An NEH Summer Institute
Program Dates: July 8 - 19, 2024

This 2-week residential workshop for middle and high school teachers focused on the November 10, 1898, Wilmington coup and massacre, the only successful coup d’état in our nation’s history. Reconstructing the historical memory of this event, in which scores of Black Wilmingtonians were murdered or exiled, has always been a contested endeavor. The white supremacist regime that replaced the duly elected biracial government characterized November 10 as a race riot and used it as a pretext to exclude Black citizens from political participation.

Held on the campus of University of North Carolina Wilmington, the institute offered participants the opportunity to meet leading scholars, filmmakers, and authors and to learn not only about the 1898 Wilmington massacre and coup, but also its centrality within the broader national discourse on democratic values.  In addition, they toured a variety of relevant locations throughout the Port City and design curricula to implement in their own classrooms.

Please check the Archive tab for work products that institute participants developed as well as suggested teaching resources.

APPLICATION DEADLINE HAS PASSED.

  • Wilmington 1898: Geographies of Rage, Resistance, and Resilience has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.

  • Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

  • NEH Seminars, Institutes, and Landmarks programs are intended to extend and deepen knowledge and understanding of the humanities by focusing on significant topics, texts, and issues; contribute to the intellectual vitality and professional development of participants; and foster a community of inquiry that provides models of excellence in scholarship and teaching.

    NEH expects that project directors will take responsibility for encouraging an ethos of openness and respect, upholding the basic norms of civil discourse.

    Seminar, Institute, and Landmarks presentations and discussions should be:

    1. firmly grounded in rigorous scholarship, and thoughtful analysis;

    2. conducted without partisan advocacy;

    3. respectful of divergent views;

    4. free of ad hominem commentary; and

    5. devoid of ethnic, religious, gender, disability, or racial bias.

  • Endowment programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or age. For further information, write to the Equal Opportunity Officer, National Endowment for the Humanities, 400 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20024. TDD: 202 606 8282 (this is a special telephone device for the Deaf).