By CORBIE HILL For a few years in the late 1800s, one corner of eastern North Carolina looked more like Marvel Comics’ Black-ruled Utopia of Wakanda than the Jim Crow South.
The Wilmington massacre and coup of 1898 destroyed a once thriving multiracial democracy, killed dozens if not hundreds of innocent Black people, and left in its wake a community forever scarred.
“For more than two hundred years, African-Americans have participated in every conflict in United States history. They have not only fought bravely the common enemies of the United States but
Historian David Cecelski recounts spending the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in Piney Grove with descendants of Caesar Evans, who escaped from slavery during the Civil War, fought in the Union army, and later bought 228 acres in central Brunswick County.