title: FC Goa

text: The club is owned by Goan Football Club Pvt. Ltd. which used to consist of Dattaraj Salgaocar (37% stake) and Shrinivas Dempo (37% stake), which in 2016 was bought by Jaydev Mody (65% stake), Venugopal Dhoot (23% stake) and Virat Kohli (12% stake).


title: FC Goa

text: FC Goa has a reserve side which is fielded in the I-League 2nd Division. It also has a women's team which was announced on 28 July 2018. It also has youth teams for various age group football tournaments and Youth I-League.


title: FC Goa

text: FC Goa's grassroots development programme which commenced in February 2015, saw FC Goa reaching out to over 20,000 children. FC Goa has a robust grassroots development programme. Over 1500 children between the age groups of 6 to 14 are currently being groomed by FC Goa. The U-14 team, the Junior Gaurs are doing excellently well. FC Goa assigned coach Gavin Araujo, an AFC A license coach as its Head of the youth development and Katz Naidoo as the program's Technical Director. The adopted 16 schools include St Anthony's High School (Duler), St Anthony's HS (Guirim), Saraswat HS (Mapusa), St Britto's HS (Mapusa), Assagao Union School, St Joseph's HS (Calangute), Pilar Central School, and St Lawrence HS (Agassaim) in the North. Our Lady of Poor HS (Tilamol), Our Lady of Fatima HS (Rivona), St Joseph HS (Chandor), Assumpta HS (Sarzora), Fr Agnel Ashram HS (Verna), St Rita HS (Maina), St Rock HS (Velim), and St Xavier HS (Velim) are the schools which have been adopted by FC Goa from the South.


title: FC Goa

text: The organizers of ISL introduced eISL, a FIFA video game tournament, for the ISL playing clubs, each represented by two players. FC Goa hosted a series of qualifying games for all the participants wanting to represent the club in eISL. On 20 November the club announced the signing of the two players.


title: Tu quoque

text: As a specific example, consider the following scenario where Person A and Person B just left a store.


title: Tu quoque

text: The example above was worded in a way to make it amenable to the template given above. However, in language, the technique more often makes an appearance in more subtle and less explicit ways, such as in the following example in which Person B is driving a car with Person A as a passenger:


title: Tu quoque

text: Although neither Person A nor Person B explicitly state what is, because of the colloquial nature of the conversation, it is nevertheless understood that statement is something like: "Running stop signs is wrong" or some other statement that is similar in spirit.


title: Tu quoque

text: Person A and/or Person B are also allowed to be groups of individuals (e.g. organizations, such as corporations, governments, or political parties) rather than individual people. For example, Persons A and B might be governments such as those of the United States and the former Soviet Union, which is the situation that led to the term "whataboutism" with the "And you are lynching Negroes" argument.


title: Tu quoque

text: The technique can also appear outside of conversations. For example, it is possible for someone who supports a certain Politician B, who recently did something wrong, to justify not changing their support to another politician by reasoning with themselves:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The Wilmington insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington coup of 1898, was a coup d'état and massacre carried out by white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, on Thursday, November 10, 1898. The white press in Wilmington originally described the event as a race riot caused by black people. Since the late 20th century and further study, the event has been characterized as a violent overthrow of a duly elected government by a group of white supremacists. It is the only such incident in the history of the United States.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Multiple causes brought it about. The coup was the result of a group of the state's white Southern Democrats conspiring and leading a mob of 2,000 white men to overthrow the legitimately elected local Fusionist biracial government in Wilmington. They expelled opposition black and white political leaders from the city, destroyed the property and businesses of black citizens built up since the American Civil War, including the only black newspaper in the city, and killed an estimated 60 to more than 300 people.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The Wilmington coup is considered a turning point in post-Reconstruction North Carolina politics. It was part of an era of more severe racial segregation and effective disenfranchisement of African Americans throughout the South, which had been underway since the passage of a new constitution in Mississippi in 1890 which raised barriers to the registration of black voters. Other states soon passed similar laws. Historian Laura Edwards writes, "What happened in Wilmington became an affirmation of white supremacy not just in that one city, but in the South and in the nation as a whole", as it affirmed that invoking "whiteness" eclipsed the legal citizenship, individual rights, and equal protection under the law that black Americans were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: In 1860, just prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War, the majority of Wilmington's population was black, and it was also the largest city in the state of North Carolina, with a population of nearly 10,000. Numerous enslaved laborers and free people of color worked at the city's port, in households as domestic servants, and in a variety of jobs as artisans and skilled workers.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: With the end of the war, freedmen who lived in many states left plantations and rural areas and moved to towns and cities, not only to seek work, but also to gain safety by creating black communities without white supervision. Tensions grew in Wilmington and other areas because of a shortage of suppliesConfederate currency suddenly had no value and the South was impoverished following the end of the long war.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: In 1868, North Carolina ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, resulting in the recognition of Reconstruction policies. The state legislature and governorship were dominated by Republican officials, with the governor a white man and the legislature made up of both white and black people. Freedmen were eager to vote and overwhelmingly supported the Republican Party that had emancipated them and given them citizenship and suffrage. However, conservative white Democrats, who had previously dominated politics in the state, greatly resented this "radical" change, which they deemed as being brought about by black residents, Unionist "carpetbaggers", and race traitors referred to as "scalawags".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Resentment also developed over Confederate veterans being barred from voting and holding public office in the state for a period after the war. Many white Democrats were already embittered by the Confederacy's defeat. Insurgent veterans joined the , which orchestrated violence and intimidation to deter blacks from organizing and voting.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1870. After the KKK was suppressed by the federal government through the Force Act of 1870, new paramilitary groups arose in the South. By 1874, chapters of Red Shirts, a paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party, had formed in North Carolina.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Democrats developed a plan to subvert home rule, seeking to have local officials appointed by the state rather than elected by the people. They began circumventing legislation by taking over the state's judiciary and adopting 30 amendments to the state constitution, which effected widespread policy changes, including lowering the number of judges on the North Carolina Supreme Court, putting the lower courts and local governments under the control of the state legislature, rescinding the votes of certain types of criminals, mandating segregated public schools, outlawing interracial relationships, and granting the General Assembly the power to modify or nullify any local government. By adopting these elements, the Democrats became identified as would-be bastions for white Americans. However, their control was largely limited to the western part of the state, within counties where, demographically, there were relatively few black Americans.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: As the Democrats chipped away at Republican rule, things came to a head with the 1876 gubernatorial campaign of Zebulon B. Vance, a former Confederate soldier and governor. Vance called the Republican Party "begotten by a scalawag out of a mulatto and born in an outhouse." Through Vance, the Democrats saw their biggest opening to begin implementing their agenda in the eastern part of the state.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: However, in that region, poor white cotton farmers were often more fed up with the capitalism of big banks and railroad companies, who charged high freight rates and used laissez-faire economics that worked against the already impoverished South. These farmers aligned with the labor movement, with many joining the People's Party (also known as the Populists). In 1892, as the U.S. plunged into an economic depression, the Populists banded with black Republicans who shared their hardships, forming an interracial coalition with a platform of self-governance, free public education, and equal voting rights for black men, called the Fusion coalition. Republicans and Populists agreed jointly to support municipal candidates.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: In the last decade of the 19th century, Wilmington, still the largest city in the state, continued to have a majority-black population, with black people accounting for about 55 percent of its roughly 25,000 people. There were numerous black professionals and businessmen among them, and a rising middle class.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The Republican Party was biracial in membership. Unlike in many other jurisdictions, black people in Wilmington were elected to local office, and also gained prominent positions in the community. For example, three of the city's aldermen were black. Of the five members on the constituent board of audit and finance, one was black. Black people also served in the civic positions of justice of the peace, deputy clerk of court, and street superintendent, and as coroners, policemen, mail clerks, and mail carriers.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: African Americans also held significant economic power in the city. Many former slaves had skills which they were able to use in the marketplace. For example, several became bakers, grocers, dyers, etc., making up nearly 35 percent of Wilmington's service positions.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: By 1889, many black people had moved into other areas of the economy as well. They began moving out of service jobs and into other types of employment, where there was a higher demand for their work, along with higher pay. At the time, black people accounted for over 30 percent of Wilmington's skilled craftsmen, such as mechanics, carpenters, jewelers, watchmakers, painters, plasterers, plumbers, stevedores, blacksmiths, masons, and wheelwrights. In addition, they owned ten of the city's 11 restaurants, 90 percent of the city's 22 barbers, and one of the city's four fish and oyster dealerships. There were also more black bootmakers and shoemakers than white ones, one-third of the city's butchers were black, and half of the city's tailors were black. Lastly, two brothers, Alexander and Frank Manly, owned the "Wilmington Daily Record", one of the few black newspapers in the state and reportedly the only black daily newspaper in the country.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: With the help of patronage and equitable hiring practices, a few black people also held some of the most prominent business and leadership roles in the city, such as architect and financier Frederick C. Sadgwar. Thomas C. Miller was one of the city's three real estate agents and auctioneers, and was also the only pawnbroker in the city, with many whites known to be indebted to him. In 1897, following the election of Republican President William McKinley, John C. Dancy was appointed to replace a prominent white Democrat as the U.S. collector of customs at the Port of Wilmington, at a salary of nearly . The editor of the "Wilmington Messenger" often disparaged him by referring to Dancy as "Sambo of the Customs House". Black professionals increasingly supported each other. For example, of the more than 2,000 black professionals in Wilmington at the time, more than 95 percent were clergy or teachers, professions where they were not shut out from competing, unlike doctors and lawyers.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: With black people in the area rapidly emerging into this newfound social status, racial tensions grew as they progressed economically, socially, and politically. Former slaves and their children had no inherited wealth. With the collapse of the Freedman's Bank in 1874 (of the 37 branches, one was in Wilmington), some black residents from Wilmington lost much of their savings and, after the experience, most distrusted banks. Freedmen were also leery of debt, as the debt-slave metaphor stuck within the community. In addition, credit or loans available to them were marked up in price. The annual interest rate of credit charged to black people was nearly 15 percent, compared to under 7.5 percent for poor whites, and lenders refused to let African-Americans pay off their mortgages in installments. This practice, known as "principal or nothing", positioned lenders to take over black property and businesses through forced sales. The lack of inherited wealth, limitations of access to credit, and loss of savings through federal mismanagement and fraud, created a combined effect in which black people "could not save anything", or otherwise acquire the means to own taxable property.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Though they made up nearly 60 percent of the county's population, property ownership among black residents in Wilmington was rare, at just eight percent. Of nearly $6 million in real and personal property taxes, they paid less than $400,000 of this amount. And while the per capita wealth for whites in the county was around , it was less than for black people.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Despite this, affluent whites believed that they were paying taxes in a disproportionate amount given the amount of property they owned, relative to the city's black residents, who now held the political power to prevent affluent whites from changing this ratio. Additionally, there was tension with poor, unskilled whites, who competed with African-Americans in the job market and found their services in less demand than skilled black labor. Black people were caught between not meeting the expectations of affluent whites and exceeding the expectations of poor whites, paradoxically progressing too fast and too slow at the same time in the eyes of white residents. An example of the view that blacks were "moving too slow" can be found in the following excerpt from an 1898 magazine article:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: This sentiment was echoed even among whites who aligned politically with African-Americans, such as Republican governor Daniel L. Russell:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The homes and businesses of successful African-Americans were sometimes torched by whites at night. But because black residents had enough economic and political power to defend their interests, socially, things were relatively peaceful.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: These dynamics continued with the elections of 1894 and 1896, in which the Republican-Populist Fusion ticket won every statewide office, including the governorship in the latter election, won by Daniel L. Russell. The Fusionists began dismantling the Democrats' political infrastructure, namely by reverting their appointed positions in local offices back to offices subject to popular elections. They also began trying to dismantle the Democratic stronghold in the less-populated western part of the state, which allowed the Democrats more political power through gerrymandering. The Fusionists also encouraged black citizens to vote, who constituted an estimated 120,000 Republican sympathizers.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: By 1898, Wilmington's key political power was in the hands of "The Big Four", who were representative of the Fusion ticket: the mayor Dr. Silas P. Wright; the acting sheriff of New Hanover County, George Zadoc French; the postmaster, W. H. Chadbourn; and businessman Flaviel W. Fosters, who wielded substantial support and influence with black voters. The "Big Four" worked in concert with a circle of patronsmade up of about 2,000 black voters and about 150 whitesknown as "the Ring". The Ring included about 20 prominent businessmen, about six first- and second-generation New Englanders from families that had settled in the Cape Fear region before the War, and influential black families such as the Sampsons and the Howes. The Ring wielded political power using patronage, monetary support, and an effective press through the "Wilmington Post" and "The Daily Record".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: This shift and consolidation of power horrified white Democrats, who contested the new laws, taking their grievances to the state Supreme Court, which did not rule in their favor. Defeated at the polls and in the courtroom, the Democrats, desperate to avoid another loss, became aware of discord between the Fusion alliance of black Republicans and white Populists, although it appeared that the Fusionists would sweep the upcoming elections of 1898, if voters voted on the following issues.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: In late 1897, nine prominent Wilmington men were unhappy with what they called "Negro Rule". They were particularly aggrieved about Fusion government reforms that affected their ability to manage and "game" (i.e., fix to their advantage) the city's affairs. Interest rates were lowered, which decreased banking revenue. Tax laws were adjusted, directly affecting stockholders and property owners who now had to pay a "like proportion" of taxes on the property they owned. Railroad regulations were tightened, making it more difficult for those who had railroad holdings to capitalize on them. Many Wilmington Democrats thought these reforms were directed at them, the city's economic leaders.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The nine men (a.k.a. "the Secret Nine")Hugh MacRae, J. Allan Taylor, Hardy L. Fennell, W. A. Johnson, L. B. Sasser, William Gilchrist, P. B. Manning, E. S. Lathrop, and Walter L. Parsleybanded together and began conspiring to re-take control of the government.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Around the same time, the newly elected Democratic State Party Chairman, Furnifold Simmons, was tasked with developing a strategy for the Democrats' 1898 campaign. Simmons knew that in order to win, he needed an issue that would cut across party lines. A student of Southern political history, he knew that racial resentment was easy to inflame. He would later admit he had taken notice when, in the previous year, Populist Senator Marion Butler wrote in his newspaper, "The Caucasian":


