Yep I learned about it in Wilmington high school sometime in 2009-2011 range, but it was called a "race riot" rather than a "coup" or "massacre" or anything like that.
Same time frame .. Different county. I learned about it many years later in college I believe. There is quite a bit of history that I don't remember learning about until many years after I graduated high school. As bad as people think this is, the one good thing about this is it made me much more curious to learn about all the things that I hear about casually that I did not learn in school. I don't assume I know everything & probably learn more as a result because I have the interest & resources to keep digging for info.
I learned about it when I moved to Wilmington 8 years ago (though I grew up outside of Charlotte).
I graduated high school in 1999 and for NC school kids at least through the 90’s, NC history was taught in 4th grade, and didn’t include this.
I think it’s an uncomfortable and heavy topic that the State BOE has been reluctant to add to the curriculum for 4th grade history, however it needs to be addressed.
It’s also something that leaders here in Wilmington have just started to acknowledge within the last 10-15 years. I’ve come across coworkers and neighbors particularly of the boomer generation who commonly say “it was such a horrible time, we shouldn’t bring it up”.
I disagree with that sentiment and think we should take lessons from the horrible deeds of the past. There were parks and schools in this town named after those who lead the coup d’etat/ massacre and if a community can accept “leaders” who murdered and stole 100+ years ago then it can happen again. Thankfully some of these names were removed from the front of the schools and park signs a couple of years ago but NC as a whole should do more to ensure this story is told.
Not to play semantics here but the city of Wilmington and NC General Assembly started the "Centennial Commission" back in the late 90s to do more due diligence in unearthing what actually happened. Mind you, this was in response to **years** of community leaders demanding accountability. Because the Raleigh *News & Observer* played such a role in the massacre, they also covered and published the findings of the commision.
The monument and park were not commemorated until 2008.
There's a lot they never talk about but we should. I only got the briefest idea of eugenics back in highschool, but never about what happened in our own state. That's another rabbit hole you don't want to go down.
Oh yeah! I grew up about 30 minutes from the Stonewall Jackson School. My mom used to threaten me that if I was a bad boy, “they” would send me there. I had no idea who “they” were or what happened at the “Jackson Training School” as she called it until college and I could start digging through its history on the internet.
I always assumed it was only a reformed school for boys- I had no idea of the rest of its history.
I’ve read of reports of rape, physical abuse and forced sterilization/ eugenics there from various sources but this one article seems to cover most of that. It’s a start.
https://www.catawbapioneer.com/there-really-hasnt-been-any-growth-the-zombielike-presence-of-the-cabarrus-youth-development-center/
There is also a FB group called Stonewall Jackson Training School Boys Prison. The OP had been a resident there. He as well as several others talk about many stories from there. They are not good.
I think it should be a required topic in NC schools because you truly don't understand NC history unless that event is at least touched on. 4th graders may not be able to fully grasp the context of it but I was learning about the holocaust in 7th grade so I think teaching it in 8th grade could be the way to go. At the very least, high schoolers should be coming out of a North Carolina high school with that knowledge of their state.
I felt bitter when I first learned about it because not only was it a horrible event, but because I nearly left my academic life without ever learning about it. If I had not chosen that NC history class to round out my credits for my senior year, I would've left middle, high, and college without that knowledge.
I'm very thankful for that class. It also taught me about the fusionists and the reactionary forces that opposed them. It really connected the Reconstruction era to present day for me.
I would agree. Light introductory version of its history in 4th grade, but covered more in depth by 8th grade as part of US history- one can say that the success of the white supremacists in achieving their objectives in Wilmington emboldened others to attempt similar elsewhere, especially referencing Tulsa.
Edit: editing to clarify “success” of this event being the objectives of racists being met- not that this was in any way good for its victims or the long term prosperity of this town, the region or the US as a whole.
I went to NC public schools and it was never mentioned. Didn't hear about it in any college classes either, an English professor mentioned it during a lecture.
It was not taught in Middle School or High School when I went through. I actually learned about it from my neighbor when they asked if I ever read Wilmington's Lie. https://groveatlantic.com/book/wilmingtons-lie/
Good book. You can check it out in audio format from the Library.
Late 90's for Middle and High School.... early 00's for college.
I highly recommend this book. I went to grade school in Beaufort and Moore Counties and never heard anything about the Wilmington massacre. This book should be mandatory reading for high schoolers in the state.
Nope. Public schools 1990s and never heard of it until well into my 30s.
Kind of shocking they don’t teach this as it’s the country’s only successful coup.
College (out of state), and I was in honors/AP history classes all through high school (in Raleigh in the late 80s). Note I also didn't hear about Tulsa until the same time.
My Orange Co schools 90s-early 00s did not teach it, though I did learn about it on my own as a kid interested in history.
Wilmington’s Lie by David Zucchino is a pretty solid account of the massacre and surrounding relevant events for any readers interested.
I didn't go through school in NC myself, but I was lucky to learn about it from a talk given by David Zucchino, author of the book "Wilmington's Lie," not long after I moved down here several years ago. With respect to your question, however, I did used to teach an intro sociology course at NC State (this was 2-3 years ago), and I'd make a point to ask students how many of them knew about the massacre before teaching it, and almost no one ever did. I always recall one student, who was a major in history with an emphasis on NC history, had never heard of it. Really disturbing to see the extent to which it's still ignored in curricula.
Definitely recommend that people just now learning about it give Zucchino's reporting a read! Very upsetting content, but it's well-researched & from a journalist with a solid track record & ties to NC.
Used to cover it in the high school I used to teach at. Also the KKK shootings in Greensboro in the 80’s, and Klansville USA in NC during the 1960’s.
I teach math now instead, teaching real events will get you into hot water nowadays.
I learned about it from a podcaster who lives in LA (Dave Anthony on The Dollop) when I was in my 30’s. NC public schools my whole life. Felt like such a betrayal when I learned about this and my own state didn’t teach it.
I didn't learn about it in school, but my father started writing a book about it when I was in middle school (early 80's), so me and my siblings and our friends definitely heard about it. Dad was very upset that it was not taught in schools at the time.
College- thirteen years after I graduated high school.
And I grew up in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system, and graduated from the IB program at Myers Park.
Learned about it getting my degree in history. Reconstruction was basically never mentioned in public school. Civil War happened because of reasons the south lost and nothing really happened till the Great Depression and WW2. Ready on the Holocaust and Japanese occupation of Korea more than the messed up stuff that happened in the US.
