They Stole a City by Lauren Collins — a groundbreaking, multigenerational history of the 1898 Wilmington white supremacist coup and its enduring legacy.
In 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina — a thriving city with a prosperous Black middle class and a multiracial, democratically elected government — became the site of America’s only successful coup d’état. A white supremacist mob murdered dozens of Black citizens, overthrew the government at gunpoint, and installed white rule, erasing one of Reconstruction’s greatest successes.
In this ambitious and revelatory book, New Yorker staff writer Lauren Collins traces the lives of four Wilmington families — Black and white — across 125 years. From the violence of 1898 through Jim Crow, the Great Migration, Civil Rights, school desegregation, and into the present day, she reveals how the coup’s consequences continue to shape the city, its people, and American democracy itself.
Deeply researched, powerfully written, and urgently relevant, They Stole a City is both a gripping historical narrative and a vital examination of racial terror, memory, and the long struggle for justice in America.
Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the roots of structural racism and the ongoing fight to protect democratic values.
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