In 1891, workers at the Biltmore Estate were laying the groundwork for South Terrace. That same year, the Asheville Daily Citizen published a short article based on an unconfirmed tip that promoted a popular racist trope: white men protecting communities from violent black men.
The front cover of its September 14 issue claimed that 500-600 of the property’s black employees had arrived at the property drunk to receive their weekly wages. Swearing and fighting soon began, the article claimed. “[A] For a while, turmoil was likely, “said the newspaper,” which could only be avoided by the coolness of two whites.
The story sparked a series of letters to the editor refuting the Daily Citizen’s claims, including a detailed account of the events of the day of Charles McNamee, the first manager of the property and George Vanderbilt‘s lawyer.
McNamee began correcting the newspaper’s numbers and found that the property employed around 300 black workers. In addition, employees were paid on a rotating schedule to avoid overwhelming numbers of workers arriving in a single day. “Last Saturday, when it was announced that a riot was imminent, a total of 228 men were on the list to be paid,” McNamee continued. “A large number of those 228 were white men.”
Without denying the presence of alcohol, McNamee wrote: “The fact is that alcohol is somehow procured at Biltmore, and consequently there is sometimes some intoxication among both white and colored men.”
In addition, McNamee admitted: “There is undoubtedly more or less cursing” [among workers]although I can’t remember it ever being loud or deep to get attention. “
The manager of the estate concluded his letter with the “emphatic rejection of practically all statements made by the CITIZENS ‘informant”.[.]”
In response, the newspaper briefly noted that the information it received was “completely truthful” and therefore “THE CITIZEN printed it as a message in good faith”.
Five other citizens signed their names in letters denying the newspaper’s account.
Racial tension and violence made headlines in the 1890s and the years thereafter. Less than two weeks after the false report of a riot, Hezekiah Rankin, a local African American brakeman, was lynched – one of three reported lynching in Buncombe County from 1889 to 1897. (For more information, see Asheville Archives: ‘A growth evil’, ”May 15, 2018, Xpress)
Asheville’s next decade began on July 30, 1900, the white supremacy march on the downtown streets. The event took place three days before North Carolina electoral male voters approved an amendment to the state’s constitution that actively sought to disenfranchise black voters.
“The change has been ratified, and the state and county governments have overwhelmingly signed up to the white supremacy party,” wrote the Asheville Daily Citizen on Aug. 2, 1900. “And it is hoped that The lesson of this finding will not have escaped the partisans and theorists, here and elsewhere, who believed it possible that the whites of their country might give up a significant portion of their government to an alien and inferior race. ”(For more information see under “Asheville Archives: ‘White supremacy made permanent’, 1900”, February 6, 2018, Xpress)
Editor’s note: Special features of spelling and punctuation are obtained from original documents.
Comments are closed.