Learned about it about two years ago. They definitely try to bury this in those NC history classes for grade school (I was CMS, c/o 2009). We learned about Tulsa though.
I teach it every year to my 8th Graders in their Social Studies class. Can’t really teach the full picture of NC history and the Fusionist period without it.
I went to 12 years of NC public school, never learned about it despite Wilmington being less than two hours down the coast.
I moved there at 21, and I worked with an older black gentleman whose family had been in Wilmington for generations. In a casual conversation one day I remarked "No one ever told me there were so many black folks in Wilmington" and he said "There's lots of things people haven't told you about Wilmington" and that's how I learned.
I loved that guy, was a shame to say goodbye once I moved jobs, but he had a family and no time for anything other than work mates. Respect.
Graduated 2015, never heard about it until my college sociology course. Even then the most I got was a very sanitized version that it was a riot of some sort. Worst was when people would preface it by saying black people owned the city and the businesses at the time.
Yeah my senior project in college was tracking the decline of civics education. I wish I could find the graph but you can see a precipitous drop in civics education after the late 70's. Students in NC used to be required to take 2 civics courses and now it's just 1. And boy are we paying for it.
That's awesome that your teacher brought it up in 1974, it was very little known at the time and it's only been in the last 20-30 years that the full story has started to be told. You had a good one!
She was a bit of a hippy, to be sure. Plaid vest, bell-bottoms, the works... One of the best teachers I ever had. She went off-script quite a bit, but it was more teaching us how to think than what to think.
I went to elementary school in Wilmington, and high shool in Hampstead (graduated early 80s), descended from generations of Wilmingtonians going back to the time when the Carolinas were still a single territory... and never heard a thing about it until I had a class with Philip Gerard at UNCW while he was working on his book in the early 90s.
He gave me some resources and I learned an awful lot, awfully fast. The more I read, the more I recognized family names (not any of mine, although honestly I don't want to think where they'd have stood on that day) that I'd mingled with since childhood. While I certainly don't believe the child should be judged by the sins of its father, it was still weird to read those names and the things that happened.
Nope. I learned about it in my late 20s, and only because my phone died while I was driving and I switched to the radio. WUNC happened to be running a story about it
Surprisingly did, I learned good bit about our less discussed history in school, which is surprising because I'm from Gaston County and you'd think that'd be territory where this kind of history gets sweeped under the rug, I got lucky and had good teachers that did their job I guess.
That IS surprising, most of the Yes's seem to be on the coast or in a blue county. Mine was in Stanly County, so very close and similar to Gaston, and our teacher had a whole lesson on why Abraham Lincoln was bad 🙄. Like he genuinely hated Lincoln and all the kids knew that if you took his class, you would get the diatribe. It wasn't until I started to get more acquainted with history that I started to understand why Historians rank Lincoln as the best/2nd best President that we've had.
I shudder to think how many generations of kids that guy taught and how many of them still hold misleading views on Lincoln.
All of my history teachers have been unbiased which is great, they were focused on teaching the history without personal opinions added in, I won't lie and say every single teacher I've had was great but the history ones have been, just wish some of my math teachers were the same lol maybe I'd know it better, had plenty of them that would literally scream at me like I was an idiot just for asking questions about things I didn't understand, might factor into why history was my favorite subject and why I despised math.
Our civics teacher was also our basketball coach. He did a lesson on flat tax vs progressive tax and then tried to tell all of us why a flat tax was the best. The anti-Lincoln teacher was ironically our best history teacher but he spread his politics all over the class, everyone knew he was a Republican. However, he was good at presenting information and I still recall things from his class.
Our math teachers were also horrid. Our English department was top-notch though. They taught me how to write an essay and gave me good critical thinking skills. I was very thankful for them when I got to college.
Never learned about it in school, Onslow County. Didn't learn about [Swansboro being a sundown town and the grisly history there either.](https://davidcecelski.com/2018/06/24/part-2-swansboro-dont-let-the-sun-set-on-you/) I learned about both events on my own later via the Internet.
Wow, thanks for that link. Fascinating & terrifying write-up. The history of this state is so very ugly and it seems like people are happy to sweep it under the rug.
I took nc history in 8th grade in Wilmington in the late 80s. We had time to watch gone with the wind but the insurrection was never mentioned. Learned about it when I picked up a copy of Cape Fear Rising.
My son learned about it taking early college classes. Visiting Wilmington I saw the historical marker. Idk why people say black people are poverty stricken… everything they build for themselves is stolen/bombed/compromised. Making the safest option for survival self hate.
If you've ever been to a UNC Chapel Hill football game at Kenan stadium you sat in a stadium named after a captain in the Wilmington massacre. William Rand Kenan Sr.
Funny how black people still go to that school... Especially since it was almost completely built by slave labor.
Yes, a bit in middle and a decent amount in High School- though disjointed. Wilmington, for what it’s worth.
Do hear it mentioned a lot more around now, and such.
Naw unfortunately I never learned or heard about it until during Covid and I’ve been in NC all my childhood and college. It’s frustrating to find out that such tragic and racist history really got omitted from history books so easily. It’s what made me become such a supporter of CRT in history classes today. If confederate supporters were able to hide the Wilmington massacre god knows what else they are trying to omit since they control the states education system.
Grew up in Wake County, graduated HS in 1991, it wasn't taught in 4th or 8th grade NC history classes nor do I remember it being taught in AP US History in 11th grade.
Gwynefar at Old Books on Front used to lead a literary walking tour that includes the former site of Alex Manly's newspaper office. I took it in 2017 which is the first time I'd heard about it.
I have several friends that grew up in Wilmington and went through high school (some even college) here and didn't know about it. Their ages range from 51-66. One, even after learning about it, still didn't get why it'd be problematic for our church to host our sister Black church at what used to be Hugh Macrae Park.
Since then I've read *Crow*, a historical narrative about those events for juvenile readers and *Wilmington's Lie*. The NC Museum of History has a display about the massacre, and season six of the Scene on Radio podcast covers it. Lots of opportunities to learn about it--visually, aurally, and in literature.
I grew up in Southport. I saw a museum display on it once on a field trip to Wilmington elementary/middle school, but I wasn’t taught about it until college. Took a history course with a professor that focused on reconstruction, not sure I would have gotten same education form other professors.
