WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NONFICTION! A searing account of the Wilmington riot and coup of 1898, an extraordinary event unknown to most Americans by the 1890s, Wilmington was North Carolina's largest city and a shining example of a mixed-race community. But across the state - and the South - white supremacist Democrats were working to reverse the advances made by former slaves and their progeny.