Carney Saves the World

EP12 Filmmaker Chris Everett - Revealing the Untold Story of 1898 Wilmington Massacre

• Episode 12

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Brace yourself for an enthralling conversation with acclaimed Wilmington-based filmmaker, Chris Everett, as we journey into the oft-ignored annals of America's history - the 1898 Wilmington massacre. This chilling event chronicles an actual overthrow of an established government and the white supremacist movement that masterminded it. Chris, with his meticulous research and gripping narrative, helps us navigate this tumultuous period, giving us a front-row seat to the horrific incidents that left a lasting impact on Wilmington and its African American community.

From the gripping tales of the past, we transition into a critical examination of the role of propaganda and voter disenfranchisement in fanning the flames of violence. It's a thought-provoking reflection that puts the 1898 incidents as a stark mirror to our current political climate. But fret not, it's not all darkness and despair. We shift gears and plunge into the fascinating world of martial arts, where we shed light on the inspiring story of Vic Moore, one of the first professional Black karate champions in America.

This episode is an absolute must-listen for any history enthusiast or social justice advocate. Let Chris Everett's award-winning documentary "Wilmington on Fire" serve as your beacon, helping you navigate through the murky depths of America's past. It's an episode that transcends the realm of a typical history lesson and serves as a powerful reminder of how understanding our past can shape a more equitable future. So, buckle up and get ready to be moved, enraged, inspired, and enlightened by this riveting conversation.

To learn more about the Wilmington Massacre of 1898:
     - https://www.nhcgov.com/604/Wilmington-Massacre-1898
     - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898

Where to watch "Wilmington On Fire" - https://www.kweli.tv/

Information on "Wilmington On Fire" - @wilmingtononfire
Information for "Grandmaster" - @gmdocumentary

To learn more about the 3 Chambers Fest - https://www.3chambers.com/

To follow Chris Everett - @spellerstreetchris

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Scott:

Chris Everett is the Wilmington based film producer and director of the award-winning documentary film Wilmington on Fire, as well as the documentary Grandmaster the Vic Moore Story. He's the founder and president of Speller Street Films and is the artistic director for the Southern Documentary Fund. He's currently working on his follow-up film, wilmington on Fire Part 2. I'm very honored to have him here. Chris Everett, welcome to Carney Saves the World.

Chris Everett:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do it one day.

Scott:

Thank you again for coming on. We got some important stuff to talk about. This is a very important topic. I was not aware of the Wilmington riots massacre. I was not aware of that at all and I'm kind of shocked by it because I have a history degree From up north. You know I could see if they weren't teaching it down south. Right, you know, with the lost cause deal that adjusted the education system down here for a while, but up north we're not learning about this, right. Right, could you just tell us a little bit about it from what you've researched?

Chris Everett:

Well you know, the Wilmington massacre of 1898 is pretty much considered one of the only examples of an actual overthrow of an existing government here in the United States of America. This happened on November 10th 1898 in the beautiful city of Wilmington, North Carolina.

Chris Everett:

You know, what makes it really unique is that back then this is over 30 years after slavery where you had this thing that was going on in several states in the South, a thing called fusion.

Chris Everett:

And so this fusionist movement, kind of combined black Republicans, white populists, kind of coming together and saying you know, let's fuse together, let's try to become a political power to get our folks in office, and so you saw a lot of that happening in Wilmington. But you also had a white supremacist movement that was just not only in Wilmington but throughout the state of North Carolina that really wanted to reverse all of these changes that was happening in the state of North Carolina and specifically in Wilmington. And that's how we got the whole 1898 massacre that happened. And a lot of people might be familiar with Tulsa, rosewood, those things. But Wilmington was before both of those racial massacres that happened here in the United States and, like you were saying earlier, a lot of us still don't know about it. A lot of us didn't know about it until, I would say, you know Wilmington on fire really coming out and really exposing a lot of this stuff.

Scott:

So how did you pick that as your?

Chris Everett:

Well, it wasn't my first one. It was my first completed one, and so it was kind of like it's going to answer your question at the same time. So my very first documentary was about where I'm from. I'm from Lawnburg, north Carolina, scotland County. Lawnburg is about. If you go across the bridge in Wilmington, the Cape River Bridge, you know it's right on 74. It takes you right through Lawnburg. Man, lawnburg is like the halfway mark from here to Charlotte, and so it's about an hour and a half from here, and so I grew up there.

Chris Everett:

I've been involved in history my whole life. I grew up right around the quarter from the Lawnburg Institute. It's a historical blackboarding in day. School started in 1904, been the same family for three generations. My grandfather went to school there, my godfather he went to school there. He was the alumni president for years. You know I collected all these old archival stuff for them over the years and so that was going to be my first film. That was my first film about the Lawnburg Institute, but I totally failed at it and never finished it. All I did was really collect a lot of archival materials, a lot of art or histories, and so I never put it together. But recently I was hired to actually use a lot of my archival material for a book that's coming out about the Lawnburg Institute. It's actually coming out this February, coming up Great and so I supplied all the photos for that book. But with the documentary film I didn't get the complete, I didn't get to finish it, but while doing that I found out a lot of stuff about the 1898 massacre.