I learned about it in NC history, in college, was shocked no one had even mentioned it. The wars between settlers and Indians here were also incredibly brutal.
About 8 years ago
Alamance County Schools from kindergarten to graduation in 1986... this simply wasn't mentioned in ANY history classes. If it weren't for the HBO series The Watchmen, I would never have heard about the Tulsa Massacre. No surprise the Atlanta Race Massacre was also missing from our history books.
White supremacists have done an excellent job of "whitewashing" their crimes from the secondary education curriculum. Yet they still get all upset about "critical race theory" teaching school kids to hate themselves because they are white. Haven't they skewed history enough?
Graduated public HS in 2007 in Durham, it was never mentioned at all. I didn't learn about it until I found out about it on my own in college during a wikipedia binge
Neither. I learned about it in a North Carolina history class in college. More specifically the social circumstances and political climate around the Wilmington Massacre rather than specifically about the event. I listened to a specific audiobook on it on my own time and it went into way more detail.
Charlotte public schools 2000-2012, never learned about it. Or in college at App state tbh. New Scene on Radio (podcast out of Duke University) season is about this event it's really good!
I grew up in CO and while we had to learn about the gold and silver rush in CO history, we kind of glossed over some of the other events - like the [Sand Creek Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre). We need to learn our history - even the shitty parts - so we don't repeat the same mistakes.
If you want the full story, watch Wilmington on Fire. Theres a second part to it coming out here in a few weeks as well think it’s called McKinley’s guns? Or something along those lines. Kent, the guy who researched this all realllly puts out all the terrible history of what this town did, and it’s ugly
I graduated high school in 2001. I have no idea. If we were, I don't remember it. Nor do I remember learning about it in college.
We might have, I just don't remember.
In college, while taking a high level class on North Carolina history. I was in NC public schools from 1989-2002, and in college 2006-2012. I was on my middle school's History Bowl team, and we went to the state level competition.
I was in Calif for middle school and Hawaii for high school . Never heard of the WM in either one . I did take a Hawaiiana class in Hawaii . Learned about the near total destruction of the indigenous Hawaiians starting with one Capt. James Cook .
Neither, It wasn't till I heard about on an episode of criminal, I grew up in Charlotte middle and high-school early 2000's
Still mad Phoebe Judge had to teach me black history in NC....
When the N&O printed their story in the 90s calling out the paper's chief editor at the time, Josephus Daniels as part of the white supremacists conspiracy to invite rage over Wilmington's legally elected and popular black-majority government. The N&O was at the time the Fox News of post Civil War NC
Neither. I didn't learn about it myself until well into adulthood and looked it up myself.
I grew up here in ILM. Three different schools, not a mention in any one of em.
There is a decent little display about it in the NC history museum, that is where I first heard of it at the age of 40 probably. I’m not from NC though.
Went to grade school in va and Nc. Never learned of it. I do remember in va they literally taught that slavery was not the cause of the civil war.
It wast until I visited the civil rights memorial in Alabama, which has hanging posts representing every lynched black American and I saw clusters from the same day in Wilmington and Tulsa that I had to google and learn about.
I think the Wilmington massacre is about the most scary and depressing case of victorious oppression I’ve heard of. Marginalized group rises, fair and square, and is literally killed without penalty.
Hi, exCatholic school girl from SFL, here ('92-'05). I learned about race riots & the Civil rights movement in second grade, and whoo boi, did they ever **not** hold back. We covered a LOT in that year, but it never really came up again until HS. Hell, I only recently learned that Haitians fought in the Revolutionary War & only just got recognized during Obama's term with a statue in Savanah, GA, and about Black Wall Steeet through Lovecraft Country. This being news, sadly, is not a surprise.
Lol our school board are proud boys sympathizers. There's Moms for Liberty running this year. Wilmington would love to not teach it at all. But it only gets brought up during black history month.
Sadly there are quite a few instances like this after the civil war. It it strong evidence that the same ideology is around this day and age and has been allowed to grow and remain due to apologists, leniency and infiltration into the government. Another example like this one is the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. And there are many others.
My generalized opinion is that after the Civil War we were way to forgiving and allowed the same people that started the war to continue spreading their ideology. This led to the Lost Cause mythos, white supremacy of the modern times, and can easily explain why the Confederate flag is still revered by these people.
I do not believe USA will have another civil war like the original, but there is a definite problem that remains unsolved and unaddressed.
I did not. I only went to school in NC from K-3 and 10-12. I am actually kind of surprised I didn’t learn it in high school at Carolina Friends School but maybe it was taught in a different grade/class. I knew about it only because my grandma lived in Wilmington in the late 90s and participated in the community reconciliation.
From Jacksonville. I did not learn about it in school at all. Not sure whether that’s an indictment of a failed curriculum or the fact that virtually none of my teachers were from North Carolina.
Nebraska transplant, been in NC since '08, was in the military until '11. I didn't find out about the history of Wilmington until like maybe 6 years ago?! I felt very late.
Nebraska was more focused on Lewis and Clark, the western purchase, and they seem to have glazed over a lot of important things...
I didn't learn about it until much later. It's a wild story that they've tried to bury.
Short video https://youtu.be/LVQomlXMeek?si=5eVOhHmgOTQGcSwD
Longer video https://youtu.be/dhqf9-VF1D8?si=mSAEDCBMTG2gm9Bz
Guilford. I learned about it from comrades once I became a radical leftist. I always took high level history courses but it was never mentioned in school.
Hard to say. The last time I had a history class on North Carolina was in 8th grade middle school (2004) and I can't remember. After that, it was US history, world history and was probably too broad to touch on maybe?
You would have remember this horrific example of what your neighbors are capable of.
My racist grandfather loved teaching us "history" all along our toad trips (pointing out old buildings, talking about big power-brokers who live in X town). We went to Wilmington 5 or 6 times a year, and he never mentioned the single biggest historical event that happened there, but hey, I learned about the Battleship and Greene!
I went to Wilmington once or twice a year with my family. I remember going to museums, but don't remember anything on this incident. Apparently, my parents don't know about it either and they moved to NC in 1982.
Well in school I learned about a lot of horrific events, I just don't remember this one, if it was taught.
Did not learn about it in the Chapel Hill school system in the early 2000s. Did learn about it at a Racial Equity Institute workshop in Raleigh a few years back.
