We Have Taken the City by H. Leon Prather Sr - Essay Example

The essay begins with the description of the status of black Americans particularly in Wilmington, North Carolina wherein before the racial massacre happened, the black Americans had been more superior, powerful, business minded people, had greater opportunity in terms of livelihood compared to the white Americans. The description of the status of the black Americans gives the reader clarity in this essay for them to follow the story. Names of these black Americans who have a good status were also mentioned in the first place in the essay which has a minor role but memorable role in the story of the Wilmington racial massacre, such as Thomas C.

Miller, a black businessman and Alexander Manly, black editor. To continue, in the year 1894 and 1896, North Carolina’s Populist Party fused with the Republic Party to have power of the state government which was known as the Fusionists. Although they won, in the year 1898 election, the Democratic Party was able to have a government control at the state level which was the starting point of violence and frightening if blacks by the Red Shirts, these are the once that acts in behalf of the Democratic Party, that want to eliminate black voting. . In order to destroy the image of the black Americans to the South Carolina, news, pictures and stories were published and spread throughout saying that black American men were attacking white women and Alexander Manly, denied the charges and defending it through his article.

This made the white supremacist angry and so after the election they created different committees and wanted Manly to be evicted and cease the newspaper to be published but because of no response from the side of Manly, Alfred Moore Waddell led an armed group to the Daily Record office and they destroyed the equipment and burned down the building of the black American newspaper. After the black Americans heard about what happened, they assembled themselves throughout Wilmington. On that day, the riot and gunfire took place.

It was said that with the use of telegraphs flashed news of the racial violence, democratic leaders in other parts of the Northern Carolina towns and cities sent their military forces and gave help to the white people which led many numbers of black people to die. The way the writer of this essay illustrates and describes how the riot was done was very clear although in the end no one knows and no one can estimate the number of deaths among the blacks. Even the movements of the riders were properly and clearly described.

The directions of the places, movements of the people and the exact location of the people were also clearly illustrated which really makes this essay interesting although there exact words that were quoted and it’s a little difficult to understand and connect it with the situation. The quoted word example is “When we