Though Ben Tillman helped fire the boiler of white supremacy, Wilmington had plenty of homegrown talent.

The white supremacy campaign was so inflammatory that violence seemed unavoidable.

While the streets became a killing ground, the Committee of Twenty-Five launched a coup in the corridors of City Hall.

Despite Mayor Waddell's assertion of "no intimidation," martial celebrations seemed in order.

The Wilmington race riot did not invent segregation in the South but instead cemented it.

For decades afterward, participation in the 1898 campaign became the irreplaceable political credential.

As a historian, I find it easier to understand what happened in the past than to draw easy lessons for the future. We cannot go back and change the history and yet, as William Faulkner observed, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

In May, the 13 members of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission offered recommendations to "repair the wrong" done 108 years ago.

In the years after 1898, the state of North Carolina told the story of the white supremacy campaign to its children in a variety of ways.

As I wrote this account, I relied heavily on the "1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report," whose principal researcher and author is LeRae S. Umfleet.

The News & Observer is publishing a special section titled "The Ghosts of 1898" to inform North Carolinians about a deadly and often misunderstood chapter in our state's history.

Thomas C. Miller, a former slave who became one of the wealthiest men in Wilmington, was run out of the city in 1898 when whites took over the government and banished several leading blacks. A daughter of Miller's, Lula Poe, reared 11 children.

Sill:This Friday we'll devote a special section of the paper to a significant but little-known story that's 108 years old.

The 1898 campaign for white supremacy in North Carolina, which included some of the state's most prominent leaders, culminated in a bloody riot in Wilmington.