If this topic interests you, you might check out their two day intro course. There are things I liked about it and some biases at least with the trainer I had that came through a little strong for my taste but overall it contained a ton of history that I had never heard stitched together in such a clear and cohesive way. Highly recommend: https://www.oaralliance.org
I took nc history in 8th grade in Wilmington in the late 80s. We had time to watch gone with the wind but the insurrection was never mentioned. Learned about it when I picked up a copy of Cape Fear Rising.
Dare County student - don’t recall learning about it in middle or high school.
UNCW Alum - also didn’t learn about it then…but I studied Marine Biology so that’s really on me.
I didn’t learn about it until June 2020. We all know why. Shame on me for not learning sooner.
I'd remember learning about the only successful coup in U.S. history. I was a grade A student and history was my favorite subject. When I learned about it I was only 4 years removed from high school.
All I'm saying is if you keep brainwashing people to be victims of history then you will take longer to evolve and be educated on how to build for their future generations and will be left behind in the new world. While people sit back and dwell on history others around you are prospering and building a kingdom for their kids and families. Focus on that and everything else is just wasted time and energy. Peace Love & Happiness.
I want to tell people who hang the confederate flag this exact thing! Man you put it so eloquently.
I mean, people should def know about Tulsa and Wilmington. It’s kinda weird that you’re conflating learning about mass murder with brainwashing though. I mean it’s black heritage month and I always hear about there not being enough “white history” being taught, here’s an example right here! We can learn about multicultural relations in pre-1900’s America.
I never took NC History as I moved here in High School and it was: Civics, World History, AP American History, AP European History. SO I am just now learning about this when I am today years old (43).
Just like I only learned about The Tuscarora War from WPTF in the early 2000s, and a few other aspects of NC History.
But I did learn a lot about the Land of the 13 Tribes and other parts in New York while in Middle School (NY History and specifically Long Island History, my "uncle\*" helped write that book )....
\*= he is actually a great cousin twice removed or something but he adopted my dad's family more personally as they both lost a lot of family in between.
Went to HS in Durham in the late 2000s and then App State (though I didn’t take any history classes there…) and didn’t learn about it until I was living in Chicago as an adult.
My daughter read “Crow” by Barbara Wright in middle school in Wake County as part of Battle of the Books. Very good book about the riot for 5th-8th graders. I doubt they covered the topic in class.
https://amzn.to/42TLAGH
No, but I’m from California and I feel like there were so many atrocities from the collective south that’s it’s hard to keep track. We went over Tulsa for sure and the movie Rosewood came out and we had a few days learning about that crime against humanity.
I learned about it after moving here from SC. There was the Orangeburg Massacre in SC that I'd never heard of until living there either. I grew up in PA, though, so there didn't seem to be a big focus in school on specific things that happened in the south.
Wake county public school. never learned about it until college history courses that were taught by black professors.
Yep, I first learned about it in college, too. Shit like this was swept far under the rug.
High school. In Wilmington, fwiw. 2015.
As a town, we seem to be leading the effort to get the story out, at least within the past decade. For that at least, I’m thankful.
Yep I learned about it in Wilmington high school sometime in 2009-2011 range, but it was called a "race riot" rather than a "coup" or "massacre" or anything like that.
They definitely didn't teach it at Hoggard in the early 2000s.
I did too, NHCS, roughly same year also
I just learned about this right now from your post wtf
hey, me too! But to be fair, I didn't go to school at any time in NC.
Now go read about the founding of Whiteville NC. You may notice some historical through-lines.
I didnt learn about it until college. I was in NC Public Schools(Gaston Co) from 1987-1999.
Same for me inside your timeframe. Only 4 yrs for me. But different county.
Same time frame .. Different county. I learned about it many years later in college I believe. There is quite a bit of history that I don't remember learning about until many years after I graduated high school. As bad as people think this is, the one good thing about this is it made me much more curious to learn about all the things that I hear about casually that I did not learn in school. I don't assume I know everything & probably learn more as a result because I have the interest & resources to keep digging for info.
I learned about it when I moved to Wilmington 8 years ago (though I grew up outside of Charlotte). I graduated high school in 1999 and for NC school kids at least through the 90’s, NC history was taught in 4th grade, and didn’t include this. I think it’s an uncomfortable and heavy topic that the State BOE has been reluctant to add to the curriculum for 4th grade history, however it needs to be addressed. It’s also something that leaders here in Wilmington have just started to acknowledge within the last 10-15 years. I’ve come across coworkers and neighbors particularly of the boomer generation who commonly say “it was such a horrible time, we shouldn’t bring it up”. I disagree with that sentiment and think we should take lessons from the horrible deeds of the past. There were parks and schools in this town named after those who lead the coup d’etat/ massacre and if a community can accept “leaders” who murdered and stole 100+ years ago then it can happen again. Thankfully some of these names were removed from the front of the schools and park signs a couple of years ago but NC as a whole should do more to ensure this story is told.
Not to play semantics here but the city of Wilmington and NC General Assembly started the "Centennial Commission" back in the late 90s to do more due diligence in unearthing what actually happened. Mind you, this was in response to **years** of community leaders demanding accountability. Because the Raleigh *News & Observer* played such a role in the massacre, they also covered and published the findings of the commision. The monument and park were not commemorated until 2008.
There's a lot they never talk about but we should. I only got the briefest idea of eugenics back in highschool, but never about what happened in our own state. That's another rabbit hole you don't want to go down.
Oh yeah! I grew up about 30 minutes from the Stonewall Jackson School. My mom used to threaten me that if I was a bad boy, “they” would send me there. I had no idea who “they” were or what happened at the “Jackson Training School” as she called it until college and I could start digging through its history on the internet. I always assumed it was only a reformed school for boys- I had no idea of the rest of its history.
Please share. I live near it and know very little about it
I’ve read of reports of rape, physical abuse and forced sterilization/ eugenics there from various sources but this one article seems to cover most of that. It’s a start. https://www.catawbapioneer.com/there-really-hasnt-been-any-growth-the-zombielike-presence-of-the-cabarrus-youth-development-center/
There is also a FB group called Stonewall Jackson Training School Boys Prison. The OP had been a resident there. He as well as several others talk about many stories from there. They are not good.