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: So Simmons decided to build a campaign around the issue of white supremacy, knowing that the question would overwhelm all other issues. He began working with the Secret Nine, who volunteered to use their connections and funds to advance his efforts. He developed a strategy to recruit men who could "Write, Speak, and Ride." "Writers" were those who could create propaganda in the media; "speakers" were those who would be powerful orators; and "riders" were those who could ride a horse and be intimidating. He also had Tom Jarvis relay a promise to "the large corporations": if the Democrats won, the party would not raise their taxes.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: In March 1898, after realizing that the Raleigh-based "News & Observer" and "The Charlotte Observer", which represented both the liberal and conservative wings in the Democratic party, were "together in the same bed shouting 'nigger'", Simmons met with Josephus "Jody" Daniels, the editor of the "News & Observer", who also had the 21-year-old cartoonist Norman Jennett (nicknamed "Sampson Huckleberry") on staff, and with Charles Aycock. The men met at the Chatawka Hotel in New Bern and began planning how to execute the Democratic campaign strategy.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Simmons began by recruiting media outlets sympathetic to white supremacy, such as "The Caucasian" and "The Progressive Farmer", which cynically called the Populists the "white man's party", while touting the party's alliance with black people. He also recruited aggressive, dynamic, and militant young white supremacists to help his effort. These publications presented black people as being "insolent", accused them of exhibiting ill-will and disrespect for whites in public, labeled them as corrupt and unjust, constantly laid claims about black men's alleged interest in white women, and accused white Fusionists allied with them of supporting "negro domination".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: On November 20, 1897, following a Democratic Executive Committee meeting in Raleigh, the first statewide call for white unity was issued. Written by Francis D. Winston, it called on whites to unite and "re-establish Anglo-Saxon rule and honest government in North Carolina". He called Republican and Populist rule anarchy, evil, and apocalyptic, setting a vision for the Democrats to be the saviorsthe redeemersthat would rescue the state from "tyranny".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Simmons created a speakers bureau, stacking it with talented orators whom he could deploy to deliver the message across the state. One of those orators was Alfred Moore Waddell, an aging member of Wilmington's upper class who was a skilled speaker and four-time former Congressman, losing his seat to Daniel L. Russell in 1878.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Waddell remained active after his defeat, becoming a highly sought-after political speaker and campaigner. He positioned himself as a representative of oppressed whites and a symbol of redemption for inflamed white voters. He had developed a reputation as "the silver tongued orator of the east" and as an "American Robespierre".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: In 1898, Waddell, who was unemployed at the time, was also dealing with financial difficulty. His law practice was struggling, and his third wife, Gabrielle, largely supported him through her music teaching. The Chief of Police, John Melton, later testified that Waddell was seeking an opportunity to return to prominence as a politician, in order to "lighten the burden of his wife".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Waddell aligned with the Democrats and their campaign to "redeem North Carolina from Negro domination". Melton stated that Waddell, who had been out of public life for while, saw the White Supremacy Campaign as "his opportunity to put himself before the people and pose as a patriot, thereby getting to the feed trough".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Waddell was "hired to attend elections and see that men voted correctly". With the aid of Daniels, who would distribute racist propaganda that he later acknowledged helped fuel a "reign of terror" (i.e., disparaging cartoons of blacks) before speeches, Waddell, and the other orators, began appealing to white men to join their cause.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: As the fall of 1898 approached, prominent Democrats such as George Rountree, Francis Winston, and attorneys William B. McCoy, Iredell Meares, and John D. Bellamy, began organizing white supremacy clubs, known as the White Government Union. The clubs demanded that every white man in Wilmington join.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Membership in the clubs began spreading throughout the state. The clubs were complemented by the development of a white labor movement created to oppose blacks competing with whites for jobs. The "White Laborer's Union" got the backing of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce and the Merchant's Association and vowed to create a "permanent labor bureau for the purpose of procuring white labor for employers".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The efforts of the white supremacists finally consolidated in August 1898, when Alexander Manly, owner of Wilmington's only black newspaper, "The Daily Record", wrote an editorial responding to a speech supporting lynchings by printing that many white women were not raped by black men, but willingly slept with them. Manly was the acknowledged grandson of Governor Charles Manly and his slave, Corinne. Whites were outraged at Manly's piece. This provided an opening for Democrats, now calling themselves "The White Man's Party", as "evidence" supporting their claims of predatory and emboldened blacks.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: For some time, Josephus Daniels had used Wilmington as a symbol of "Negro domination" because its government was biracial, ignoring the fact that it was dominated by a two-thirds white majority. Many newspapers published pictures and stories implying that African-American men were sexually attacking white women in the city.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: This belief was championed throughout the country following a speech by Rebecca Latimer Felton, a prominent women's suffragist, and wife of Georgia populist William H. Felton, at the Georgia Agricultural Society, about the problems farm wives faced. She stressed that, of all the threats farm wives face, there was none greater than "the black rapist", due to the failure of white men to protect them. She advocated that white men should resort to vigilante justice as a way for them to restore that protection:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: <br>In response to Felton's speech and the danger it imposed upon black men, 32-year-old Alexander Manly wrote an editorial, refuting it and asserting that white women have consensual sex with black men.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Fearing the backlash of the piece, five prominent black Wilmington RepublicansW. E. Henderson (lawyer), Charles Norwood (Register of Deeds), Elijah Green (Alderman), John E. Taylor (Deputy Collector of Customs) and John C. Dancy (Collector of Customs)urged Manly to suspend the paper.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: However, many whites were appalled at the suggestion of consensual sex between black men and white women. Within 48 hours, white supremacists, aided by newspapers across the South, used Manly's wordsthough reprinting incendiary distortions of themas a championing catalyst for their cause. Waddell, and other orators, began inciting white citizens with sexualized images of black men, insinuating black men's uncontrollable lust for white women, running newspaper stories and delivering speeches of "black beasts" who threatened to deflower white women.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Prior to this editorial, "The Daily Record" had been considered "a very creditable colored paper" throughout the state, that had attracted subscriptions and advertising from blacks and whites alike. However, after the editorial, white advertisers withdrew their support from the paper, crippling its income. Manly's landlord, M. J. Heyer, then evicted him. For his own safety, Manly was forced to relocate his press in the middle of the night. He and supporters moved his entire press from the corner of Water Street and Princess Street to a frame building on Seventh Street between Ann and Nun. He had planned to move to Love and Charity Hall (aka Ruth Hall), on South Seventh Street, but it declined to take him as a tenant because his presence would have greatly increased the building's insurance rate. Black pastors asked their congregations to step in and purchase subscriptions to help keep Manly's newspaper solvent, which many black women agreed to do, as they deemed Manly's paper to be the "one medium that has stood up for our rights when others have forsaken us."


