American Coup: Wilmington 1898

On Monday, November 18, documentary filmmaker Yoruba Richen and historian LeRae Umfleet will discuss American Coup: Wilmington 1898, a new American Experience PBS documentary directed by Richen and Brad Lichtenstein that examines a white supremacist massacre of Black residents of Wilmington, North Carolina. Richen and Umfleet will be in conversation with Teaching for Black Lives co-editor Jesse Hagopian.

American Coup: Wilmington 1898 tells the story of how “self-described white supremacists used intimidation and violence to destroy Black political and economic power and overthrow Wilmington’s democratically-elected, multi-racial, Reconstruction era government. Black residents were murdered and thousands were banished. The story of what happened in Wilmington was suppressed for decades until descendants and scholars began to investigate. Today, many of those descendants — Black and white — seek the truth about this intentionally buried history.” The film’s broadcast premiere is on November 12 when it will simultaneously stream on all PBS branded platforms including PBS.org and the PBS App.

The class on Nov. 18 will provide vital background and ideas for teachers who seek to introduce this history — and the documentary — in their classrooms.

Yoruba Richen is the founding director of the documentary program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. She is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her film The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and won a Peabody Award. The Zinn Education Project developed lessons to accompany the film. Her other films include The Cost of Inheritance and The Killing of Breonna Taylor.

LeRae Umfleet works with the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to develop outreach and specialty programming projects on behalf of the Secretary’s office. As an historian, LeRae has focused her research interests on telling under told, or hidden, histories. After three years of research and writing, LeRae produced a legislative report for the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission in 2005. In 2009, the report was published as a book, A Day of Blood: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot. LeRae consistently seeks to broaden our collective knowledge of the multitude of tragedies that occurred in November, 1898.

ASL interpretation provided.

Professional development credit certificate provided upon request for attendees.

These online classes with people’s historians are held at least once a month (generally on Mondays) at 4:00 pm PT / 7:00 pm ET for 75 minutes. In each session, the historian is interviewed by a teacher and breakout rooms allow participants to meet each other in small groups, discuss the content, and share teaching ideas. We designed the sessions for teachers and other school staff. Parents, students, and others are also welcome to participate.