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

The 16-page tabloid section, "The Ghosts of 1898," describes Wilmington's stolen election, mob violence that killed many African-Americans, the overthrow of the city's biracial elected government and the flight of as many as 1,400 black residents from what was North Carolina's largest city.

We're telling this story in 2006 because it has become news through the work of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission, formed in 2000.

The commission's work resulted in a report of nearly 500 pages released this year and recommendations that are headed to the state legislature.

Among other proposals, the commission urged newspapers to publish a summary of the report for people statewide.

Spreading the word

This cemented an idea that N&O publisher Orage Quarles III and I had discussed after reading a draft of the report.

We wanted as many people as possible to know the story of 1898 and its place in our history.

We contacted colleagues at The Charlotte Observer, who had been thinking along the same lines, and agreed to work together on coverage. We also put out word to other newspapers across the state, including African-American papers, offering to share our work.

The section you'll find in Friday's newspaper is the centerpiece of these efforts. The Wilmington Star-News, The Carolinian in Raleigh and The Charlotte Post also plan to carry the section; other papers plan to use a one-page version we provided.

Written by author and historian Timothy B. Tyson, "The Ghosts of 1898" vividly describes the Democratic campaign for white supremacy that surrounded events in Wilmington and became the state's driving political force well into the 20th century.

Tyson's narrative features many names writ large in North Carolina history: Gov. Charles B. Aycock; Josephus Daniels, publisher and editor of The News & Observer; Alfred Moore Waddell, a former Confederate soldier and congressman who became mayor of Wilmington after helping carry out the historic coup d'etat.

To set record straight

Despite its drama and complexity, the chapter on 1898 has largely gone missing from official state history for most of our lifetimes.

North Carolina began to reconsider these events in 1998 with a conference in Wilmington, a new book and other public conversation.

The N&O published a special report in the Q section, including news stories and essays.

From my reading, the 1998 report was this newspaper's first true exploration of the 1898 events and the role of Daniels and The N&O in spreading fear of "Negro domination" and other propaganda of white supremacy.

Daniels' role

Daniels' statue stands across the street from our building. His portrait hangs in our board room. In the three decades before his family sold The N&O in 1995 to the McClatchy Co., Daniels' heirs took editorial positions on race that contributed to the newspaper's reputation for being much more liberal than its community.

But in the early years after he purchased the newspaper, as Tyson's story and the commission's report make clear, Daniels made his News and Observer (no "&" then) one of the Democrats' loudest and most tireless trumpets of white supremacist rhetoric. Newspapers were part of a Democratic strategy, Tyson writes, that also included speeches and "Red Shirt" riders for physical intimidation.

We wanted our special report to look this history in the face. Because the newspapers were part of the story, we sought a writer who wasn't part of our staffs.

Tyson, who teaches at Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill, brought a historian's view and a writer's gifts to the task. His account draws on many sources and is framed by his own memories connected to Wilmington and the legacy of 1898.

Beyond "The Ghosts of 1898," we'll carry some other coverage, including reports by The Observer's Eric Frazier on descendants of two Wilmington families.

I hope you'll set aside time to read this story, barely known to many people, including native North Carolinians. Those who read it, or who seek out the full commission report, will add the lost chapter to their knowledge of those times, and better understand our times as well.