Chris Everett:

And when I tell people a lot of times people think that the Wilmington massacre is just restricted to Wilmington and that's not true at all. This was a statewide movement of white supremacy. Even where I'm from, there was involvement from people in my town. I grew up in Lawnburg. So, for example, when you watch Wilmington on fire and you see these pictures where we talk about the red shirts and stuff like that, you know the red shirts were, you know, similar to the Klu Klux Klan. They were white supremacists type of organization really tried to restrict African Americans from voting on in businesses where they didn't wear any sheets. They came out and brought daylight. So all the pictures that you see of red shirts in my film, those aren't red shirts from Wilmington. All those pictures are red shirts from Lawnburg.

Chris Everett:

Okay, then finding out that a lot of red shirts that participated in the Wilmington massacre of 1898, a lot of them came from Lawnburg as well, and so that sparked my interest, when I didn't get to finish that film, I said you know what? Let me look more into this Wilmington 1898 story Because I see how it connects to Lawnburg. And then also I started doing some research, found out that Lawnburg really was the kickstart to that whole election of 1898, that white supremacy campaign of 1898, they kickstarted that campaign in Lawnburg with a huge rally in May of 1898. That really kickstarted the rest of that year for this whole white supremacy push which led to the 1898 massacre. So I said you know what? Let me go ahead and see if I can tell you this story because it really relates to where I'm from.

Scott:

Yeah.

Chris Everett:

And there's a lot to that, so let me go ahead and tackle this. I didn't see that no one was doing a documentary on it, and so you know what we're going to give it a shot in the rest of history.

Scott:

Folks that are listening, go watch this film. It's amazing. I watched it a second time yesterday. It's so informative, it's so well done and it is just a really crazy time. I mean you can't even describe it until you see the film and you see what happened and how the only coup d'etat in the United States to ever be successful and it happened here in Wilmington they removed the entire government and started new, and it was all white people. It's a pretty crazy, crazy story.

Chris Everett:

And you know, in the cities never really fully recovered from that event. Now the the black population has steadily been on the decline. It's gotten up a little bit. I was sort of the past couple of years To me I think that was because of COVID where people could kind of move around with their jobs, with their salaries and kind of just move wherever they wanted to. So you kind of started to see that black population kind of go up. Even I moved here during the pandemic, so I'm included in that percentage as well because we could actually move around with some of our jobs. Now A lot of jobs went remote, some people started their own businesses so they could actually move around a little bit. But it still hasn't grown to a level of what it was prior to the 1998 massacre. But a lot of people are trying to change that.

Scott:

So we moved down here in 2017. And it was right around the time that there was just this big push to rename Humacrae Park. And, for those listening, humacrae Park is probably the largest park in Wilmington. The land was donated by this we'll just say, quote unquote, rich guy Humacrae. We can talk about how he got his money, but he donated all this land for a park. And then, when you start digging into it, the park's main purpose was solely for white people. It was never to be used by anyone else besides white people. But yet in 2016, this guy's damn name was still on the billboard.

Scott:

And I remember getting in debates with people about it and I'm like that's just wrong and the story like it's just a bit shitty and it's wrong, and people couldn't understand. I would have these arguments, chris, and people would come back to me and they'd be like, well, we didn't do it. Well, it's not. That's at the point. So since then it's obviously it has been changed to Longleaf Park, which but that kind of got me thinking well, what else is going on in Wilmington? And then I started hearing the stories and your documentary had come out, but I hadn't gotten a chance to see it back then. You know, brought a lot of light to a very, very dark time in Wilmington, and the US has passed.

Chris Everett:

For sure. And then we saw a lot of this get exposed, especially, you know, during the beginning of the pandemic with the murder of George Floyd. You saw a lot of investment, the name change kind of happened with Humacrae Park as well, and then you started seeing a lot of the monuments getting taken down really across America. But specifically, you know we're talking about Wilmington. You know we started to see a lot of that happen throughout the city as well. People have been telling people to change these names for years. But it wasn't until, you know, when George Floyd was murdered and during the pandemic, you know, we started to finally see some movement with those things.

Scott:

Yeah, so when you start putting this film together, obviously there's a fundraising component to it. Yeah, did you get pushback? Did people not want to attach money to something that was possibly a controversial topic?

Chris Everett:

It was mostly because, you know, it was my first film and also and people don't realize this and now a lot of people are making films on 1898 now got shorts out there, other type of features, but when I was putting this together no one was doing it. No one was making it, wasn't even trying to do a film on 1898. I didn't get the support or the funding because of that. It was just that I guess just no one cared about even talking about the subject. You know what I'm saying. It really wasn't a hot topic like that at the time. You know, no one was really trying to do anything on it besides us. You know my team and stuff like that.

