About the Author

DAVID ZUCCHINO is a contributing writer for The New York Times. He has covered wars and civil conflicts in more than three dozen countries. Zucchino was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his dispatches from apartheid South Africa and is a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for his reporting from Iraq, Lebanon, Africa and inner-city Philadelphia. He is the author of Thunder Run and Myth of the Welfare Queen.

Reviews

WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NONFICTIONPraise for Wilmington's Lie: "A gripping account of the overthrow of the elected government of a Black-majority North Carolina city after Reconstruction that untangles a complicated set of power dynamics cutting across race, class and gender." -2021 General Nonfiction Pulitzer Prize Committee"A judicious and riveting new history...The publication of a book like Zucchino's, [is] a sign that, however late and reluctantly, America is becoming conscious of the racial violence that insured white supremacy after Reconstruction."--New Yorker"Brilliant...Zucchino, a contributing writer for the New York Times, does not overwrite the scenes. His moral judgment stands at a distance. He simply describes what happened and the lies told to justify it all...The details contained in the last part of the book are heart-wrenching. With economy and a cinematic touch, Zucchino recounts the brutal assault on black Wilmington."--New York Times"In Wilmington's Lie, David Zucchino, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has covered conflicts around the world, punctures the myths surrounding the insurrection and provides a dynamic and detailed account of the lives of perpetrators and victims...Deeply researched and profoundly relevant, Wilmington's Lie explains how [the coup] happened and suggests how much work remains to be done to come to terms with what took place."--Washington Post"This is an amazing story."--Dave Davies, NPR's Fresh Air"David Zucchino offers a gripping account of one of the most disturbing, though virtually unknown, political events in American history...Thanks to Mr. Zucchino's unflinching account, we now have the full, appalling story. As befits a serious journalist, he avoids polemics and lets events speak for themselves. Wilmington's Lie joins a growing shelf of works that unpeel the brutal realities of the post-Civil War South...it is books such as these, not least Wilmington's Lie, that have redeemed the truth of post-Civil War history from the tenacious mythology of racism."--Wall Street Journal"In his new book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Zucchino illuminates a harrowing historical incident, the Wilmington coup of 1898, that is long forgotten by most. In doing so, he does a lot to explain our own interesting times... In his riveting book, Zucchino retells one horrifying attempt to re-establish the "rightful place" of former slaves: starkly isolated, with scant hope of parity."--Guardian"Wilmington's Lie shows how effectively people in power can distort history. And yet it also proves that the past isn't easily erased. We still don't know how many black people died in Wilmington, and we also don't know many of their names. But the truth--much of it--has finally come out."--Charlotte Observer"Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Zucchino cuts through a century of propaganda, myth, and big white lies to unmask the stunning history of the Wilmington coup, its origins in the political climate of the era, and its far-reaching implications for North Carolina and the rest of the resurgent Confederacy in the decades that followed."--New York Journal of Books"The dumbfounding, true story in David Zucchino's Wilmington's Lie [is] so lacerating, so appalling you often can't believe what youR