the Ministerial Union, which is composed of the colored ministers of this city: "Resolved, That the Ministerial Union, is in hearty sympathy with the efforts of the Daily Record in defending the rights of the race, and that each minister inform his congregation of the present situation, and endeavor to sustain the paper by swelling its subscription list, and by urging prompt payment."

The white presses of the day responded with a viciousness that seems extreme today, in 2001. The race issue was entangled with a variety of other issues of the day, such as the election, Democrat versus Republican, etc., the basic inflamatory premise of the white press was that Manly had "insulted" the "poor white women" by suggesting that they might be in love with a black man. The white man was thereby deprived of his excuse for lynching a black man because, as one headline proclaimed, the editorial "Declares that Attractive White Girls of Culture Fall in Love with Negroes, and the Assaults Committed are the Result of Mutual Love and Not of Violence" and futhermore, "WHITE WOMEN SLANDERED" and "The Poor White Women are Charged with Secret Meetings with the Negro Men and with being Infatuated with Them" and etc. Manly's words are rather moderate in tone, and seem to say, Yes, lets ALL be moral and good people. Everybody needs to work to improve the population.

There was an upswelling of support from the black community in favor of Manly. All their gatherings were peaceful, and the election day even passed peacefully. Two days later, on November 10th, 1898, the newspaper office was burned and at least 7 black persons were killed in the rioting. Maybe as many as one hundred persons were actually killed, and hundreds of others, including Alex Manly, were banished from the city.

See also:

The 1898 Foundation, Inc.

A UNCW Free Symposium on the 1898 Wilmington Riot

State Library Biography of Alex Manly

Finding Aid to the UNC-CH manuscripts of Governor Charles Manly

Alex Manly was purported to be a grandson of NC Governor Charles Manly. My research has neither confirmed nor denied his ancestry. However, in the above photo (courtesy of the 1898 Foundation Inc. website) of Alex Manly, he looks very Caucasian. Indeed, during the riot, while he and his brother Frank were fleeing Wilmington, they were mistakenly thought to be white, and thus escaped. --Charles Manly Uzzell, August 26, 2001. (By strange coincidence, I am named after the Governor, but am not related to him.)