Chris Everett:

So we kind of went under radar with this thing. We knew that, okay, this isn't a popular topic at the time, we probably won't get the funding, but let's figure out a way to get it going. Yeah, and so it was, like you know, several different ways. I use my own money a lot of times. A lot of times people work for really free or cheap a lot of times. And then also, I did a couple of crowd funding campaigns and then, for post-production, out the blue, an NBA player actually gave me the remaining post-production funds. To finish up, post-production, david West. He's retired and, as a retired NBA player, oh, yeah, yeah, but he actually gave me the finishing funds on the finish and

Chris Everett:

he heard about me through like a blog, this, mark Anthony Neal, who has a blog called Left to Black. He's a history professor at Duke University and he's a huge supporter of what I've been doing over the years and he so. He wrote a couple of stories about me doing this film and David frequents his blog. And he reached out. He said man, is this film bad? I want to get a copy of it, I want to see it. And Mark told him, said man, it's not done. I think he's still trying to get some money together for post-production. And then Mark hits me up. He said hey, david West and his people hit me up. Man, they're interested in more and more about your project and it could be a way for you to finish it. And so that's how we made that connection. Man, it's really David West and looking at Mark's blog. And then Mark hitting me up, letting me know that hey, david is interesting in partnering with you Get this thing done.

Chris Everett:

And that's how we got it done, man, that's awesome and the rest is history. And then. So now getting Women's no Fire 2 funded was a whole lot easier, because doing getting the first one done, getting on the road, getting all these accolades and doing all this stuff over the past five, six years with that film that kind of let people like you know, chris, I see you want to do a part two. We're going to get behind this now, and so funding things went better and easier with Women's no Fire 2 than it was with the first one, but I wouldn't change it for the world, man, I learned so much during the grassroots way.

Scott:

Yeah, I can't imagine how much you've learned over that course of the whole project. One of the other people that is coming on as, I think, an executive producer for part two is Hilary Burton. Yeah yeah, I want you to hear.

Chris Everett:

Yeah.

Scott:

Yeah, I've got a lady friend that are that are one tree hill freaks and like I live down here and they're like do you drive by where they? Yeah, I drive by there, but yeah, so she's going to be helping out.

Chris Everett:

Huh oh yeah, yeah, she's been. She's been a huge help and support man. Like I said, women's no Fire 2 has gotten a lot of support. But the thing is, I connected with Hilary. It was during the pandemic, you know, when a lot of stuff was happening. You know, in our country a lot of stuff was happening here in Women's 10. I know I think someone sent Hilary the video, sent the Women's no Fire copy of it, and she checked it out and she loved it and she's like, oh man, I never knew about this history and I lived in Women's for 10 years. And so she she went on IG, on Instagram, and did a video and gave me a shout out and so I saw all these people started following me. That's awesome. I like, oh, these people following me for that scroll now. That's why it's Hilary Burton tagging me and then. So I looked at the video.

Chris Everett:

So I hit it up in the DM and say, hey, thank you again for the support. I really appreciate you liking the film and liking what I do. And she hit me back and then we just started texting each other and you know we talked on the phone and she said, chris, I like what you're doing. And I tell her that's a hey, I'm about to start production on part two. And she was like hey, if you need anything, let me know. I really love what you're doing.

Chris Everett:

With the first one, she brought me on our IG live I'm chat talk that she brought us. From time to time they're like a million viewers, wow, you know. So I was able to tap into her audience. You know that one tree here audience and stuff like that and so she wanted to get involved with part two, man, and so I say let's do it. And so she's been a huge support over the past couple of years, and just not only with women's no fire, but no other questions that I might have about doing film and trying to grow my career she's just been more than helpful.

Scott:

She's married to.

Chris Everett:

Oh, jesse, jesse, Morgan, yeah, from the walking dead, jesse, that is husband.

Scott:

So this isn't like an angle to try to get a zombie role, is it no?

Chris Everett:

not, at all Not at all.

Scott:

Not at all. I'm a dot guy, so that's fantastic. I mean to know that you're going into part two with. You know, all that weight off your shoulders that you had going into part one is just got to be, you know an amazing way to start it off it is.

Chris Everett:

It is, you know it's good and bad pressure. So the pressure of thinking about the funding aspect but the other person was that you know you don't want to have like a soft, most you know flop, you know type of deal, you know, because the first one did so much man and really, you know, led to a lot of change, a lot of the change that we're seeing in North Carolina in Wilmington. Really that film helped with that and so that film is probably going to go down is. You know, even if I do some of the best films artistically and everything, wilmington on Fire is probably always going to be my number one film for everybody. That's what everybody's going to know me for, and so it's going to be hard to top that. But I think we're going to come close with it. For part two, because we stepped that game all the way up, man. We stepped it up production-wise, visually, sound-wise and story-wise as well. So I just wanted to show, you know, the growth as a filmmaker and storyteller also with this next project.

Scott:

So part one goes up through 1898. I forgot to mention. One of the reasons why I wanted to sit down with you and have this conversation is this coming Friday, november 10th, is the 125th anniversary of the massacre, so I really wanted to put a lot of emphasis on that and make sure that people will honor those folks that lost their lives and lost their livelihoods during it. So we go through 1898, correct me if I'm wrong. You do touch up into the 1900 election, which is kind of a kind of a shady thing, I guess. Basically 1898, they kicked everybody out and then the white people all ran again for the same offices that they stole and mysteriously they won, amazingly.

Chris Everett:

And all over the state. You know as well. You know what I'm saying. It was a, it was a cool. It was a cool they taught all over the state of North Carolina. Yeah, you know Wilmington. You know they didn't want to wait for the actual local elections to happen. So they just say, you know, let's just take over the government locally. Yeah, like you said, and then when 1900 came around, let's just revote ourselves back in here again.