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: John C. Dancy would later call Manly's editorial "the determining factor" of the riot, while "Star-News" reporter, Harry Hayden, referred to it as "the straw that broke Mister Nigger's political back."


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: On October 20, 1898, in Fayetteville, the Democrats staged their largest political rally. The Red Shirts made their North Carolina debut, with 300 of them accompanying 22 "virtuous" young white ladies in a parade where cannons were fired and a brass band played. A guest of honor was South Carolina senator, Ben Tillman, who chastised the white men of North Carolina for not yet "killing that damn nigger editor [Manly]", bragging that Manly would be dead if his editorial had been published in South Carolina, and when it came to blacks, advocating a "shotgun policy."


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Four days later, 50 of the city's most prominent white men, such as Robert Glenn, Thomas Jarvis, Cameron Morrison and Charles Aycock, who was now the pre-eminent orator of the campaign, packed the Thalian Hall opera house. Alfred Waddell delivered a speech, declaring that white supremacy was the only issue of importance for white men. He deemed blacks to be "ignorant" and railed that "the greatest crime that has ever been perpetrated against modern civilization was the investment of the negro with the right of suffrage", and he advocated punishment for race-traitors for enabling it, cementing his call with a blistering closing:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Portions of Waddell's speech were printed, sent around the state, and "quoted by speakers on every stump."


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: After the Thalian Hall speech, on October 28, "special trains from Wilmington" provided discounted train tickets to Waddell, and other white men, to travel across the state to Goldsboro for a "White Supremacy Convention". A crowd of 8,000 showed up to hear Waddell share the stage with Simmons, Charles Aycock, Thomas Jarvis, and Major William A. Guthrie and the mayor of Durham. Preceding Waddell on the stage, Guthrie declared:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Waddell followed by accusing blacks of "insolence", "arrogance", which he claimed was overshadowed only by their "criminality". He insinuated that black men were disrespectful to white women, and blamed the "evils of negro rule" on the white men who had empowered them by "betraying their race". Once again, he concluded his speech assuring them that white men would banish blacks, and their traitorous white allies, even if they had to fill the Cape Fear River with enough black dead bodies to block its passage to the sea.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Waddell's speech so inspired the crowd that the Red Shirts left the convention and started terrorizing black citizens and their white allies, in the eastern part of the state, right away. They destroyed property, ambushed citizens with weapon fire, and kidnapped people from their homes and whipped them at night, with the goal of terrorizing them to the point where Republican sympathizers would be too afraid to vote, or even register to do so.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The Populists accused the Democrats of crying "nigger" to distract from the issues, and of attacking the character of good men in order to get elected to office. Several Populists began trying to fight back in the court of public opinion, like Oliver Dockery, who was attacked by John Bellamy at the white supremacy convention:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: However, the Democrats continued to put more pressure on Republican and Populist, leading to candidates being too afraid to speak in Wilmington.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Democrats sought to further capitalize on this fear by making efforts to suppress the Republican ticket in New Hanover County, arguing that a win by any political party opposing the Democrats would guarantee a race riot. They convinced the business community of this outcome:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The Red Shirts, known to be "hot-headed," were looked down upon by the Wilmington white elite as "ruffians" and "low class". However, they deployed the Red Shirts around the city, who began holding a series of marches and rallies, organized by an unemployed sympathizer, Mike Dowling, an Irishman who, despite being the elected chair of the White Laborer's Union, had recently been fired as the foreman of Fire Engine Company Number 2 for "incompetency, drunkenness, and continued insubordination."


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: On November 1, 1898, Dowling led a parade of 1,000 men, mounted on horses, for ten miles, through the black neighborhoods i.e. Brooklyn, of Wilmington. Joining his Red Shirts were the New Hanover County Horsemen and former members of the disbanded Rough Riders, led by Theodore Swann. White women waved flags and handkerchiefs as they passed. The procession ended at the First National Bank Building, which served as the Democratic Party headquarters, where they were encouraged by Democratic politicians in front of big crowds.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The next day, Dowling led a "White Man's Rally". Every "able-bodied" white man was armed. Escorted by Chief Marshal Roger Moore, a parade of men began downtown, again marched through black neighborhoods – firing into black homes and a black school on Campbell Square – and ended at Hilton Park where a 1,000 people greeted them with a picnic and free barbecue. A number of defiant speakers followed. For example, future U.S. Representative Claude Kitchin said: "All the soldiers in the United States will not keep white people from enjoying their rights", and "if a negro constable comes to a white man with a warrant in his hand, he should leave with a bullet in his brain".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Leading up to the election, these gatherings became daily occurrences; the white newspapers announced the time and place of meetings. Free food and liquor were provided for the vigilantes in order to "fire them up, and make them fiercer and more terrorizing in their conduct". At night, the rallies took on a carnival-like atmosphere. However, away from the streets, the groups began disrupting black churches, and patrolling the streets as "White Citizens Patrols," wearing white handkerchiefs tied around their left arms, intimidating and attacking black citizens. The patrons of the white supremacy campaign also supplied them with a new Gatling gun.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The atmosphere in the city made blacks anxious and tense. Conversely, it made whites hysterical and paranoid.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: A number of black men attempted to purchase guns and powder, as was legal, but the gun merchants, who were all white, refused to sell them any. The merchants reported to the clubs on any black person who tried to procure arms. Some blacks tried to circumvent the local merchants by purchasing guns from outside of the state, such as from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. However, the manufacturer would refer the request back to their North Carolina state branch, which would then call the order in to the local Wilmington branch. Once the state branch learned from the local branch that the purchasers were black, the state branch would refuse to fill the order. Merchants sold no guns to blacks between November 1 and 10, but later testified that they sold over 400 guns to whites over the same period. The only weapons blacks had were a few old army muskets or pistols.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Newspapers incited people into believing that confrontation was inevitable. Rumors began to spread that blacks were purchasing guns and ammunition, readying themselves for a confrontation. Whites began to suspect black leaders were conspiring in churches, making revolutionary speeches and pleading with the community to arm themselves with bullets, or to create torches from kerosene and stolen white cotton bales.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The Political Director of "The Washington Post", Henry L. West, went to Wilmington to cover the White Supremacy Campaign. He wrote:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The Democrats hired two detectives to investigate the rumors, including one black detective. However, the detectives concluded that the black residents "were doing practically nothing". George Rountree would later write that two other black detectives claimed that black women agreed to set fire to their employers homes, and that black men threatened to burn Wilmington down if the white supremacists prevailed in the election. To prevent any black conspiring, the Democrats forbade blacks from congregating anywhere.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Right before the election, the Red Shirts, supported by the White Government Union, were told that they wanted the Democrats to win the election "at all hazards and by any means necessary ... even if they had to shoot every negro in the city". The Red Shirts had so instituted a level of fear among the city's blacks that, approaching the election, they were "in a state of terror amounting almost to distress".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Most blacks and many Republicans did not vote in the November 8 election, hoping to avoid violence, as Red Shirts had blocked every road leading in and out of the city, and drove potential black voters away with gunfire. The Red Shirts were in line with Congressman W. W. Kitchin, who declared, "Before we allow the Negroes to control this state as they do now, we will kill enough of them that there will not be enough left to bury them."