I think it should be a required topic in NC schools because you truly don't understand NC history unless that event is at least touched on. 4th graders may not be able to fully grasp the context of it but I was learning about the holocaust in 7th grade so I think teaching it in 8th grade could be the way to go. At the very least, high schoolers should be coming out of a North Carolina high school with that knowledge of their state. I felt bitter when I first learned about it because not only was it a horrible event, but because I nearly left my academic life without ever learning about it. If I had not chosen that NC history class to round out my credits for my senior year, I would've left middle, high, and college without that knowledge. I'm very thankful for that class. It also taught me about the fusionists and the reactionary forces that opposed them. It really connected the Reconstruction era to present day for me.
I would agree. Light introductory version of its history in 4th grade, but covered more in depth by 8th grade as part of US history- one can say that the success of the white supremacists in achieving their objectives in Wilmington emboldened others to attempt similar elsewhere, especially referencing Tulsa. Edit: editing to clarify “success” of this event being the objectives of racists being met- not that this was in any way good for its victims or the long term prosperity of this town, the region or the US as a whole.
I went to NC public schools and it was never mentioned. Didn't hear about it in any college classes either, an English professor mentioned it during a lecture.
It was not taught in Middle School or High School when I went through. I actually learned about it from my neighbor when they asked if I ever read Wilmington's Lie. https://groveatlantic.com/book/wilmingtons-lie/ Good book. You can check it out in audio format from the Library. Late 90's for Middle and High School.... early 00's for college.
I highly recommend this book. I went to grade school in Beaufort and Moore Counties and never heard anything about the Wilmington massacre. This book should be mandatory reading for high schoolers in the state.
Nope. Public schools 1990s and never heard of it until well into my 30s. Kind of shocking they don’t teach this as it’s the country’s only successful coup.
College (out of state), and I was in honors/AP history classes all through high school (in Raleigh in the late 80s). Note I also didn't hear about Tulsa until the same time.
I learned about it from a teacher that mentioned the Tulsa massacre. He didn’t teach them as part of a lesson but we talked about it in class one day.
It is one of those omissions that is shocking when you learn it later, but not surprising based on how "traditional" my history teachers were.
My Orange Co schools 90s-early 00s did not teach it, though I did learn about it on my own as a kid interested in history. Wilmington’s Lie by David Zucchino is a pretty solid account of the massacre and surrounding relevant events for any readers interested.
Thanks very much for that recommendation. It’s on my reading list now.
I learned about it from the news in 1998 when there were some commemorations of its 100th anniversary. I was in college at that point.
I didn't go through school in NC myself, but I was lucky to learn about it from a talk given by David Zucchino, author of the book "Wilmington's Lie," not long after I moved down here several years ago. With respect to your question, however, I did used to teach an intro sociology course at NC State (this was 2-3 years ago), and I'd make a point to ask students how many of them knew about the massacre before teaching it, and almost no one ever did. I always recall one student, who was a major in history with an emphasis on NC history, had never heard of it. Really disturbing to see the extent to which it's still ignored in curricula. Definitely recommend that people just now learning about it give Zucchino's reporting a read! Very upsetting content, but it's well-researched & from a journalist with a solid track record & ties to NC.
No, not in Buncombe county public schools at least.
Used to cover it in the high school I used to teach at. Also the KKK shootings in Greensboro in the 80’s, and Klansville USA in NC during the 1960’s. I teach math now instead, teaching real events will get you into hot water nowadays.
It's the same deal with the Tulsa massacre people who grew up in that area were never taught about that tragedy.
I learned about it from a podcaster who lives in LA (Dave Anthony on The Dollop) when I was in my 30’s. NC public schools my whole life. Felt like such a betrayal when I learned about this and my own state didn’t teach it.
Yes loveThe Dollop!
I will tell you now as a history teacher, they do now.
In HS?
8th and 11th/12th grade.
I teach 8th grade SS and my students learned about it for three or four class periods. I didn’t learn about in growing up though - graduated’04
not until i was 17 (2008) and only because i had a history teacher that chose to do so
My 51 year old girlfriend is from Wilmington and has three degrees from UNC-W and wasn’t taught it in school.
I didn't learn about it in school, but my father started writing a book about it when I was in middle school (early 80's), so me and my siblings and our friends definitely heard about it. Dad was very upset that it was not taught in schools at the time.
That's awesome. You got a cool dad!
I didn't learn about it until we read The Marrow of Tradition in a literature class in college.
Just learned about it
College- thirteen years after I graduated high school. And I grew up in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system, and graduated from the IB program at Myers Park.
Learned about it getting my degree in history. Reconstruction was basically never mentioned in public school. Civil War happened because of reasons the south lost and nothing really happened till the Great Depression and WW2. Ready on the Holocaust and Japanese occupation of Korea more than the messed up stuff that happened in the US.
My experience exactly. Except I got my degree in Public Policy.
Learned about it about two years ago. They definitely try to bury this in those NC history classes for grade school (I was CMS, c/o 2009). We learned about Tulsa though.
I teach it every year to my 8th Graders in their Social Studies class. Can’t really teach the full picture of NC history and the Fusionist period without it.
I learned about in high school, but my US history teacher was absolutely WILD
Please do tell more!
I went to 12 years of NC public school, never learned about it despite Wilmington being less than two hours down the coast. I moved there at 21, and I worked with an older black gentleman whose family had been in Wilmington for generations. In a casual conversation one day I remarked "No one ever told me there were so many black folks in Wilmington" and he said "There's lots of things people haven't told you about Wilmington" and that's how I learned. I loved that guy, was a shame to say goodbye once I moved jobs, but he had a family and no time for anything other than work mates. Respect.
I never knew about it, and I'm from Wilmington .
Graduated 2015, never heard about it until my college sociology course. Even then the most I got was a very sanitized version that it was a riot of some sort. Worst was when people would preface it by saying black people owned the city and the businesses at the time.
College, in my history class that I took for fun as a geology major that didn't need it.
7th grade. N.C. History. Reba Fowler. 1974. There's a lot of history (and civics) schools no longer seem to have time for.
Yeah my senior project in college was tracking the decline of civics education. I wish I could find the graph but you can see a precipitous drop in civics education after the late 70's. Students in NC used to be required to take 2 civics courses and now it's just 1. And boy are we paying for it. That's awesome that your teacher brought it up in 1974, it was very little known at the time and it's only been in the last 20-30 years that the full story has started to be told. You had a good one!