Scott:

Yeah, one of the aspects was obviously there was a massacre and the number of folks killed fluctuates, whether you look at it anywhere from what? 60 to maybe a thousand.

Chris Everett:

Possibly. You know, we don't know the real game number. We know that some people were killed and a lot of people left the city or run out.

Scott:

There were specific trains. I mean, this is a crazy concept. They brought trains in to truck people out of the city. Just get your stuff and get out, and that's. That's insane. But you know, one of the stats that I was looking at it was, you know, 1898 or the census of 1897, I think it said it was about 60, 40 black to white ratio and then two years later it was 75, 25, white to black. And that's another crazy stat.

Chris Everett:

And it's still about that way now. So I think it's about, I think, black population maybe 19 percent. Yeah, it used to be a little than that. It used to be about 15 to 17. Like I said, the past couple of years it's kind of went up a little bit, but it's like at 19, around 19 percent now. So oh, really OK.

Scott:

You know so many people lost their businesses, their jobs, their livelihoods, their lives, obviously, right. One of those people was Alex Manley. Could you tell us a little bit about him and what your opinion is on him? Yeah, because he did something really brave and revolutionary back then, right, right, I read a lot of articles that say that maybe it wasn't the best idea at the time, but I wanted to hear what your thoughts were.

Chris Everett:

Well, you know Alex Manley. You know he he's pretty much known for. You know, when people pull up a research 1898, they see the burned down building where you have the whole bunch of the right mob standing in front of this burned down building. That's his newspaper, press that was burned down. You know he was heavily involved in the Republican Party at the time. You know, at that time the Republican Party was very different than how we view it today, but he was heavily involved in that.

Chris Everett:

He was a business owner in Wilmington at the time had the Wilmington Daily Record, which is a daily, you know, black owned newspaper.

Chris Everett:

But they pretty much kind of used a controversial article that he added in his paper to really, you know, rally up the white supremacists in that movement to really kickstart and just upstart the 1898 massacre.

Chris Everett:

Now I've heard other stories that he didn't actually write the article, you know. So, yeah, there has been some stories about that that he didn't even write the article but it came through his paper. So he has to take the blame for it because he is, he was the main editor and owner of it and so how did they get through his credit through the cracks? I don't know, but it is what it is. You know he was very vocal about racism at the time as well and you know he was. They were actually going to try to kill him but he was able to get out of Wilmington before, you know, the massacre happened and before they burnt down his newspaper building him and his brother, frank Manley, who they ran and operated the Wilmington Daily Record in Wilmington, and he left and never came back to Wilmington, you know, ever again. He lived in Philadelphia to the day he died.

Scott:

I was listening to a podcast with Leray Umphlep, the historian in North Carolina, and she was saying she's into film. The person asked her had Alex Manley not wrote that article, would this have still happened? And she said yes, it would have.

Chris Everett:

Yes, which is crazy, because it is just something they used. They were going to use something that was just something that was convenient at the time. Because, like I said, that's what really sparked my interest in this, because even in Lawnberg, you know, they did certain things that were similar to what happened in Wilmington. For example, people realize that Lawnberg's part of Scotland County, right, but prior to 1898, scotland County didn't exist, lawnberg's part of Richmond County.

Chris Everett:

Then you look at the records, the same type of fusion, this type of stuff was happening in Lawnberg, and so the white supremacists, out of things they wanted to separate, then they were trying to create Scotland County back then, but they couldn't do it. And so when the massacre happens and all this stuff starts shifting throughout North Carolina and politics, they then were able to break away from Richmond County and start Scotland County, which they wanted to do to kind of, you know, have their own democratic rule, white supremacy type rule. So, you see, you saw that type of stuff happening all the time. Man, where this type of stuff was going to happen, yeah, they just, you know, used certain things that were convenient at the time to really justify, you know doing what they were trying to do.

Scott:

When we say massacre, it was a massacre. One of the things that Ken Chapfield in your movie talks about is the Gatling gun that was used. And then I did some more research on it and it was like 25 people that were blown away by a Gatling gun for no reason other than the color of their skin and they were in that particular spot at that time, right.

Chris Everett:

Right, oh, yeah, it was very. It was very bloody. I was very bloody, like I said. I think that's why the Wilmington massacre really is at the top of people list because of the bloodshed that happened during the time, like you said, with the Gatling gun and with the other artillery that was used as well during this time. Yeah, it was definitely a massacre, man, that the city of Wilmington, the state of North Carolina or the federal government really hasn't helped repair at all their damage.

Scott:

Yeah, they've done absolutely nothing. I think the state may have apologized at one point, or should we? Yeah, that's it, that's it. You know nothing from a reparation standpoint or any compensation for land lost, lives lost. Anything has been given up.

Chris Everett:

Now back in, back in 2000, and we're going to talk about this in part too that back in 2006,. So 2006 and 2008,. Right, so when LaRae comes out with a report that helped push the series of bills that was created by a few, you know, legislator folks, and so these bills are still, you can still look these bills up. I got a copy of my sentiment to you and so this is back. These bills happened back in 2007, 2008. And so it was a series of reparations bills, not only that pass now. So one was to directly compensate people like Dr Lauren Manley, who's in my film Faith Chaplin, you know, great grant. So the compensate direct descendants that could prove losses from the 18 idea of Massacre.