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Governor Russell, who by this point had withdrawn his name from the ballot in the county, decided to come to Wilmington, as it was his hometown, and he thought he might be able to calm the situation. However, when his train arrived, Red Shirts swarmed his train car and tried to lynch him.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: When the day was over, Democrats won 6,000 votes, overall, which was sizable given that the Fusion Party won 5,000 votes just two years prior. However, years later, it was determined that the 11,000-vote net increase also strongly suggested a high degree of election fraud. Mike Dowling would support this suggestion when he testified that Democrat party officials worked with the Red Shirts, instructing them where to deposit Republican ballots so they could be replaced by votes for Democrats. The political director of the "Washington Post", who was in Wilmington for the election, recounted, "No one for a moment supposes that this was the result of a free and untrammelled ballot; and a Democratic victory here, as in other parts of the State, was largely the result of the suppression of the Negro vote."


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: However, the biracial Fusionist government still remained in power in Wilmington, because the mayor and board of aldermen had not been up for reelection in 1898.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The night following the election, Democrats ordered white men to patrol the streets, expecting blacks to retaliate. However, no retaliation occurred:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The "Secret Nine" had charged Alfred Waddell's "Committee of Twenty-Five" with "directing the execution of the provisions of the resolutions" within a document that they authored, that called for the removal of voting rights for blacks and for the overthrow of the newly elected interracial government. The document was called "The White Declaration of Independence".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: According to the "Wilmington Messenger", the Committee of Twenty-Five included Hugh MacRae, James Ellis, Reverend J.W. Kramer, Frank Maunder, F.P. Skinner, C.L. Spencer, J. Allen Taylor, E.S. Lathrop, F. H. Fechtig, W.H. Northon Sr., A.B. Skelding, F.A. Montgomery, B.F. King, Reverend J.W.S. Harvey, Joseph R. Davis, Dr. W.C. Galloway, Joseph D. Smith, John E. Crow, F.H. Stedman, Gabe Holmes, Junius Davis, Iredell Meares, P.L. Bridgers, W.F. Robertson, and C.W. Worth.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: On election day, Hugh MacRae (of the Secret Nine) had the "Wilmington Messenger" call for a mass meeting. That evening, the paper published "Attention White Men", telling all white men to meet at the courthouse the following morning for "important" business.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: On the morning of November 9, the courthouse was packed with 600 men of all professions and economic classes. Hugh MacRae sat in front with the former mayor, S.H. Fishblate, and other prominent white Democrats. When Alfred Waddell arrived, MacRae provided him a copy of "The White Declaration of Independence", which Waddell read to the crowd, "asserting the supremacy of the white man". He proclaimed that the U.S. Constitution "did not anticipate the enfranchisement of an ignorant population of African origin", that "never again will white men of New Hanover County permit black political participation", that "the Negro [should] stop antagonizing our interests in every way, especially by his ballot", and that the city should "give to white men a large part of the employment heretofore given to Negroes". The full text of the Declaration is as follows:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The crowd gave Waddell a standing ovation and 457 signed their names to adopt the proclamation, which would be published in the newspapers, without concealing who they were.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The group then decided to give the city's black residents 12 hours to comply with it. Alexander Manly had already shut his press down and left town when he was alerted, by a white friend, that the Red Shirts were going to lynch him that night. Manly's friend gave him $25 and told him a password to bypass white guards on Fulton Bridge, as bands of Red Shirts were patrolling the banks, trains, and steamboats. Once Manly, along with his brother Frank and two other fair-skinned black men, Jim Telfain and Owen Bailey, approached the guards, after escaping through the woods, the guards let them pass. The guards, believing the four men to be white, also invited them to the "necktie party" they were going to that evening for "that scoundrel Manly". The guards even loaded their buggies with Winchester rifles in case they spotted Manly on their way out of the city.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Waddell's Committee of Twenty-Five summoned the Committee of Colored Citizens (CCC), a group of 32 prominent black citizens, to the courthouse at 6:00 pm. They told the CCC of their ultimatum, instructing them to direct the rest of the city's black citizens to fall in line. When the black men asked to reason with them and pleaded that they could not control what Manly did, or what any other black person would do, Waddell responded that the "time had passed for words".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The black men left the courthouse and went to David Jacob's barbershop on Dock Street, where they wrote a reply to the committee's ultimatum:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Lawyer Armond Scott wrote the letter, and was instructed by the committee to personally deliver the response to Waddell's home, at Fifth and Princess Streets, by 7:30 a.m. the next day, November 10. Scott was afraid, and left the response in Waddell's mailbox. Scott later claimed that the letter Waddell had published in newspapers was not the letter he wrote. He said that the letter he authored expressed that Manly had ended publication of "The Daily Record" two weeks before the election, thereby eliminating the "alleged basis of conflict between the races".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Alfred Waddell and the Committee of Twenty Five purportedly did not receive a response from the Wilmington Committee of Colored Citizens (CCC) by 7:30 a.m. on November 10, though it is unclear when Waddell checked his mailbox. As a result, about 45 minutes later, Waddell gathered about 500 white businessmen and veterans at Wilmington's armory. After heavily arming themselves with rifles and a Gatling gun, Waddell then led the group to the two-story publishing office of "The Daily Record", the city's black-owned newspaper. They broke into editor Alexander Manly's building, vandalized the premises, doused the wood floors with kerosene, set the building on fire, and gutted the remains. At the same time, black newspapers all over the state were also being destroyed. In addition, blacks, along with white Republicans, were denied entrance to city centers throughout the state.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Following the fire, the mob of white vigilantes swelled to about 2,000 men. A rumor circulated that some black people had fired on a small group of white men a mile away from the printing office. White men then went into black Wilmington neighborhoods, destroying black businesses and property and assaulting black inhabitants with a mentality of killing "every damn nigger in sight".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: As Waddell led a group to disband and drive out the elected government of the city, the white mob rioted. Armed with shotguns, the mob attacked black people throughout Wilmington, but primarily in Brooklyn, the majority-black neighborhood.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The small patrols were spread out over the city and continued until nightfall. Walker Taylor was authorized by Governor Russell to command the Wilmington Light Infantry troops, just returned from the Spanish–American War, and the federal Naval Reserves, taking them into Brooklyn to quell the "riot". They intimidated both black and white crowds with rapid-fire weapons, shooting and killing several black men. Hundreds of black people fled the town to take shelter in nearby swamps.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: As the violence spread, Waddell led a group to the Republican mayor, Silas P. Wright. Waddell forced Wright, the board of aldermen, and the police chief to resign at gunpoint. The mob installed a new city council that elected Waddell to take over as mayor by 4p.m. that day.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Once he was declared mayor, the "Secret Nine" gave Waddell a list of prominent Republicans who he was to banish from the city. The next morning Waddell, flanked by George L. Morton and the Wilmington Light Infantry, marched six prominent black people on the list out of Wilmington; the other black people on the list had already fled. Waddell put them on a train headed north, in a special car with armed guards who were instructed to take them over the state line. Waddell then gathered the whites on the list and paraded them in front of a large crowd, allowing G.Z. French to be dragged on the ground and nearly lynched from a telephone pole, before he was allowed to board the train and leave the city.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The coup was deemed a success for the business elite, with "The Charlotte Observer" quoting a prominent lawyer who said:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The number of Black people killed by the mob by the end of the day (November 10) is uncertain. Estimates have included "about 20," "more than twenty," "twenty or more," "somewhere between fourteen and sixty", "as many as 60," "at least sixty", "90,", "more than one hundred", and "exceeded 300.". An additional number, variously estimated between 20 and 50, were banished and ordered to leave town by the mob. The Rev. J. Allen Kirk gave this statement about the experience:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: While African Americans sought redress for the attacks at the federal level, many also blamed Manly for provoking the attacks by pushing white supremacists too far. John C. Dancy stated in a November 21 "New York Times" interview that Manly was responsible for the attacks, and that before his editorials the relations between blacks and whites were "most cordial and amicable ... but the white men of the South will not tolerate any reflection upon their women". Journalist and orator John Edward Bruce agreed, and spoke out against Manly's attempts to "revolutionize the social order". Even the National Afro-American Council called for a day of fasting for African Americans to offer "a hearty confession of our own sins", without condemning the role of white supremacists in the attacks.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Along with Alex and Frank G. Manly, brothers who had owned the "Daily Record," more than 2,000 blacks left Wilmington permanently, forced to abandon their businesses and properties. This greatly reduced the city's professional and artisan class, and changed the formerly black-majority city into one with a white majority. While some whites were wounded, no whites were reported killed. City residents' appeals to President William McKinley for help to recover from the widespread destruction in Brooklyn received no response; the White House said it could not respond without a request from the governor, and Governor Russell had not requested any help. In the 6th District, Oliver Dockery contested John Bellamy's congressional seat in court. However, he did not prevail. While the loss of blacks and the refusal to hire black workers benefited the white labor movement in terms of job availability, white men were disappointed with the types of jobs that were available, as they were "nigger jobs" that paid "nigger wages". Subsequent to Waddell's usurping power, he and his team were re-elected in March 1899 to city offices. Waddell held the mayorship until 1905. He wrote his memoirs in 1907 and died in 1912.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Once installed in the state legislature, in 1899, Democrats, who had accounted for nearly 53 percent of the vote, determined there were two things they could do to retain their power:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: To permanently install "good government by the White Man's Party", the "Secret Nine" installed George Rountree in the state legislature to ensure that blacks were kept from voting, and also to keep white Republicans from aligning, politically, with blacks again. On January 6, 1899, Francis Winston introduced a suffrage bill to keep blacks from voting. Rountree went on to chair a special joint committee overseeing the disenfranchisement amendment, a committee that existed to circumvent the U.S. Constitution which, in fact, granted blacks the right to vote.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The legislature passed a law requiring new voters to pay a poll tax, and passed a state constitutional amendment requiring prospective voters to demonstrate, to local elected officials, that they could read and write any section of the Constitution – practices that discriminated against poor whites, and more than 50,000 black men. However, to make sure that as few poor whites as possible would be hurt by the law, and prevented from voting Democrat, Rountree invoked a "Grandfather clause". The clause guaranteed the right to register and vote, bypassing the literacy requirement, if the voter, or a voter's lineal ancestor, was eligible to vote in his state of residence prior to January 1, 1867. This excluded practically any black man from voting. Rountree bragged of his work:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The Democrats also set about passing its first racial hierarchy laws, prohibiting blacks and whites from sitting together on trains, steamboats, and in courtrooms, and even requiring blacks and whites to use separate Bibles. Nearly every aspect of public life was codified to separate poor whites and blacks.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: These laws, a direct result of the brief political alliance between blacks and poor whites, not only encouraged whites to see black people as outcasts and pariahs, but also rewarded them for doing so, socially and psychologically. This contributed to voluntary separation, whereas whites and blacks lived close to one another prior to 1898 in Wilmington; however, the following year, physical segregation increased between blacks and whites throughout the state, with home value, social status and quality of life improving for whites, the further they physically lived away from blacks. This essentially lessened political democracy in the area, and enhanced oligarchical rule by the descendants of the former slaveholding class.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Through 1908, Democrats in other southern states began following North Carolina's example by suppressing the black vote, through disenfranchisement laws or constitutional amendments, of their own. They also passed laws mandating racial segregation of public facilities, and martial law-like impositions on African Americans. The US Supreme Court (at the time) upheld such measures.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Two years after the coup, the Democrats again ran on "negro domination" with disenfranchisement of blacks on the ballot. Gubernatorial candidate Charles Aycock (one of the campaign's orators) used what happened at Wilmington as a warning to those who dared to challenge the Democrats. He stated that disenfranchisement would keep the peace. When the votes in Wilmington were counted, only twenty-six people voted against black disenfranchisement, demonstrating the political effect of the coup.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: On November 26, 1898, Collier's Weekly published an article in which Waddell wrote about the government overthrow. The article, "The Story of The Wilmington, North Carolina, Race Riots" included an early use of the term "race riot".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Despite vowing to "choke the Cape Fear River with carcasses", and the fact that some members of the white mob posed for a photograph in front of the charred remnants of "The Daily Record," in the article Waddell painted himself as a reluctant, non-violent leader – or accidental hero – "called upon" to lead under "intolerable conditions". He painted the white mob not as murderous lawbreakers, but as peaceful, law-abiding citizens who simply wanted to restore law and order. He also portrayed any violence committed by whites as either being accidental or executed in self-defense, effectively laying blame on both sides:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Although individuals of both races pointed to Democrat-backed violence as the driver behind the incident, the national narrative largely cast black men as aggressors, legitimizing the coup as a direct result of black aggression. For example, The Atlanta Constitution, a newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia, justified the violence as a rational defense of white honor, and a necessary response against the "criminal element of the blacks", furthering stereotypes of black violence.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The complex reasons for the coup were overlooked in Waddell's account, which disregarded the overthrow as a carefully planned conspiracy, established the historical narrative as the coup being an event that "spontaneously happened", and helped usher in the Solid South. Complemented by Hugh Ditzler's illustration depicting blacks as gun-welding aggressors, Waddell and Ditzler effectively defined and illustrated the term "race riot", and set the precedent for its application which is still used today.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: It was referred to that way by the North Carolina Legislature in 2000 when it set up the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission, and is the term used to this day (2018) by the State Archives of North Carolina, North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, and the State Library of North Carolina, in its online "NCPedia".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Waddell's "Harper's Weekly" account framed the violence, and the coup, with a "noble" narrative, comparing the events to the cause of the "Men of the Cape Fear" during the American Revolution. For many whites, the gallant framing remained, as the perpetrators of the coup were deemed to be "revolutionary" heroes who led an "insurrection" against a "riotous" black menace. For example, immediately, following the coup, the coup participants began reshaping the language of the events. For example, William Parsley, a former Confederate Lieutenant-Colonel, wrote of Wilmington's blacks:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Conversely, the black survivors and community maintained that the event was a "massacre". A survivor of the incident, who fled the city, Rev. Charles S. Morris, told his account of the event before the International Association of Colored Clergymen in January 1899:


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Revisionists dispute the white supremacist aspect of the event often by 1) denying the culpability of the white actors and 2) framing the cause of the white actors as noble.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Arguments that deny culpability, such as equating blame onto blacks, shifts blame away from the white actors and places it onto black residents and their white allies. "Noble" arguments stress that the white actors were not bad people, but honorable souls who were only fighting for "law and order". By not recognizing that the white actors sought "law and order" through criminality and violence, the goodness, valor and values of their ancestors remain affirmed.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The branding of the event as a "riot", "insurrection", "rebellion", "revolution", or "conflict", largely remained until the late 20th century due to the accounts of black survivors being minimized, ignored and omitted – as with "The Daily Record" destroyed, there were no media outlets to provide recorded accounts of blacks – and due to the South's adoption of Jubal Early's literary and cultural point of view of The Lost Cause, in which violence perpetuated by whites, across American Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era, evolved into a language of vindication and renewal.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The narrative of The Lost Cause allowed the North and the South to emotionally re-unify. It brought sentimentalism, by political argument, and recurrent celebrations, rituals and public monuments that allowed Southern whites to reconcile their regional pride with their Americanness. It also provided conservative traditions and a model of masculine devotion and courage in an age of gender anxieties and ruthless material striving. However, historians have argued that the reunion was of the North and the South was "exclusively a white man's phenomenon and the price of the reunion was the sacrifice of the African Americans".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: A Gatling gun, and an armed mob, fired upon people prevented from arming themselves. However, the dissonance over the nomenclature of this fact, between blacks and whites, caused controversy about how to address its historical retelling, and also how to deal with the effects of the event's outcome.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: By the early 1990s, different groups in the city told and understood different histories of the events, sparking interest to discuss and commemorate the coup, following efforts to recognize similar atrocities in which white-led mobs destroyed the black communities, such as in Rosewood and Tulsa, respectively.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: In 1995, informal conversations began among the African-American community, UNC-Wilmington's university faculty, and civil rights activists in order to educate residents about what really happened on that day, and to agree on a monument to memorialize the event. On November 10, 1996, the town of Wilmington held a program inviting the community to help make plans for the 1998 Centennial Commemoration. Over 200 people attended, including local state representatives and members of the city council. Some descendants of the white supremacy leaders of 1898 were opposed to any type of commemoration.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: In early 1998, Wilmington planned a series of "Wilmington in Black and White" lectures, bringing in political leaders, academic specialists and civic rights activists, as well as facilitators such as Common Ground. George Rountree III attended a discussion held at St. Stephen's A.M.E. Church, attracting a large crowd, as his grandfather was one of the leaders of the 1898 violence. Rountree spoke of his personal support for racial equality, of his relationship with his grandfather, and of his refusal to apologize for his grandfather's actions as "the man was the product of his times". Other descendants of the coup's participants also said they owed no apologies, as they had no part in their ancestors' actions.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Many listeners argued with Rountree about his position and refusal to apologize. Some said that, "although he bore no responsibility for those events, he personally had benefited from them". Kenneth Davis, an African American, spoke of his own grandfather's achievements during those times, which Rountree's grandfather and others had "snuffed out" by their violence. Davis said that the "past of Wilmington's black community ... was not the past Rountree preferred".


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: In 2000, the state legislature, recognizing that the black community had suffered severely, politically and economically, following the coup, especially due to state disenfranchisement and Jim Crow, created the 13-member, biracial, 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission to develop a historical record of the event and to assess the economic impact of the riot on blacks locally and across the region and state, co-chaired by state legislator Thomas E. Wright.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The Commission studied the riot for nearly six years, after hearing from numerous sources and scholars. The Commission produced a lengthy report on the event, authored by state archivist LeRae Umfleet, finding that the violence was "part of a statewide effort to put white supremacist Democrats in office and stem the political advances of black citizens." Harper Peterson, former mayor of Wilmington and a member of the commission, said "Essentially, it crippled a segment of our population that hasn't recovered in 107 years." According to Umfleet, "'massacre', rather than 'riot', does apply. That's a big, strong word, but that's what it was."


