October 1, 2019

Philip Gerard’s “Cape Fear Rising” Reveals the Truth About the 1898 White Supremacist Coup in Wilmington, N.C

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:05:01 — 59.7MB)

In today’s episode number 54, we meet Philip Gerard, author of “Cape Fear Rising,” the historical fiction book which was re-released this year on the 25^thanniversary of its publication, because the truth in it remains a story that needs to be told, especially in a time when there are places in this world where white supremacists are still on the march.

Did you know that in 1898, black citizens held most of the city’s government offices in Wilmington, North Carolina? Did you also know that a well-connected group of white citizens staged a bloody coup, fixing the 1898 election by threat and then killing and running many black citizens out of town?

When the book was first published, Philip Gerard recalls that he was a relatively naïve, untenured assistant professor at UNC Wilmington who was unprepared for the backlash in the community when descendants of white leaders who had stolen the 1898 election and the property of their fellow black citizens fired back with threats of their own to the author. Gerard didn’t learn until many years later that the Board of Trustees intended to deny him tenure because of the book and would have done so but for one trustee, the late Owen Kenan (a descendant of Rand Kenan, one of the 1898 ringleaders), who spoke up for the author, saying that to punish Gerard for writing the book would go against the core value of academic freedom.

We start with Philip reading a scene near the opening of the book when the Red Shirts, a group of white Wilmington hoodlums, exert their power over a black preacher and the white journalist does nothing but tell his upset wife that it is none of their business.

Connect with the author

Check out the author’s website here: www.philipgerard.com

Also on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/philip.gerard2

Publishers and book covers

For more about Cape Fear Rising, go to:Blair: https://www.blairpub.com/shop/cape-fear-rising

For more about The Last Battleground, go to: UNC Press: https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469649566/the-last-battleground/

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About the Author:

Philip Gerard is the author of five novels, eight works of nonfiction, and numerous

essays on history, music, and writing craft, including “Cape Fear Rising” (Blair Publications) and his most recent book “The Last Battleground, The Civil War Comes to North Carolina” (UNC Press). He teaches in the BFA and MFA Programs of the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he has won a number of awards for teaching excellence. He serves on the faculty of Goucher College’s summer residency MFA program in Creative Nonfiction. He and his wife, Jill, live in Wilmington, NC, on Whiskey Creek near the Intracoastal Waterway.

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Making Mid-rolls Fun –Books in Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room

In our mid-roll guest this week, Tom Hanchett, the historian-in-residence at the Robinson-Spangler Carolina room at Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, offers some book suggestions about life and important people in Charlotte’s African-American history.