Chris Everett:

That was one bill. Another bill was to teach this history and implement this history into K through 12 school curriculum, you know I'm saying. Another one was to create a traveling museum. To go all over the state, you know, start collecting artifacts, photos, documents to put together a traveling museum, to start educating people about it, to create two black business incubators in the north side and then Castle Street area home loans for black and minority citizens. Also, to pay a production company 500,000 to do what I did a documentary as well.

Chris Everett:

So there's, a series of stuff, series of bills, a lot of stuff I passed through man. Wow, a lot of it, and you can still look these bills up.

Scott:

It's about 10 of them you can still look them up now. That's nuts. The other thing is all the people that were part of it. You know there was a group of nine of them. That's kind of started it all out. These folks all lived pretty prosperous lives. These white guys that took over and stole land and everything else.

Chris Everett:

Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. And that thing is man. They all became big time philanthropists. So when you look at after 1898 happens and you get towards more of the 1900s and starting getting to 1920 and 1930, you see a lot of these guys' names pop up in buildings, certain buildings and certain universities, Because, like I said, they're big business guys. But then they started getting into politics even more, they started doing the philanthropy thing, they started donating to certain universities and institutions and then so people started memorializing these folks and then later on you find out that they were heavily involved in the 1898 massacre and those type of things and we saw that happen.

Chris Everett:

That exposed a lot. Not only were women to the fire, but when the pandemic happened, when people were talking about changing some of these, these building names and taking down some of these statues, a lot of that stuff started coming to light.

Scott:

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I was looking up some of them and I mean for the majority, it seems that a lot of them have been pulled off. The names have been pulled down and changed to more respectful names, but there's still a couple of universities and it was Clemson that still has two or three buildings, and they're just. That's their gig. They're not changing it. And Duke was like that too.

Chris Everett:

Yeah, some places, man, they're not changing nothing. They say, you can say whatever, we're not doing it. Yeah, obviously, south Carolina man, they're worse than North Carolina because the guy that actually started the whole red shirt concept was from South Carolina, ben Tillett. Okay, he actually he's on record saying that the people in North Carolina, when Manly did that article, they said if that in-bed Manly was down here, we would have hung him a long time ago. Jesus, you know what I'm saying. So, south Carolina man, they were actually way worse than North Carolina even during that time. And so I see why that places like Clemson and stuff like that are kind of behind on those things.

Scott:

And then we have to talk about Rebecca Latimer, right, right, probably one of the worst human beings. I would thank you.

Chris Everett:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Rebecca Latimer felt she kind of moved this speech I think it was called Women on the Farm just talking about white men need to hold up white supremacy, protect white womanhood, all those things that really rally up the troops and just ruffle up the crowd. And then, like say, alex Manly kind of read that and wanted to write a rebuttal. They said that he didn't write it we never know but someone wrote it, the rebuttal about what she said and that really gave ammunition for this whole 1898 campaign to come to life and that eventually led to the 1898 massacre.

Scott:

To the best of your knowledge, in the film they also talk a lot about people and bodies and other possessions and stuff just being thrown in the Cape Fear River Right. Black possessions, unfortunately black bodies just thrown in the river. To the best of your knowledge, has the river ever been dragged for anything or have they ever even looked?

Chris Everett:

No one's ever done any of that. I know a lot of people, I think since Women to no Fire, a lot of people have asked that same question you have been asking. I'm one of them one of them ever but hopefully one day we can make something like that happen. But for right now, no one's ever done anything like that at all. But I know that's something that I would love to push for and to figure out how to actually push for it.

Scott:

Yeah. So there's a lot of propaganda that almost a year of propaganda that went out before this really started to kick in, and then it riled the crowd up so much that they just couldn't control themselves. I mean there were gatling guns and rifles and people being beaten, and just you can't ignore the similarities between 1898 and January 6th. They seem sort of connected. It seems. They gave blueprint, so to speak, of that and maybe all the other possible insurrections that have happened. Did you see that while you were creating the movie?

Chris Everett:

I guess Omar Johnson. He has a great segment of scene in Women to no Fire talking about propaganda and it was crazy when he said it because we felt his scene that was like 2012 when he said that and people could still see that scene that he did and still can see what's happening today. It was like he was foretelling it In a sense. We almost didn't even get that part of the documentary. We were actually wrapping up and I said, let me ask you this one last question so that was a question actually, wow About propaganda. He did it in one take, man. It was excellent.

Chris Everett:

But yeah, he kind of eloquently says it, man Just how this propaganda can really change a lot of things, good and bad and we saw that even with January 6, a few years ago how, if you rally and just keep throwing stuff out there and out there and you pretty much let people just run wild with it, there can be some consequences and you can't rally it. And that's what happened with 1898. It got out of control and they couldn't pull it back and they just had to let the people just do what they had to do.

Chris Everett:

And so you saw that happen in January 6, where it was just too late, it was too out of control, they couldn't put the top back on it and it was because of all of that stuff they were spewing out there the hate, the all this stuff that was happening and people just letting loose man and it was just too late.