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: The commission made broad recommendations for reparations by government and businesses that would benefit not only African-American descendants, but also the entire community. The Commission recommended 10 bills to the North Carolina Legislature, to correct the century-old damage with reparations for victims' descendants through economic and business development, scholarships, and other programs. The Legislature did not pass any of them.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: Historians noted that the Raleigh News & Observer had contributed to the riots by publishing inflammatory stories, in addition to the results of the elections in Wilmington. This encouraged white men from other parts of the state to travel to Wilmington, to take part in the attacks against blacks, including the "coup d'état". Articles in the "Charlotte Observer" have also been cited as adding to the inflamed emotions. The Commission asked the newspapers to make scholarships available to minority students and to help distribute copies of the commission report. The commission "also asked that New Hanover County, which includes the city, be placed under special federal supervision through the Voting Rights Act", to ensure that current voter registration and voting are conducted without discrimination.


title: Wilmington insurrection of 1898

text: In 2005, the League of the South, a white supremacist group "known for opposing civil rights laws and defending the right to display the Confederate flag", set up a web site, "1898 Wilmington". Under the name of "1898 Wilmington Institute for Education & Research", they spoke of "Reconstruction horror". What is "sometimes labeled a race riot or rebellion" was actually the actions of law-abiding white Democrats rescuing the city from Republican and carpetbagger corruption, compounded by ignorant, misled negroes who were in no way capable of voting intelligently. They quoted white supremacist governor Charles Aycock, who was "passionately interested in good government", on "the menace of negro suffrage": "[T]he only hope of good government in North Carolina, and the other Southern States, rested upon the assured political supremacy of the white race". It quotes approvingly the pro-lynching spokeswoman Rebecca Felton, claims that blacks did not lose any property as a result of the riot, and blames the entire conflict on Alexander Manly, carpetbaggers, and other Republicans.


title: An Affair to Remember

text: An Affair to Remember is a 1957 American romance film directed by Leo McCarey and starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Filmed in CinemaScope, it was distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is considered among the most romantic films of all time according to the American Film Institute. The film was a remake of McCarey's 1939 film "Love Affair", starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer.


title: An Affair to Remember

text: Nickie Ferrante, a well-known playboy, meets Terry McKay aboard the transatlantic ocean liner en route from Europe to New York. Each is romantically involved with someone else. After a series of meetings aboard the ship, they establish a friendship. When Terry joins Nickie on a brief visit to his grandmother Janou while the ship is anchored near her home at Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean coast, she sees Nickie with new eyes and their feelings become deeper. During their visit, Janou tells Terry that Nickie is a talented painter but destroys most of his paintings because they don't meet his standards. As the ship returns to New York City, they agree to reunite at the top of the Empire State Building in six months' time if they have succeeded in ending their relationships and starting new careers.


title: An Affair to Remember

text: On the day of their rendezvous, Terry, hurrying to reach the Empire State Building, is struck down by a car while crossing a street. Gravely injured, she is rushed to the hospital. Meanwhile, Nickie, waiting for her at the observation deck at the top of the building, is unaware of the accident and, after many hours, leaves at midnight, believing that she has rejected him.


title: An Affair to Remember

text: After the accident, Terry, now unable to walk, refuses to contact Nickie because of her disability. Instead, she finds work as a music teacher. Nickie has pursued his painting and has his work displayed by Courbet, an art gallery owner. Six months after the accident, Terry sees Nickie with his former fiancée at the ballet. Nickie does not notice her condition because she is seated, and they both say hello.


title: An Affair to Remember

text: Nickie learns Terry's address and on Christmas Eve pays her a surprise visit. Although he tries to coax her to explain her actions, Terry dodges the subject, never leaving the couch on which she lies. He gives Terry a shawl that Janou, who has died, left for her. As he is leaving, Nickie mentions a painting on which he had been working when they first met, and that it was just given away to a woman who liked it but had no money. He is about to say that the woman was in a wheelchair when he pauses, suddenly suspecting why Terry has been lying still on the couch. He walks into her bedroom and sees the painting hanging on the wall, realizing that she was the woman in the wheelchair. The film ends with the two in a tight embrace as Terry says, "If you can paint, I can walk. Anything can happen, don't you think?"


title: An Affair to Remember

text: The film was a remake of McCarey's 1939 film "Love Affair", starring Irene Dunne as Terry and Charles Boyer as the Gallic playboy Michel Marnet. Plans for a "Love Affair" remake were first reported in 1952, which had Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl attached to the project.


title: An Affair to Remember

text: Cary Grant first worked with McCarey on "The Awful Truth" and did not like McCarey's improvisational strategy, but after eventually warming to it, he wished that he had starred in "Love Affair", and he often visited the set during production. He enjoyed the film when it was released and convinced McCarey years later to remake it starring Grant in Boyer's role. McCarey later commented: "Hollywood films all seem to be trying to find a trick way of saying 'I love you.' What are they trying to prove? Love is the oldest and noblest emotion." "An Affair to Remember" was almost identical to the original on a scene-to-scene basis. McCarey used the same screenplay as was employed for the original film, written by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart, but Stewart was not included in the credits because he had been blacklisted. Filming took place between February and April 1957.


title: An Affair to Remember

text: Grant was reportedly grumpy during filming because his hypnotherapy with his wife caused him to dislike smoking. He also underwent an operation during production to treat a lump on his forehead that resulted from a childhood injury.


title: An Affair to Remember

text: The theme song "An Affair to Remember (Our Love Affair)," composed by Harry Warren and with lyrics by Leo McCarey and Harold Adamson, was sung by Vic Damone over the opening credits and by Marni Nixon (who dubbed Kerr) during the film.


title: An Affair to Remember

text: In anticipation of the film's release, Avon Books published a paperback novelization of the screenplay. The byline Owen Aherne was a pseudonym for American novelist R.V. Cassill.


title: An Affair to Remember

text: Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" found the early part of the film fairly enjoyable, with "plenty of humorous conversation that is handled crisply" by the leads, but concluded that the picture goes wrong after the couple disembarks, writing: "The marriage pact seems ridiculously childish for a couple of adult people to make. The lady's failure to notify her fiancé of her accident seems absurd. The fact that the man does not hear of it in some way is beyond belief. And the slowness with which he grasps the obvious when he calls upon the lady is just too thick." Richard L. Coe of "The Washington Post" agreed, writing that the film "boasts early amusing reels that ultimately become unbelievably foolish in the quest for audience tears." "Variety" disagreed, calling the romance "never maudlin" and "wholly believable" in a positive review of what it called "a winning film" with "all the ingredients that should make it an ideal women's picture." "Harrison's Reports" was also positive, calling it "more enchanting and delightful than the original" and "so powerful in the closing scenes that one is unable to fight back the tears." John McCarten of "The New Yorker" was dismissive, writing that the actors were "tolerable, but the movie is really awfully maudlin." A generally positive review in "The Monthly Film Bulletin" called the film "a lush slice of Hollywood romanticism, unashamedly following most of the familiar conventions of glossy magazine fiction. To judge it on a higher level would normally seem unfair if it were not that here the script does succeed in cutting rather deeper. The relationship between Ferrante and Terry McKay is briskly developed, with an attractive, often touching humor."


title: An Affair to Remember

text: The film holds a 65% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 31 reviews. In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the "Chicago Reader" included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100. It is one of the BFI's "50 great Christmas films currently streaming".


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: Sans is a fictional character created by Toby Fox for the 2015 role-playing video game "Undertale". Initially appearing as a friendly NPC, he later becomes the "de facto" final boss if the player chooses to complete the "genocide route" and go out of their way to destroy the game's race of monsters. His name is based on the Comic Sans font, which is used for most of his in-game dialogue. The character was praised by critics for his dialogue and boss fight, which is considered to be one of the most difficult in the game. His popularity with fans inspired several user-created mods and other types of projects.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: Sans appears in the related game "Deltarune". His likeness also appears as a customizable skin for the Mii Gunner character in "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate."


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: Sans is a skeleton wearing a blue jacket, black shorts with white stripes, and white slippers. Prior to the events of "Undertale", he had moved to the settlement in Snowdin from an unknown location with his brother Papyrus. Papyrus was hired as a royal guard trainee sentry and forced his brother to help in his quest to capture a human.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: Sans first appears in Snowdin, initially appearing as a silhouette approaching the player from behind before shaking the player's hand, setting off a whoopee cushion. He clarifies that he has no interest in capturing humans, unlike Papyrus, whom he describes as a "human-hunting FANATIC". After helping the player hide from Papyrus, Sans follows his brother throughout most of the forest, commentating on his puzzles and even contributing a word search, much to Papyrus's dismay. As the story proceeds, Sans continues performing such antics as attempting to sell the player highly overpriced fried snow. Later in the game, Sans invites the player to eat at a restaurant together. If they so choose, Sans explains how he befriended a woman, Toriel, behind the large door in Snowdin who shared his love for puns. He reveals that he made a promise not to kill any humans who come to the Underground, and states that if he had not made that promise, the player would have been "dead where [they] stand".


