Scene after the Record was gutted,
November 10, 1898
On the evening of November 9, the white
leaders delivered their ultimatum to a committee of twenty five African
American business and community leaders. It ordered the city government
to resign, the Record shut down, and Alex Manly and several
Republican leaders and officials to leave Wilmington permanently. The ultimatum
had to be answered by 8:30 the next morning.
The black leadership agreed to these
demands, but the message was not delivered back to Col. Waddell's home
in time the next day. (Apparently Armond Scott, the attorney who was to
deliver it, placed it in the mail, and it did not arrive until 10 a.m.)
At 9:30 a.m., Waddell led the crowd
of armed men who had gathered at his home to the Record,
where the press was destroyed and a fire burned the upper story. Manly
was not there. It is unknown whether the fire was set deliberately, or
started accidentally in the tumult as the mob wrecked the press room and
destroyed the printing equipment.
