“American Coup: Wilmington, 1898” PBS documentary premieres at Thalian Hall

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A new PBS documentary that takes a deep dive into the coup d’etat and massacre carried out by white supremacists in Wilmington more than a century ago premiered Thursday evening.

Hundreds of people packed into Thalian Hall to see “American Coup: Wilmington 1898.”

PBS North Carolina produced the nearly 2-hour long documentary, which took more than 3 years to complete.

The showing at Thalian was the North Carolina premiere of the film, which chronicled real events that happened just a few blocks away from Thalian.

Descendants of those involved in the Wilmington Coup were interviewed for the documentary.

Yoruba Richen is a co-director of the film and she’s directed other films, including one about Breonna Taylor, who was shot and killed in her Louisville, Kentucky home by police officers.

Richen hopes the film about the coup in Wilmington will help people better understand this dark moment in American history.

“This film can help people grapple with the history of this country, whether it be hard history, history of racial terror,” Richen said. “This, Wilmington was not the only place that this happened. And hopefully, it can spur people to find out more.”

Former city council member Ronald Sparks said he heard stories of what happened from members of his church who experienced the events firsthand.

Sparks said the film will help ensure this tragic but important part of history isn’t forgotten.

“The documentary, especially for the younger children who have absolutely no clue about what happened back then,” Sparks said. “And so they would have, won’t have any revisionist history where people are saying this didn’t happen.”

“American Coup: Wilmington, 1898” premieres on television on Tuesday, November 12th at 9 pm on PBS’s American Experience and it will stream on PBS.org and the PBS app.