Scott:

Yeah, I still can't get over the fact that the state said sorry, whatever, but nobody rallied the troops, literally or figuratively, and said let's go down and get Wilmington some help, let's go down and get these other towns in North Carolina some help. And then I read a quote. They asked President McKinley about it and McKinley said well, I haven't heard anything about it from the governor, so I think we're good.

Chris Everett:

Right, and there was a lot of things, man, because one see, the people that did the massacre of 1898, they made sure not to remove certain people where the federal government could actually intervene, you know what I'm saying? So they didn't remove certain people that had direct ties to the federal government. So they were very smart in when they did this. Then also, you've got to realize, man, we just got out of a civil war like 30 years ago, and that pretty much bankrupt this country. If the federal government would have tried to intervene again, we probably would have had another civil war in our hands and they weren't going to try to go bankrupt twice with black people. They just weren't going to do that.

Chris Everett:

And so they just said you know what? It's just black people. We just let the states handle this very situation themselves. They might really do anything to federal government employees or anything like that. So it is what it is. The states will handle it. Let it be a state thing. We're not trying to get into this whole civil war business again.

Scott:

Yeah, I guess it definitely left some scars on some people and especially those people that were kind of pissed off that they lost Right. Exactly A major theme of the propaganda and the insurrectionists was voter disenfranchisement Really trying to push the black voter down. Women obviously weren't voting black or white at that time. So what they were trying to do is disenfranchise, and they did so with literacy concerns, they did it with gerrymandering and redistricting, and you see that a lot today still too, and it's kind of crazy how history kind of repeats itself and lends to more and more upheaval and you'd wish that maybe they'd catch on and maybe read a history book once in a while, right, Right.

Chris Everett:

And that's wondering why I did the film was to show that, hey, we are seeing some of the same things, and that's why we need to learn about history, because we like just some of the things you were talking about gerrymandering and things like that. When you look at history, it's like hold on, man. This is the same playbook as they've used before. Now he's tweaked it a little bit, but there's still some of the same tricks of the trade, and so that's why we need to study history, and that's one of the reasons why I did the film that, hey, we're not a perfect society. Some things we did right and some a lot of things we did wrong, and so this is kind of showing that.

Chris Everett:

And let's go back and say hold on, where do we mess up at, especially with this whole voting thing? Let's go ahead and really figure out a way to make this thing fair and balanced for everyone. Every US citizen has the right to vote, period. Let's just stop playing all these different games and restructuring things and changing the rules around the down the road. So that's like I said. That's one of the reasons why I made this film. For that exact reason.

Scott:

So we discussed part one. What is part two going to really encompass?

Chris Everett:

Well, you, know, the first one is all history. You know what I'm saying we really talk about. You know the Civil War. You know what was Wilmington like before, 1898, 1898, and a little bit after. So you know we give you the whole history lesson in the first one. And so I felt like you know, I don't want to give another history lesson because you have it in the first film, yeah, and then you got other books out here as well that you can check out. I want to give you something that's right now tangible, that you can actually see and actually be a part of the change that's happening. You know, we can't go back 100 years and change that, but we can change what's happening right now. And so I wanted to do a part two that's going to really galvanize people to really get active right now and to do something, and so it's really showing Wilmington and a whole new light. So we document the city of Wilmington from 2020 to 2022 and the change that was happening.

Chris Everett:

So, like we were talking about earlier, the pandemic, the global pandemic that was happening murder of George Floyd, the young people that started protesting in front of City Hall, other people in the community you know that's really trying to do certain things, like you have this organization called Genesis Block. They came out during this time of really trying to rebuild the Black middle class, you know, through business and entrepreneurship. You have people like Sajra Karasin, who launched his Wilmington and Keller Black History Tour bus at the time as well. You have folks like Cicoto House who are doing things on the grassroots level that are trying to tackle health and wellness in the Black community and also violence prevention as well, and so we're just showing the different stages of change that's happening in the Black community in Wilmington during this two year period.

Chris Everett:

And so I said you know what I want to focus on that, because you find out that a lot of these folks were inspired by the first film, you know as well, and so the film actually inspired them to do what they're doing. And so I said you know what, let me really highlight that, let me highlight these folks, because a lot of times these are the folks that rarely get talked about or highlighted out here. And I said you know what? I think this is a good way to close out. There won't be any more Wilmington fires after this. This would be it for me and Wilmington history. So this is a good way for me to close it out and close it out strong. It's really a call to action for the community today to get active and really change the city of Wilmington and bring it back to what it used to be. It's awesome.

Scott:

Yeah, you mentioned that this will be your last chapter with Wilmington Fire. Just give us a chance to talk a little bit about your grandmaster movie. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Everett:

Yeah, grandmaster, that's the film actually started after the first Wilmington on fire. So I've been filming that for a good six years now. A couple years got delayed because of COVID, yeah. But that film is very special because, you know, it's another side of Black history we're going to talk about and those are stories we like to do. Like you know, people weren't talking about 1898. You did a film on it. People aren't talking about the African American presence in martial arts. We're doing a film on it.