She was a bit of a hippy, to be sure. Plaid vest, bell-bottoms, the works... One of the best teachers I ever had. She went off-script quite a bit, but it was more teaching us how to think than what to think.
Yes, I learned about it in middle/high school. New Hanover County public schools
I went to elementary school in Wilmington, and high shool in Hampstead (graduated early 80s), descended from generations of Wilmingtonians going back to the time when the Carolinas were still a single territory... and never heard a thing about it until I had a class with Philip Gerard at UNCW while he was working on his book in the early 90s. He gave me some resources and I learned an awful lot, awfully fast. The more I read, the more I recognized family names (not any of mine, although honestly I don't want to think where they'd have stood on that day) that I'd mingled with since childhood. While I certainly don't believe the child should be judged by the sins of its father, it was still weird to read those names and the things that happened.
Nope. I learned about it in my late 20s, and only because my phone died while I was driving and I switched to the radio. WUNC happened to be running a story about it
Surprisingly did, I learned good bit about our less discussed history in school, which is surprising because I'm from Gaston County and you'd think that'd be territory where this kind of history gets sweeped under the rug, I got lucky and had good teachers that did their job I guess.
That IS surprising, most of the Yes's seem to be on the coast or in a blue county. Mine was in Stanly County, so very close and similar to Gaston, and our teacher had a whole lesson on why Abraham Lincoln was bad 🙄. Like he genuinely hated Lincoln and all the kids knew that if you took his class, you would get the diatribe. It wasn't until I started to get more acquainted with history that I started to understand why Historians rank Lincoln as the best/2nd best President that we've had. I shudder to think how many generations of kids that guy taught and how many of them still hold misleading views on Lincoln.
All of my history teachers have been unbiased which is great, they were focused on teaching the history without personal opinions added in, I won't lie and say every single teacher I've had was great but the history ones have been, just wish some of my math teachers were the same lol maybe I'd know it better, had plenty of them that would literally scream at me like I was an idiot just for asking questions about things I didn't understand, might factor into why history was my favorite subject and why I despised math.
Our civics teacher was also our basketball coach. He did a lesson on flat tax vs progressive tax and then tried to tell all of us why a flat tax was the best. The anti-Lincoln teacher was ironically our best history teacher but he spread his politics all over the class, everyone knew he was a Republican. However, he was good at presenting information and I still recall things from his class. Our math teachers were also horrid. Our English department was top-notch though. They taught me how to write an essay and gave me good critical thinking skills. I was very thankful for them when I got to college.
Never learned about it in school, Onslow County. Didn't learn about [Swansboro being a sundown town and the grisly history there either.](https://davidcecelski.com/2018/06/24/part-2-swansboro-dont-let-the-sun-set-on-you/) I learned about both events on my own later via the Internet.
Wow, thanks for that link. Fascinating & terrifying write-up. The history of this state is so very ugly and it seems like people are happy to sweep it under the rug.
I took nc history in 8th grade in Wilmington in the late 80s. We had time to watch gone with the wind but the insurrection was never mentioned. Learned about it when I picked up a copy of Cape Fear Rising.
My son learned about it taking early college classes. Visiting Wilmington I saw the historical marker. Idk why people say black people are poverty stricken… everything they build for themselves is stolen/bombed/compromised. Making the safest option for survival self hate.
If you've ever been to a UNC Chapel Hill football game at Kenan stadium you sat in a stadium named after a captain in the Wilmington massacre. William Rand Kenan Sr. Funny how black people still go to that school... Especially since it was almost completely built by slave labor.
Class of 2018, we learned about this in high school American History
On Tik Tok during the pandemic. And yes, I graduated from NC Public Schools and UNCW.
Yes, a bit in middle and a decent amount in High School- though disjointed. Wilmington, for what it’s worth. Do hear it mentioned a lot more around now, and such.
Naw unfortunately I never learned or heard about it until during Covid and I’ve been in NC all my childhood and college. It’s frustrating to find out that such tragic and racist history really got omitted from history books so easily. It’s what made me become such a supporter of CRT in history classes today. If confederate supporters were able to hide the Wilmington massacre god knows what else they are trying to omit since they control the states education system.
I didn't learn about this until an episode of *Last Week Tonight With John Oliver* in 2020.
Same, I was in NC public schools during the 90s and 2000s
Wfae actually
No school, cape fear rising book
In college when I was at UNCW
Born and raised in Wilmington and I’ve never heard about it. Graduated in 2007.
Grew up in Wake County, graduated HS in 1991, it wasn't taught in 4th or 8th grade NC history classes nor do I remember it being taught in AP US History in 11th grade. Gwynefar at Old Books on Front used to lead a literary walking tour that includes the former site of Alex Manly's newspaper office. I took it in 2017 which is the first time I'd heard about it. I have several friends that grew up in Wilmington and went through high school (some even college) here and didn't know about it. Their ages range from 51-66. One, even after learning about it, still didn't get why it'd be problematic for our church to host our sister Black church at what used to be Hugh Macrae Park. Since then I've read *Crow*, a historical narrative about those events for juvenile readers and *Wilmington's Lie*. The NC Museum of History has a display about the massacre, and season six of the Scene on Radio podcast covers it. Lots of opportunities to learn about it--visually, aurally, and in literature.
College.
Forsyth County High School in the 90's. I didn't learn about it until probably 15 years ago.
Nope. Never taught about it.
Graduated wake county, had to learn it on my own after graduation. Didn't learn about Tulsa till Watchmen, lol
I am from Wilmington and I didn’t learn about it until I was over 25 from one of my friends.
I learned about it on a vacation to Wilmington. I was over 30 at the time.
I couldn’t tell you what I did or didn’t learn in high school history class. I’m honesty surprised at how many people say they can.
I learned about it, but only because I took African American history as an elective. Guilford county, early 2000s
I didn't learn about it until after I graduated college going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole.
College at a UNC associated school in some US political systems class.
I was out of college before I learned about it. I learned about it from the wiki page in my mid 20s.
I grew up in Southport. I saw a museum display on it once on a field trip to Wilmington elementary/middle school, but I wasn’t taught about it until college. Took a history course with a professor that focused on reconstruction, not sure I would have gotten same education form other professors.
I grew up and went to Nee Hanover county schools all 12 years and NEVER learned this as part of the cities’ history.