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: Sans makes one more appearance in the "Judgement Hall", where he reveals the true meaning of the "EXP" and "LOVE" values that the player has accumulated throughout the game: 'Execution Points' and 'Level of Violence', respectively. He judges the player for how high their EXP and LOVE values are before disappearing and allowing the player to proceed and fight the king, Asgore. After the player defeats Asgore and Flowey (if he has not been fought before), and they leave the Underground, Sans calls them to inform them of what occurred after their departure, having different dialogue depending on the player's actions in-game. If the player does not kill any monsters, Sans appears alongside the other main characters after the fight with Asgore is prevented.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: If the player opts to kill every monster in each area, Sans's behavior will be different. He threatens the player with a "bad time" if they proceed with their actions before the Papyrus boss fight. If the player ignores Sans's warning and continues slaughtering every monster they meet, he eventually confronts the player in the Judgement Hall to prevent them from destroying all the Underground, acting as the route's final boss. Sans is revealed to have supernatural abilities and is considered to be extremely powerful, but can be killed by the player.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: Sans appears as a character in "Deltarune", where, in Chapter 1, he is found standing outside his shop, a remodeled version of Grillby's from "Undertale". He informs the player that he has already met their mother, Toriel, and asks them if they would like to come over to his house to hang out with his brother.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: In Chapter 2, the player can enter the shop and find that it has the incongruous interior of a convenience store with Sans appearing as a cashier, jokingly claiming to be "just the janitor" despite being the sole employee of the store.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: In "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", a Sans costume for the playable Mii Gunner character was released as downloadable content on September 4, 2019. Sans has also been the subject of many fan works and projects, being featured in numerous games, creations, and video game mods.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: Sans is listed in the credits as being created by Toby Fox with "special inspiration" from J.N. Wiedle, author of the webcomic "Helvetica", a series about an eponymous skeleton named after the Helvetica typeface. His first concept drawing was made by Fox on a college notebook.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: The song that plays during his fight, "MEGALOVANIA", was originally composed for an "EarthBound" ROM hack for Halloween of 2009, where it serves as final boss music for the alternative version of Dr. Andonuts, one of the few major characters from that game. Although the song was later featured in "Homestuck", "Megalovania" principally rose in popularity after the release of "Undertale", spawning many internet remixes and memes. "Megalovania" has since appeared in games including "" and "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", and was also used by a Spanish dating show, "First Dates". The song was also featured in an "All Elite Wrestling" Halloween special, in which wrestler Kenny Omega wore a Sans costume and was accompanied by the song during his entrance.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: He is one of the characters who does not normally use the game's default font in his dialogue; rather, it is usually displayed in lowercase Comic Sans. He only uses the default font if he has stated something serious or, in some cases, threatens the player; and also in a few random instances during normal speech. He is often paired with his brother named Papyrus, also named after a font of the same name.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: Sans's appearance in "Undertale" was well-received by critics, with Dan Tack of "Game Informer" praising his boss fight. "TheGamer" ranked Sans as the third best "Undertale" character, stating that his jokes were "spot on in delivery". "Screen Rant" ranked Sans one of the top 7 of the hardest boss fights in video games. During the "Undertale" Q&A, Sans and Papyrus were the characters that received the most questions from fans. Sans was ranked as one of the best video game characters of the 2010s by "Polygon" staff and writer Colin Campbell, particularly his appearance and how: "When he makes a joke, the camera zooms in on him while he winks. It never gets old." "IGN" staff ranked Sans as second of the best final bosses in video games. Matthew Byrd of "Den of Geek" included Sans placed as 7th of their "best video game NPCs ever", stating that "it’s hard to talk about the game’s best characters for long without the conversation turning to Sans."


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: Sans has also been well-received by fans of the game, being subject of many fan works. Professional wrestler Kenny Omega has expressed his love of "Undertale", dressing as Sans for the October 30, 2019, episode of "". His addition as a Mii fighter costume in "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" garnered positive feedback from fans, with fans creating memes and fan-art after the inclusion.


title: Sans (Undertale)

text: On September 8, 2022, Sans was chosen as the "Ultimate Tumblr Sexyman" (referencing an online slang term for fictional characters who garner romantic and/or sexual interest from a large fanbase despite not being conventionally attractive) via a three-day tournament bracket of polls on Twitter. Sans was a finalist with "Mob Psycho 100" character Arataka Reigen, who Sans surpassed with 50.1% of the vote. Toby Fox responded to the results by writing a short fan fiction comedically dramatizing Reigen's attempts at surpassing Sans in the poll.


title: Wesley So

text: Wesley Barbossa So (born October 9, 1993) is a Filipino and American chess grandmaster and 3-time U.S. Chess Champion (in 2017, 2020, and 2021). He is also a three-time Philippine Chess Champion. On the March 2017 FIDE rating list, he was ranked number two in the world and had an Elo rating of 2822, making him the fifth-highest rated player in history.


title: Wesley So

text: In 2019, So said his favorite form of chess is chess960. Later that year, So became the inaugural official Fischer Random world champion, on 2 November 2019, after defeating Carlsen 13½–2½ to win the FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship.


title: Wesley So

text: A former chess prodigy, So became the youngest player to pass a 2600 Elo rating in October 2008, breaking the record previously held by Magnus Carlsen. This record has since been broken by John M. Burke. In early 2013, So passed 2700 and in January 2017 he became the 11th player to pass 2800 Elo.


title: Wesley So

text: So represented the Philippines until transferring to the United States in 2014. He won the 2015 Bilbao Chess Masters, the 2016 Grand Chess Tour title after claiming victory in the Sinquefield Cup and London Chess Classic, and the 2017 Tata Steel Masters. He represented the US on board 3 at the 42nd Chess Olympiad, winning team and individual gold.


title: Wesley So

text: So was born in the Philippines in 1993 to Filipino-Chinese William and Eleanor So. He has one older sister, Wendelle So, and one younger sister, Wilma So. So attended the Jesus Good Shepherd School and Saint Francis of Assisi College in Bacoor.


title: Wesley So

text: He was nine years old when he began competing in junior tournaments. So took first place at the 2003 Philippine National Chess Championships in the U-10s section. As a junior player, he also competed in various sections of World Youth Chess Championships, finishing 19th in the U-10s in 2003, 13th in the U-12s in 2004 and fourth place in the U-12s in 2005. He also took part in the ASEAN Open U-10s in 2004, securing individual golds in the standard and rapid sections along with team silver medals in the standard and rapid along with winning individual golds in the standard, rapid and blitz sections in the U-12s in 2005.


title: Wesley So

text: So made his tournament debut at the Nice International Open in August 2005, finishing in sixteenth place (from 159) with 4/7. He also completed three International Master norms in the space of four months, becoming the youngest Filipino to achieve that status after scoring 5/9 at the Dubai Open, 5½/9 at the San Marino Open and 6½/11 at the Dato Arthur Tan Malaysia Open. During this period, So made his first Olympiad appearance on second reserve board at the 37th Chess Olympiad held in Turin in 2006.


title: Wesley So

text: So's form continued with 5½/9 at the Calvia Open, his first GM-norm with 7/9 at the Bad Wiessee Open, tying for sixth with 4/8 at the GMA Presidents Cup in Parañaque and ended 2006 by scoring 6/9 at the Singapore Masters. In January 2007, So qualified for the Chess World Cup 2007 via the Zonal tournament held in Phú Quốc, Vietnam, scoring 5½/9. Between January 2006 and April 2007, So had increased his FIDE rating by 303 points to 2519.


title: Wesley So

text: In May 2007, he went on to become Philippine National Junior Chess Champion. So got his second GM norm by scoring 7½/13 at the 2007 World Junior Chess Championship in Yerevan. He achieved his third and final Grandmaster norm on December 8, 2007 at the Pichay Cup International Open (Manila, Philippines), thus becoming the youngest Filipino grandmaster at the age of 14 and the seventh youngest to reach the title.


title: Wesley So

text: January 2008 saw So finish fourth with 7/11 at the ASEAN Chess Circuit event held in Tarakan, Indonesia. In April 2008, So shared first place at the Dubai Open, scoring 7/9. He also finished in third place with 7/9 at a blitz tournament held during the rest day. So then defeated Susanto Megaranto 4–2 in a six-game match as part of the JAPFA Chess Festival held in Jakarta, won the "Battle of Grandmasters tournament" with 8½/11 (+6−0=5) in Manila, came tenth with 7½/11 in the Philippines Open followed immediately with second place at the Subic Open with 6½/9.


title: Wesley So

text: In July 2008, So came second with 12½/17 in a tournament to decide the team for the 2008 38th Chess Olympiad, followed by sharing eighth place at the World Juniors Championship held in Gaziantep, Turkey. He shared second with Zurab Azmaiparashvili scoring 6½/9 at the Vietnam Open but finished well back at the Arroyo Cup in sixteenth place. During the previous 3-month rating period So completed 69 rated games.


title: Wesley So

text: After competing in the Asian Club Cup, So made his first appearance at a major chess tournament by winning the Corus Group C in January 2009, a point ahead of Anish Giri and Tiger Hillarp Persson with a score of 9½/13, earning a spot in Group B the next year. He scored 5/9 and shared 17th place at the strong Aeroflot Open held in Moscow. He showed his strength against home opposition scoring 9/11 at the Dapitan City Battle of GMs, but found it difficult at the Asian Continental Championships in Subic, scoring 6½/11 and sharing 18th place. So won a seat in the 2009 Chess World Cup by finishing second at the Zonal Championship held in July 2009 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. After competing in the Chinese Chess League, So shared fourth place at the SPICE Cup Group A with a solid 4½/10.


title: Wesley So

text: At the age of 16, So became one of the stories of the 2009 Chess World Cup held in Khanty-Mansiysk after progressing to the fourth round before being knocked out by Vladimir Malakhov after rapid tiebreaks. He defeated Gadir Guseinov after rapid tiebreaks then defeated Vassily Ivanchuk and Gata Kamsky. This was followed by sharing fourth place at the Corus Chess Group B in early 2010 with Erwin l'Ami scoring 7½/13 and sharing seventh place with 5½/9 at the Aeroflot Open. Sharing second place with 6½/9 at the Asian Continental Championships in April earned him a spot in the Chess World Cup 2011 and he secured a second Philippine Chess Championship.


title: Wesley So

text: As So's playing strength and rating increased, so did the number of invites to high-level events. So initially led the strong Biel tournament before drifting back to share fifth place with 4½/9. Three weeks later, So held his own in the last NH "Experience vs Rising Stars" Match (played under Scheveningen match rules) scoring 4½/10 for the "Rising Stars" team. So took part in the 39th Chess Olympiad and placed fourth, scoring 5½/10 at the 2010 SPICE Cup, before the Asian Games.


title: Wesley So

text: So tied for fourth place at Tata Steel (formerly Corus) Group B but withdrew from the Aeroflot Open, held soon after, citing exhaustion from the previous event. In July 2011 he won the Philippine Chess Championship for a third time. So's rating hovered over the coming year with a solid performance at the strong AAI International Tournament in New Delhi among performances typical for his rating.