Chris Everett:

And so Vic Molo was a martial arts pioneer in the 60s, one of the first professional Black karate champions in the United States. He's 80 years old now, has been doing martial arts for over 70 years, wow. And so he's a 10th degree Black belt. He's fought people like Chuck Norris. He did a speed competition against Bruce Lee in 1967. He actually trained to jump karate back in the 80s. Really, you know as well, he's done it all. He's done it all in martial arts, and his teacher was Robert Treas, and Robert Treas is actually known as the father of American karate. He actually brought karate to the United States right after World War II, and so he got involved with his organization in the 60s and became one of his chief instructors as well during that time. So he has that direct lineage of Robert Treas where Robert Treas got his training while he was stationed in Okinawa back in World War II. So he comes from that direct line, that direct lineage from Okinawa. You know karate and so you know that's where he's from. He still teaches in that old school type of way. He's still teaching in this day. He's still teaching man, still teaching this day. Man Still teaching this day. And so the film is just not all about his history and legacy, but also how he's been working with these two young, up-and-coming martial artists as well, his relationship with them but trying to pass that knowledge down and keep that knowledge and that legacy down through them. And so it's to me, man, I think it's some of my best work to date, and actually that's going to be we're going to have that ready by the spring, okay, and so that was coming first. And then Wilmington on fire, two after that. And so I'm very, I'm very excited about that. He actually lives in Delco man. He's right across the grid, oh, that's awesome, about 30 minutes from here, yeah. And so I'm very excited about that.

Chris Everett:

And that project also led me to launch my first festival, which we did this past October here in Wilmington. So I started a festival. It's a martial arts, hip hop, an anime festival called Three Chambers Fest. Yeah, and we just did it this past October 13th and 14th in Wilmington. It was great, man. We had a hip hop concert, we had a Tai Chi class, we have this interactive film screening series called Can I Kick it, where we take a classic action film or martial arts movie and we rummage to score live using hip hop and elements like that, so you're watching the film in a whole new way and with whole new music.

Chris Everett:

And so we rummage to score to the curl of the Brandon Lee film, and so we're actually working on you know next year's dates and we're going to do it again next year. So that's kind of that kind of goes hand in hand with the Grandmaster Project. Because I had to figure out a way to build an audience, because everyone just wanted me to do Wilmington on fire too and yeah, and didn't care about the martial arts project I was doing. So I had to figure out a way to build some audience, build some interest, and so doing those types of projects on the side kind of helped build up the anticipation for the Grandmaster Project.

Scott:

Yeah, I saw some of the Can I Kick it stuff online and it was. It was awesome. Thanks, martial artists like all choreographed, you know hip hop and then some of the other you know other films. It was really, really cool. Thank you, very cool stuff. Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on today. This has been an awesome conversation about a very serious topic that just needs to get out. We've got to get this word out. People have to understand what happened. You know, there's so many people out there and this is not a joke, I swear to God there are so many people out there that know about Black Wall Street solely because of the HBO show the Watchman.

Chris Everett:

You're right. You're right, man, and I know people told me, I know people have told me, when I've done screenings of Women's Tunnel Fire, they say, Chris, you need to probably stop doing documentaries and make your films like Watchman or Lovecraft Country. I can't do it, I can't do it. I got to stay, maybe down the road, maybe a hundred years from now, once we built out a foundation of real history, then we can explore those type of meetings. But for right now I'm going to continue to do it like this. And also I also recently bought the rights to the Thomas, the story of Thomas Day, which we're going to be doing right after we knock out Wilmington on fire too, and Grandmaster.

Chris Everett:

So Thomas Day is a very interesting individual. He actually revolutionized the furniture industry Okay, really in the United States, and he was based in North Carolina, but when he was doing he's African American, but he was a free person of color, free black person during the time of slavery, right, he was doing this. And also he was an abolitionist, involved in the abolitionist movement as well. And so Thomas Day, furniture, a piece of furniture man, it's like having a Bosch yacht. So I think the starting price for his firms is like 300,000,. You know, low ball, low price, 300,000. And so we're going to be I'm going to be doing his project next, starting next year, and that's actually probably going to be my last documentary period.

Chris Everett:

I'm going to probably close it out, yeah, cause I'm thinking about doing some martial arts stuff, like some narrative fiction, some things like this. I want to grow as an artist and explore more stuff, with three chambers fest and stuff like that. So you know, the Thomas Day story I think is very different. A lot of people know about him and his contribution to history and just the whole furniture industry in general, and so I think that's a good one. Just to close it out on, you know.

Scott:

Yeah, it sounds cool. I'm looking forward to it. Again, thank you so much for this. I'm glad we got a chance to sit down, especially before the 125th anniversary just meant a lot to me to get a lot of events happening.

Chris Everett:

I got a screening Thursday. Actually at dreams, thursday was never been my six o'clock.

Scott:

And you do still do screenings like all over, or yeah, all the time.

Chris Everett:

I just I just came back from. I was down in Austin, texas, this past Thursday at Afro Tech. Afro Tech is a huge black tech conference and so we I showed her to me to the fire there, so we did a screening, I did a talk there about the film and so I still, I still screened man. It's eight years and we still, we still run the road, we still screen in Wilmington, all of them of Kana and everywhere else. You know, people still request us for screenings.