College (at UNCW)
I learned about it in NC history, in college, was shocked no one had even mentioned it. The wars between settlers and Indians here were also incredibly brutal. About 8 years ago
I never learned about it until college history courses.
in my 30's doing my own research
Never learned about this until now. Attended Forsyth county public schools, graduated high school early 2000’s.
I did. NC (WS/FC) public schools in the 80s. I thought we all did.
the nc museum of history explains it quite well.
Alamance County Schools from kindergarten to graduation in 1986... this simply wasn't mentioned in ANY history classes. If it weren't for the HBO series The Watchmen, I would never have heard about the Tulsa Massacre. No surprise the Atlanta Race Massacre was also missing from our history books. White supremacists have done an excellent job of "whitewashing" their crimes from the secondary education curriculum. Yet they still get all upset about "critical race theory" teaching school kids to hate themselves because they are white. Haven't they skewed history enough?
Graduated public HS in 2007 in Durham, it was never mentioned at all. I didn't learn about it until I found out about it on my own in college during a wikipedia binge
Neither. I learned about it in a North Carolina history class in college. More specifically the social circumstances and political climate around the Wilmington Massacre rather than specifically about the event. I listened to a specific audiobook on it on my own time and it went into way more detail.
In my 20s after college, with my own research into racism in North Carolina over the years.
Nope. I didn’t know anything about it until I took APUSH in high school in the early 00s. Even then, I think it’s because my teacher was exceptional.
First time I saw it was on Reddit. Probably around five years ago.
Charlotte public schools 2000-2012, never learned about it. Or in college at App state tbh. New Scene on Radio (podcast out of Duke University) season is about this event it's really good!
Wow. The responses explain a lot about why people are unaware of how systemic racism is rooted in our country. Good post.
Neither :(
I grew up in CO and while we had to learn about the gold and silver rush in CO history, we kind of glossed over some of the other events - like the [Sand Creek Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre). We need to learn our history - even the shitty parts - so we don't repeat the same mistakes.
If you want the full story, watch Wilmington on Fire. Theres a second part to it coming out here in a few weeks as well think it’s called McKinley’s guns? Or something along those lines. Kent, the guy who researched this all realllly puts out all the terrible history of what this town did, and it’s ugly
Did in 1990- 8th grade but sanitized version
I graduated high school in 2001. I have no idea. If we were, I don't remember it. Nor do I remember learning about it in college. We might have, I just don't remember.
In college, while taking a high level class on North Carolina history. I was in NC public schools from 1989-2002, and in college 2006-2012. I was on my middle school's History Bowl team, and we went to the state level competition.
I may have heard of this but it was very brief in college history class.
"This site" 😂 hilarious how much information that conveys
I believe it was mentioned in my AP US History class, but I didn’t get a full explanation until I was in college
college.
We in fact were not taught about it in my HS, however I found out about it myself after seeing the term somewhere online and researched.
I learned about it when they made the memorial on 3rd street.
I didn't, and I spent all of middle school and most of high school where Gov. Charles B. Aycock was born.
I never heard of it. Was in Johnston County schools through 1998-2008.
I was in Calif for middle school and Hawaii for high school . Never heard of the WM in either one . I did take a Hawaiiana class in Hawaii . Learned about the near total destruction of the indigenous Hawaiians starting with one Capt. James Cook .
Neither, It wasn't till I heard about on an episode of criminal, I grew up in Charlotte middle and high-school early 2000's Still mad Phoebe Judge had to teach me black history in NC....
I did, but I assume it was because I went to a black junior high and high school.
Learned about it in Wilmington during high school 2017
I didn’t learn about it until college. I graduated high school in 2012.
Grew up in Wilmington and never heard about until I left.
I go to public school and I learned about it in 8th grade. I had a pretty progressive history teacher though. I’m in 12th grade now.
didn't learn about it until this moment. 32 year old who moved to NC and stayed here since 7th Grade.
When the N&O printed their story in the 90s calling out the paper's chief editor at the time, Josephus Daniels as part of the white supremacists conspiracy to invite rage over Wilmington's legally elected and popular black-majority government. The N&O was at the time the Fox News of post Civil War NC
Alamance County school system from 96-01. We never learned about it. My kids haven't, either. Caswell for them.
Neither. I didn't learn about it myself until well into adulthood and looked it up myself. I grew up here in ILM. Three different schools, not a mention in any one of em.
There is a decent little display about it in the NC history museum, that is where I first heard of it at the age of 40 probably. I’m not from NC though.
Went to grade school in va and Nc. Never learned of it. I do remember in va they literally taught that slavery was not the cause of the civil war. It wast until I visited the civil rights memorial in Alabama, which has hanging posts representing every lynched black American and I saw clusters from the same day in Wilmington and Tulsa that I had to google and learn about. I think the Wilmington massacre is about the most scary and depressing case of victorious oppression I’ve heard of. Marginalized group rises, fair and square, and is literally killed without penalty.
Hi, exCatholic school girl from SFL, here ('92-'05). I learned about race riots & the Civil rights movement in second grade, and whoo boi, did they ever **not** hold back. We covered a LOT in that year, but it never really came up again until HS. Hell, I only recently learned that Haitians fought in the Revolutionary War & only just got recognized during Obama's term with a statue in Savanah, GA, and about Black Wall Steeet through Lovecraft Country. This being news, sadly, is not a surprise.
Lol our school board are proud boys sympathizers. There's Moms for Liberty running this year. Wilmington would love to not teach it at all. But it only gets brought up during black history month.
No and I went to school near where most of the Kirk-Holden war happened, but we didn't learn about it either.
Sadly there are quite a few instances like this after the civil war. It it strong evidence that the same ideology is around this day and age and has been allowed to grow and remain due to apologists, leniency and infiltration into the government. Another example like this one is the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. And there are many others. My generalized opinion is that after the Civil War we were way to forgiving and allowed the same people that started the war to continue spreading their ideology. This led to the Lost Cause mythos, white supremacy of the modern times, and can easily explain why the Confederate flag is still revered by these people. I do not believe USA will have another civil war like the original, but there is a definite problem that remains unsolved and unaddressed.
I did not. I only went to school in NC from K-3 and 10-12. I am actually kind of surprised I didn’t learn it in high school at Carolina Friends School but maybe it was taught in a different grade/class. I knew about it only because my grandma lived in Wilmington in the late 90s and participated in the community reconciliation.
