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Cape Fear Rising

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2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

In August 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina, was a Mecca for middle-class black citizens. Many of the city's lawyers, businessmen, and other professionals were black, as were all the tradesmen and stevedores. The black community outnumbered the white community by more than two to one. But the white civic leaders, many descended from the antebellum aristocracy, did not consider this progress. They looked around and saw working class white citizens out of jobs. They heard black citizens addressing white neighbors "in the familiar." They hated the fact that local government was run by Republican "Fusionists" sympathetic to the black majority. Rumors began to fly. The newspaper office turned into an arsenal. Secret societies espousing white supremacy were formed. Isolated incidents occurred: a shot was fired through a streetcar bearing white passengers, a black cemetery was desecrated. This incendiary atmosphere was inflamed further by public speeches from an ex-Confederate colonel and a firebrand black preacher. One morning in November, the almost inevitable gunfire began. By the time order was restored, many of the city's most visible black leaders had been literally put on trains and told to leave town, hundreds of black citizens were forced to hide out in the city's cemetery or the nearby swamps to avoid massacre, and dozens of victims lay dead. Based on actual events, Cape Fear Rising tells a story of one city's racial nightmare—a nightmare that was repeated throughout the South at the turn of the century. Although told as fiction, the core of this novel strikes at the heart of racial strife in America.

Philip Gerard is the author of five novels and eight books of nonfiction, including Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey Through the Heart of North Carolina and The Patron Saint of Dreams, winner of the 2012 North American Gold Medal in Essay/Creative Nonfiction from The Independent Publisher.

Philip Gerard is the author of five novels and eight books of nonfiction, including Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey Through the Heart of North Carolina and The Patron Saint of Dreams, winner of the 2012 North American Gold Medal in Essay/Creative Nonfiction from The Independent Publisher.

"[C]omplex and convincing . . . well-researched story [that] smartly limns the tangled combination of economic, social and visceral elements that led Wilmington to violence . . . " —Publishers Weekly

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 31, 1994
      No, this is not another sequel to the 1962 movie; it is a complex and convincing (if slightly overwritten) story of a little known incident that took place amidst the chaos of the post-Reconstruction South. The villain is not a twisted individual but rather a twisted society, the upper crust of Wilmington, N.C., in 1898. Alarmed by a burgeoning black middle class and a Fusionist-Republican regime favorable to the black majority, a powerful group drawn from the white establishment plots to take back ``their'' city. Secret, shifting alliances create confusion and discontent among out-of-work whites, and post-election day violence results in the deaths of numerous black citizens and the expulsion of thousands of others. The kaleidoscopic action is seen through the eyes of a fictional reporter newly arrived from Chicago with his wife, Gray Ellen. Her bafflement reflects Southern white society perfectly ``. . . it was like hearing every second word of a question and being expected to come up with a good answer.'' As the white plotters invent horror stories of dangerous blacks, amass troops and plunge towards violence, blacks walk a thin line between preserving pride and keeping a low profile. Some of the dialogue and asides could have profitably been trimmed, but Gerard's ( Hatteras Light ) well-researched story smartly limns the tangled combination of economic, social and visceral elements that led Wilmington to violence and two years later would lead North Carolina to adopt constitutional amendments that virtually disenfranchised blacks. Caveat lector : epilogues of various characters at the end of the book fail to note which are fictional and which are historical. Author tour.

    • Library Journal

      February 1, 1994
      Stilted writing and a lack of character development obscure the powerful subject matter of this historical novel by the author of Hatteras Light ( LJ 10/15/86). Sam Jenks comes to Wilmington--in 1898 the largest city in North Carolina--to work for the local newspaper. He and his wife, Gray Ellen, find a city in the throes of racial conflict. A small minority of the white citizens, greatly outnumbered by the generally middle-class black population, feels threatened by that group's growing power. In revenge, they arrange for bands of armed men to attack the mainly innocent and defenseless black populace. Thousands of the survivors, along with their white supporters, flee the city, never to return. Even the interesting and well-rounded character of Gray Ellen cannot bring this novel to life, but regional collections should consider purchase.-- Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle

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