Scott:

Got some friends of teachers out there. Everybody get in touch with Chris and try to set up a screening. This is one of the greatest documentaries I've honestly ever seen. It was very eye-opening and just sad and scary as hell All in the same breath. How can people get in touch and follow you and Wilmington on fire?

Chris Everett:

Go, go to Wilmington1898.com. Wilmington1898.com, we're pretty much revamping the site Cause, like I said, you know we're Wilmington on fire. So I'm trying to create a site where it's not only a site for both of the films but it's an 1898 resource center. You know what I'm saying. So we're going to, we're building it out now, we're revamping it now, so we're going to have different, you know ways you can get different books, articles, research tools, awesome study guides where you can watch the first film. You know when events that we have all type of stuff. So we're really building that Wilmington1898.com into the ultimate destination of.

Chris Everett:

If you want to know about what happened in 1898, go right here to this site where we got the films, we got books, we got research guides, everything. And so Wilmington1898, you go there, got everything, got all the social media pages for Wilmington on fire, you know, et cetera. Also, if you want to know about Three Chambers, three Chamberscom, that has everything. We're revamping that site now. We're putting up the new pictures and videos of the inaugural festival up there, but it has all our social media tags on there as well. So definitely check out those and also with Grandmaster GM documentary, gm documentary on all social media platforms to stay up to date with that project as well.

Scott:

I'll put all this in the show notes too, for everybody. So what's the best way that people can view the film now? I found it online on Quelle. Yeah, yeah so right now.

Chris Everett:

We got it just on Quelle TV. I did that because Amazon is robbing people, so so I'm also Quelle TV. You know it's a black on streaming service. I wanted to help her out. That's who actually brought me to Afro Tech to show the film this past weekend. So I want people to subscribe to this, this platform, because he needs our help. And I said you know, let me make Women's Turn on Fire exclusive on here for a while. Awesome, where this is the only place you can see. Because I want people to support, I'm going to subscribe to Quelle TV. It's only $5.99 a month. They have some excellent programs on there excellent films, documentaries, shorts, features, any moment they have it. So my film is on there as well, so check it out, quelle TV.

Scott:

I've been messing around looking at it and I've watched four documentaries. That's good. My daughter hates me. She's seven and she's like Daddy. This is boring, but yeah, it's well worth it. There's some awesome documentaries that I've seen already that I'm looking forward to keep scrolling through and checking everything else out Again. Chris, thank you so much for doing this. Hopefully we get a good response, get more word out. I wish you the best of luck. I want to keep in touch. We follow each other, definitely, definitely.

Chris Everett:

I may be doing a and I've seen it in a certain way. We're going to probably lock it down next week or so, but we're going to be doing a rough cut screening of the Grand Master documentary in February at our K-5 Community College. It'll be free and open to the public. Grand Master more will be there as well, so I'll keep you posted on that. So you definitely should come through.

Scott:

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I'll definitely be there. I'm a volunteer in Wilmington. I'm in Wilmington. This is the party town.

Chris Everett:

Cool, cool, cool Excellent.

Scott:

When did you realize that Wilmington on Fire was going to be so big and that you had made something so important?

Chris Everett:

I think, two times it happened to me. I think the first one was when we premiered the film at the Kukula West Film Festival November 2015.

Scott:

Kukula West is a big deal, man.

Chris Everett:

It's a big festival here in Wilmington. They do it every year, and so when we premiered there, we actually broke their attendance record and we still have the record to this day for most attendance screening ever. We showed it at Thirland Hall, so it was very symbolic showing it there, because that's where the conspirators of the massacre met and plotted and planned, and so I wanted to have it there, and so 600 people packed in, man. And then also we had a line, a wait line, that was around the block of people that couldn't get in. So that was the first time I said you know what? Because I didn't know what to expect, man. I said, man, maybe a couple hundred people, I ain't nobody. You know what I'm saying, I'm not. You know Spike Lee and nobody like that. So we'll come see my film. And so that was the first time that I knew I had something.

Chris Everett:

And then also the second time was the summer of 2019, where they actually had the first congressional hearing on reparations, and it was big. It was all in MSNBC, all on the internet, cnn and Dr Julian Malvo. I was at home on my lunch break looking at it, streaming it on my computer while I was on Facebook and Dr Julian Malvo was a huge fan of the film and she's seen the film before. She actually gave me a shout out. She urged people to watch Wilmington on Fire and it's required viewing and all of that. And so soon as that happened, I had like a thousand comments, people hitting me, tagging me on Facebook Because I was always watching this, because it was the first ever hearing on reparations and we were the only film to mention during that whole thing. And they didn't mention Spike Lee, they didn't mention Tarantino and those people. They mentioned Chris Everett.

Chris Everett:

They were two moments Nobody.

Scott:

It was Chris Everett man there was no John Singleton, it was just Chris Everett and my lunch break. So cool man. Congratulations with everything. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Folks check all of Chris's stuff out. Wilmington on Fire is, I can't say enough, but it's such a great documentary. Check it out and follow him on social media. Thank you so much, chris. Like I said, I wish you the best with everything. Thank you.

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Scott Carney

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