There's more to the Aycock name than you've heard
Published October 9, 2015
by Jim Aycock, retired publisher of the Black Mountain News, Greensboro News-Record, October 5, 2015.
When North Carolina Democrats changed the name of the Vance-Aycock Dinner in Asheville, they could not have foreseen the years of unintended consequences. Dozens of false accusations against former Gov. Charles Aycock in print and online have followed and continue today. They show a widespread, serious misunderstanding of Aycock’s role in the white supremacy campaign of 1898.
Greensboro residents may take a special interest in this for two reasons. UNC-Greensboro is studying what to do about a campus building named for the former governor and the Aycock name is found in numerous places throughout the city. And the Greensboro City Council is fighting a Republican legislature’s attempts to take over local government. An even more aggressive GOP takeover in 1898 was an underlying cause of the events in Wilmington and the unjustified demonization of Charles Aycock.
I don’t oppose a name change, but I would like to see the legacy of my great-uncle fairly represented. The state’s official Wilmington Race Riot Commission Report, by far the best authority, has few references to Aycock. It does not place him in Wilmington at any time before, during or after the riot. It does not say he advocated, helped plan or participated in violence.
Many other references to the riot do not mention him at all. His role in the campaign was to get out the vote as a party-line speaker, a role that ended when the polls closed. The riot was several days after the election. Aycock’s friend Henry Connor (later part of his administration and the father of his 1912 biographer) is quoted as hoping violence could be avoided.
The official report says the coup at City Hall was planned in advance by local groups of Democrats, but the bloodshed, which claimed at least 14 lives, as many as 60, was unplanned. The day after the riot, Aycock was quoted in a letter to Connor as “regretting greatly” the events in Wilmington. He was the only Democrat quoted in the official commission report as expressing regrets.
Today’s GOP legislature is repeating its party’s history. In 1896, the state elected a Republican governor and the GOP controlled both houses of the legislature, the last time until now they had such power. Gov. Daniel Russell was from Wilmington, then the state’s largest and most prosperous city. They passed legislation giving the governor the power to appoint one-half of the Wilmington City Council. Voters would elect one alderman from each ward and Gov. Russell would appoint another alderman from each ward. Today that would be like the Republicans giving Gov. Pat McCrory power to appoint half of the Charlotte City Council.
Democrats sued to overturn the Wilmington takeover in 1898, and they lost. Only weeks ago, Greensboro sued to overturn similar legislation to restructure city elections. Greensboro won an injunction halting enforcement of the legislation on the grounds that the city had been singled out for special treatment. That is exactly what happened in Wilmington, but the GOP takeover stood. That was when secret meetings began to plan the ouster of the new Wilmington City Council.
Street violence arose from a separate event, the invasion of a black-owned newspaper that had defended consensual relationships between blacks and whites. Armed men went there intending to damage the printing press, but their leader, Alfred Waddell, lost control and the building was set on fire.
Waddell was “displeased” at the fire, according to the commission report, and urged the men to go home and obey the law, but mob hysteria had taken hold, and the violence began.
Two years later, Charles Aycock was elected governor. He threatened to resign his office in 1901 when his own Democratic legislature tried to tax whites for white schools and blacks for black schools. He said the legislation was clearly intended to keep blacks in ignorance and prevent their qualifying as voters.
“Let us not seek to be the first state in the Union to make the weak man helpless,” he said. “Let us be done with this question.”
Aycock had the backbone to stand up when it counted, and the measure did not pass. Democrats could have used some of that backbone when, behind closed doors (Executive Committee meeting minutes June 22, 2009) they were steamrolled into virulent language that led to false accusations that Charles Aycock “participated” in murder and arson.
I wrote the N.C. Democratic Party in February 2011 and asked if this action had contributed to better racial harmony and understanding. Instead, it raised awareness of older and uglier days and perpetuated ill will.
Almost immediately after the party first made Aycock a public issue, comments online under news reports began to say the N.C. Democratic Party is the party of slavery, etc., and these comments continue today. The N.C. Republican Party only weeks ago publicly tied Hillary Clinton to the KKK. We reap what we sow.
The Wilmington Race Riot Commission Report can be read online. It is objective, detailed and well-documented. The 1912 biography, “The Life and Speeches of Charles B. Aycock,” can be read online. It was published soon after his death by people close to Aycock, and should be read in that light.
The 1961 biography by Oliver Orr, written with a more detached view, can be purchased and is available in libraries. It was published at about the same time the Vance-Aycock Dinner in Asheville was established by former Gov. Terry Sanford. Readers may find out for themselves about this important issue. In light of the last decade’s distortions, it may be time for a new biography of one of our state’s most historic governors.
As for the annual Western Gala in Asheville, formerly the Vance-Aycock Dinner, it will be held next Saturday, Oct. 17.
