My 7th grade textbook was titled, ‘North Carolina: History-Geography-Government’ and it was written by Dr. Hugh T. Lefler from Cooleemee, NC and the Department of History at UNC. ‘NC:HGG’ was my book in 1971, had been published in 1959, and reprised much of the material from ‘North Carolina: The History of A Southern State’ from 1954. Lefler’s co-author in both was Dr. A.R. Newsome, also a native Tar Heel (Marshville) and UNC History Professor.
It mainly left out African Americans save to mention that they had been enslaved and according to Lefler, had been a ‘problem’ ever since emancipation. In his version, in the late 19th century conservative Democrats, whose leaders were the White Supremacist sons and descendants in most cases of slave holders and secessionists, had risen up against “Bad Government” and “Negro Rule” to eventually return the state fully to white control. He did mention briefly that “an organization called the ‘Red Shirts’ which used some of the methods of the old Ku Klux Klan” aided in “keep[ing] the Negro from voting” as part of that conservative, regressive return to power.
To continue in that same vein, about the murderous acts of White Supremacists in 1898 Lefler wrote: “After the election there was a race riot in Wilmington. Several Negroes were killed; many were driven from the city; a few white people were wounded; and the Democrats seized control of the city government.”
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