People in this chapter · Alfred Moore Waddell

On November 10, about 500 armed white men assembled around eight in the morning at the Wilmington Light Infantry armory on Market Street. Alfred Moore Waddell, a former Confederate officer and congressman who had urged the removal of the city’s Fusion leaders, led the march. Others joined as the group moved toward South Seventh Street. Estimates of the size of the crowd at its destination vary. The route itself is well established. It ran from an armory used by a local military organization to the offices of a newspaper in a Black community building. The state marker at the armory identifies the gathering place and the purpose of the march.

At Love and Charity Hall, the mob ransacked the Daily Record office and set the building on fire. The men posed in front of the wreckage. The group portrait records a crowd in public view and a building already damaged. It cannot establish the individual role of every person in the frame. Inside, the damage to the newspaper’s equipment and records meant that later generations would have to reconstruct much of the publication from the few issues kept elsewhere. The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources recounts the fire and the surviving photographs.

As the morning wore on, armed men and Black workers faced each other at a cotton compress. That standoff broke up without bloodshed. Around eleven, shooting began in the area of North Fourth and Harnett streets. Accounts differ over who fired first at that intersection. The larger sequence is documented: a white mob had already organized, marched, and burned the newspaper, and armed white men went on to attack Black residents across the Northside. The state militia entered the streets, and the Wilmington Light Infantry fired on Black people near the Fourth Street Bridge. A rapid-fire gun was aimed at St. Stephen AME Church. PBS’s hour-by-hour account identifies those locations and the conflicting witness accounts.

There is no dependable total for the dead. The state’s historical marker discussion distinguishes the coroner’s count from much higher, unconfirmed reports. Individual names give the day a scale that a disputed total cannot. Gray Bizzell was shot and died at home. John L. Gregory was killed near North Third Street. Charles Lindsey was killed at Fourth and Harnett. Joshua Halsey was killed on Bladen Street near North Seventh. The uncertainty belongs to the total and to particular incidents. Contemporary accounts, maps, and the state inquiry establish that white attackers killed Black people in multiple parts of Wilmington. See the state’s discussion of casualty estimates and PBS’s list drawn from the commission.