title: Wesley So

text: In 2012, So got a scholarship offer from Webster University, which was his affiliation for two-and-a-half years before becoming a full-time professional. In August 2012, So emigrated to the United States. In September 2012, So found success in first place at the Quebec International, scoring 7½/9, half a point ahead of Lazaro Bruzon and at the 40th Chess Olympiad drew against numerous top-level players including Levon Aronian, who described So as a "talented player from a country with a great chess culture".


title: Wesley So

text: So came second in the Zonal 3.3 Championship in Tagaytay, Philippines earning a place in the Chess World Cup 2013 and shared first place with Pavel Eljanov and Bassem Amin at the Reykjavik Open. In doing so he breached the 2700 Elo mark, considered to be the level of an elite player and placed him 50th in the World. So also won gold at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia, the first such medal for the Philippines, after a play off match with Zaven Andriasian. After defeating Alexander Ipatov in the first round of the Chess World Cup, he was knocked out by eventual semi-finalist Evgeny Tomashevsky. In October 2013, So won the Unive Crown Group scoring 4½/6.


title: Wesley So

text: So tied for fourth with Fabiano Caruana and Leinier Domínguez Pérez at the 2014 Tata Steel Chess Tournament Group A, scoring 6/11. He also won the 49th Capablanca Memorial tournament, held in Havana, a point clear of Lazaro Bruzon, soon after winning the ACP Golden Classic tournament in Bergamo, Italy with a score of 4½/6, a point ahead of Baadur Jobava. This string of tournaments propelled So to 12th in the FIDE World Rankings.


title: Wesley So

text: So expressed intent to represent the United States, filing the documents required for him to be able to change his FIDE nationality in 2013. He justified the move due to his family permanently settling in Canada, himself planning to study and permanently reside in the United States, and as part of a bid to boost his own career. He also said that National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) disapproved of his participation in the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia over the 2013 Asian Indoor Games and he felt obliged to participate in tournaments deemed important by the NCFP such as the Southeast Asian Games over concern that he might lose financial support even if it conflicted with his studies in the United States. Retrospectively in 2019 and in 2021, he said that he lacked the necessary "connections" for him to be able to thrive in the Philippines.


title: Wesley So

text: According to Eugene Torre, aside from his family the move was likely caused by So not receiving recognition for his gold medal feat at the 2013 Universiade since his participation under the Federation of School Sports Association of the Philippines (FESSAP) led by Graham Lim was not sanctioned by the Philippine Olympic Committee.


title: Wesley So

text: So's transfer to the United States Chess Federation was confirmed in the November 2014 rating list. Soon after, he moved to Minnetonka, Minnesota to live with his adoptive parents, Lotis Key and her husband, Renato Kabigting.


title: Wesley So

text: He won the Millionaire Chess Tournament held in Las Vegas in October 2014, scoring 8½/13 and shared second place at the Tata Steel Masters in January 2015. In June 2015, in the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Tournament, he came in second, behind the winner Fabiano Caruana. In November 2015, So won the 2015 Bilbao Chess Masters Final tournament. He defeated Grandmaster Ding Liren in Round 1, drew the remaining 5 games, and won in the tiebreaks against Grandmaster Anish Giri.


title: Wesley So

text: So was awarded the Samford Fellowship in March 2016, enabling him to secure Vladimir Tukmakov as his coach. In August 2016, So finished clear first at the 2016 Sinquefield Cup, ahead of former World Champions Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov, 2014 winner Fabiano Caruana, and 2015 winner Levon Aronian. He won 2 games and drew 7 games. In December 2016, So also finished clear first at the 2016 London Chess Classic, ahead of former World Champions Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov. He won 3 games and drew 6 games (+3−0=6). In winning the Sinquefield Cup, the London Chess Classic, and finishing second at the Your Next Move Leuven rapid and blitz tournament, he won the 2016 Grand Chess Tour. So's first appearance for the United States yielded individual gold medal for board 3 as well as team gold at the Chess Olympiad held in Baku.


title: Wesley So

text: In January 2017, So won the Tata Steel Masters, finishing ahead of World Champion Magnus Carlsen by a full point, with a score of 9/13, to rise to World No. 3 in the next FIDE list.


title: Wesley So

text: Wesley So played for the Saint Louis Arch Bishops in the Professional Rapid Online Chess League competition, winning all four of his games two weeks in a row. In week six, he and his team beat the division leader San Diego Surfers, which at the time had the only perfect record in the league.


title: Wesley So

text: So won the 2017 U.S. Chess Championship by defeating Alexander Onischuk in a rapid playoff tiebreak. He won 3 games and drew 8 (+3−0=8) in the classical portion of the tournament. He had an undefeated streak of 67 games starting in July 2016, which ended in April 2017 after losing to the Azerbaijani GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov who won the Shamkir Chess tournament. In June 2017, So scored 4½/9 at Norway Chess. He rebounded from seventh place at the Your Next Move Paris event with victory in the rapid portion of Your Next Move GCT (Leuven) with +5−0=4. He finished the tournament in second place with a score of 22½/36, 3 points behind winner Magnus Carlsen.


title: Wesley So

text: In August 2017, So scored 3/9 at the Sinquefield Cup for tied last place. In September, So progressed to the semi-finals of the World Cup and was knocked out by Ding Liren on tiebreaks. Wesley So qualified for the 2018 Candidates Tournament as ratings qualifier in November 2017. He had a poor showing at the Candidates, placing seventh with 6/14.


title: Wesley So

text: From 28 May to 7 June 2018, he competed in the sixth edition of Norway Chess, placing fifth with 4/8 (+1–1=6). He recorded his first victory over Carlsen in a classical game in this event.


title: Wesley So

text: On November 2, 2019, So was crowned the very first Fischer Random World Champion as he defeated classical chess champion Carlsen with a score of 13.5 - 2.5 points, posting 4 wins, 2 draws and no losses.


title: Wesley So

text: On September 19, 2020, So tied for 1st place in the 2020 St. Louis Rapid and Blitz, scoring 24/36 points. He won his last 3 games to eventually catch up and tie with Carlsen for winnings of US$45,000.00. On September 30, 2020, So ended up runner-up to Carlsen in the 2020 Chess24 Banter Series Finals, losing 3.5–5.5, and settling for a prize fund of US$6.000.00. On October 1, 2020, the Saint Louis Arch Bishops were declared the winners of the 2020 Professional Rapid Online Chess League after the Armenia Eagles were disqualified due to fair play violations. This was the Arch Bishops 3rd title overall and 2nd consecutive championship. Wesley So was named MVP of the season with an impressive score of 24.5/32 for a performance rating of 2826.


title: Wesley So

text: On October 1, 2020, So accused Tigran L. Petrosian of cheating in his semi-final and final games during the Chess.com 2020 PRO Chess League (So was rated eighth-highest player in the world at the time). Petrosian responded to So with a lengthy message including the comments, "You are a biggest looser i ever seen in my life ! You was doing PIPI in your pampers when i was beating players much more stronger then you! ". Chess.com determined that Petrosian had violated fair play regulations; consequently, his team, the Armenia Eagles, were disqualified and the Saint Louis Arch Bishops were crowned champions. Chess.com and the PRO Chess League both issued lifetime bans to Petrosian.


title: Wesley So

text: On October 29, 2020, So became US Champion again. He amassed a score of 9/11 against a top class field in the online competition. So's unbeaten performance was compared by some chess commentators to the dominant performances of Bobby Fischer in the 1960s, particularly Fischer's 11/11 performance in 1963/1964 and his 9.5/11 performance in 1966. So's 9/11 score is the third-best score in the US National Championships history.


title: Wesley So

text: On 30 November 2020, So defeated Carlsen to win the Skilling Open championship, the first leg of the Champions Chess Tour. Day 1 of the match ended with a score of 2-2, with both players having won 2 games each. On Day 2, Magnus won the first game with the black pieces and Wesley drew level the following game with black pieces. Game 3 was a close encounter which ended in a draw and Game 4 was a quick played draw in the Berlin Defence. The decider match consisted of 2 blitz games (5+3). Wesley So won the first game and was able to draw the second, earning the first prize along with US$30,000.


title: Wesley So

text: On February 14, 2021, So defeated Magnus Carlsen to win the Opera Euro Rapid. The first day of the finals ended in 2-2. The second day, So secured victory in the first match after 28 moves which propelled him to win the day, and the tournament, with a score of 2.5-1.5. This was his second victory in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour during the 2020-2021 season with the COVID-19 era online format.


title: Wesley So

text: On October 19, 2021, So won the US Championship again after defeating Fabiano Caruana and Samuel Sevian in the rapid tiebreaks.


title: Wesley So

text: Through February and March 2022, So played in the FIDE Grand Prix 2022. In the first leg, he tied for first with Leinier Domínguez in Pool D with a 4/6 result but lost with a 0.5/2 result in rapid tiebreakers. In the third leg, he tied for first with Sam Shankland in Pool C with a result of 3.5/6 and defeated him with a 1.5/2 result in rapid tiebreakers to face Amin Tabatabaei in the semifinals. So then drew his classical match against Tabatabaei with one win and one loss but defeated him in rapid tiebreakers to face Hikaru Nakamura in the finals. Their classical encounter ended with two draws, after which So beat Nakamura in the rapid tiebreakers with a 1.5/2 result, winning the third leg of the Fide Grand Prix and finishing third in the overall Fide Grand Prix 2022 series.


title: Wesley So

text: In May 2022 he tied for first in the Superbet Chess Classic, losing to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the tiebreaks.