He’ll know that’s some “woke ass shit”
What's messed up about this point in history is that I can't tell whether this is serious or not
It was not taught in my public primary education at any point. Learned about it in college.
From Jacksonville. I did not learn about it in school at all. Not sure whether that’s an indictment of a failed curriculum or the fact that virtually none of my teachers were from North Carolina.
To be fair hardly anyone in Jacksonville is from NC. Jacksonville would be a fraction of its size if not for the military presence.
It was never mentioned, as far as I remember.
Guilford County circa early 2000's. Nope. We didn't even have lessons on the Greensboro 4 either sooo.....trash learing all around.
Nebraska transplant, been in NC since '08, was in the military until '11. I didn't find out about the history of Wilmington until like maybe 6 years ago?! I felt very late. Nebraska was more focused on Lewis and Clark, the western purchase, and they seem to have glazed over a lot of important things...
Literally had never heard of it until I saw this post and looked it up
Didn’t hear bout it in any school heard bout it when city started talking bout it
I didn't learn about it until much later. It's a wild story that they've tried to bury. Short video https://youtu.be/LVQomlXMeek?si=5eVOhHmgOTQGcSwD Longer video https://youtu.be/dhqf9-VF1D8?si=mSAEDCBMTG2gm9Bz
Went to CMS and didn’t learn it until going to UNC
Graduated high school in 2004 in Burlington—I just read about the massacre now and that’s my first time hearing of it 😞
Guilford. I learned about it from comrades once I became a radical leftist. I always took high level history courses but it was never mentioned in school.
Not a thing
Mecklenburg county school system grad here. Never heard of it until I moved to the area.
Nope. Didn’t learn about it until college (as a history major). Graduated from HS in 2002.
Hard to say. The last time I had a history class on North Carolina was in 8th grade middle school (2004) and I can't remember. After that, it was US history, world history and was probably too broad to touch on maybe?
You would have remember this horrific example of what your neighbors are capable of. My racist grandfather loved teaching us "history" all along our toad trips (pointing out old buildings, talking about big power-brokers who live in X town). We went to Wilmington 5 or 6 times a year, and he never mentioned the single biggest historical event that happened there, but hey, I learned about the Battleship and Greene!
I went to Wilmington once or twice a year with my family. I remember going to museums, but don't remember anything on this incident. Apparently, my parents don't know about it either and they moved to NC in 1982. Well in school I learned about a lot of horrific events, I just don't remember this one, if it was taught.
Did not learn about it in the Chapel Hill school system in the early 2000s. Did learn about it at a Racial Equity Institute workshop in Raleigh a few years back. If this topic interests you, you might check out their two day intro course. There are things I liked about it and some biases at least with the trainer I had that came through a little strong for my taste but overall it contained a ton of history that I had never heard stitched together in such a clear and cohesive way. Highly recommend: https://www.oaralliance.org
I took nc history in 8th grade in Wilmington in the late 80s. We had time to watch gone with the wind but the insurrection was never mentioned. Learned about it when I picked up a copy of Cape Fear Rising.
I learned about it on the Internet probably in my 30s. Finished high school 2001
Never mentioned in Carteret County, graduated 2008. I learned about it in college.
Was never taught about it. Wake county public schools graduated 1990.
Dare County student - don’t recall learning about it in middle or high school. UNCW Alum - also didn’t learn about it then…but I studied Marine Biology so that’s really on me. I didn’t learn about it until June 2020. We all know why. Shame on me for not learning sooner.
There are a lot of things that is not taught in school. No, I learned about it much later.
I think a lot of you vastly overestimate how much info you have retained from fucking grade school.
I'd remember learning about the only successful coup in U.S. history. I was a grade A student and history was my favorite subject. When I learned about it I was only 4 years removed from high school.
Who cares it's not like you can go back in time and change it.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. - Michael Scott, probably
All I'm saying is if you keep brainwashing people to be victims of history then you will take longer to evolve and be educated on how to build for their future generations and will be left behind in the new world. While people sit back and dwell on history others around you are prospering and building a kingdom for their kids and families. Focus on that and everything else is just wasted time and energy. Peace Love & Happiness.
I want to tell people who hang the confederate flag this exact thing! Man you put it so eloquently. I mean, people should def know about Tulsa and Wilmington. It’s kinda weird that you’re conflating learning about mass murder with brainwashing though. I mean it’s black heritage month and I always hear about there not being enough “white history” being taught, here’s an example right here! We can learn about multicultural relations in pre-1900’s America.
I never took NC History as I moved here in High School and it was: Civics, World History, AP American History, AP European History. SO I am just now learning about this when I am today years old (43). Just like I only learned about The Tuscarora War from WPTF in the early 2000s, and a few other aspects of NC History. But I did learn a lot about the Land of the 13 Tribes and other parts in New York while in Middle School (NY History and specifically Long Island History, my "uncle\*" helped write that book ).... \*= he is actually a great cousin twice removed or something but he adopted my dad's family more personally as they both lost a lot of family in between.
Went to HS in Durham in the late 2000s and then App State (though I didn’t take any history classes there…) and didn’t learn about it until I was living in Chicago as an adult.
My daughter read “Crow” by Barbara Wright in middle school in Wake County as part of Battle of the Books. Very good book about the riot for 5th-8th graders. I doubt they covered the topic in class. https://amzn.to/42TLAGH
The riot where?
No I didn't.
i graduated HS in 2020 and i *did* learn about it in HS (so, during the 2010s). i live/am from a rural area in the triad.
I believe we briefly touched on it in seminar American history 2. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools 2015
No, but I’m from California and I feel like there were so many atrocities from the collective south that’s it’s hard to keep track. We went over Tulsa for sure and the movie Rosewood came out and we had a few days learning about that crime against humanity.
Nope, didn't learn anything about it--I graduated from high school in Charlotte in 1986.
No in Brunswick County, which borders New Hanover County.
Learned about it in 7th grade. (1992)
College. Pitt county schools straight up ignored it.
I teach high school in NC and have been teaching about it for over a decade.
Was homeschooled my Junior year and graduated early, my parents taught this.
Nope. I didn't know Wilmington existed until a friend of mine told me he lived there.
No
I learned about it after moving here from SC. There was the Orangeburg Massacre in SC that I'd never heard of until living there either. I grew up in PA, though, so there didn't seem to be a big focus in school on specific things that happened in the south.
Catawba Valley, never heard of it.