A government was overthrown by force, and we moved on.
Each week, CBS News Sunday Morning holds a mirror to the American story in all its complexity — and this Sunday, that mirror reflects something long obscured: the 1898 Wilmington coup, the only successful violent overthrow of an American government, in which white supremacists dismantled a thriving multiracial democracy and erased scores of Black lives. Journalist Lauren Collins, reporting on her own hometown's buried wound, joins correspondent Lee Cowan to trace how that violence still echoes through families and institutions today. The broadcast surrounds this reckoning with its characteristic range — a child's porch wave that built a neighborhood, a song about a place its writer never visited, and a young singer who turned shyness into sold-out stadiums — reminding us that history and humanity arrive together, rarely in the forms we expect.
- A coup that succeeded — and was then quietly forgotten — is being pulled back into public view, forcing a confrontation with a chapter of American history that has been deliberately buried for over a century.
- Lauren Collins' new book names what happened in Wilmington in 1898 not as a riot or unrest, but as a calculated seizure of power, one that killed scores of Black residents and destroyed a functioning multiracial government.
- Preservation groups and legal opponents are mobilizing against President Trump's plans to physically transform Washington D.C., including a 250-foot arch looming over the Lincoln Memorial and the demolition of the White House's East Wing.
- Amid the weight of history and political conflict, the broadcast finds counterpoint in smaller human stories — a four-year-old whose front-porch waves knit a neighborhood together, and a 26-year-old songwriter who turned quiet introspection into stadium anthems.
- The full lineup lands as a kind of editorial argument: that the nation's past and present are inseparable, and that understanding either requires sitting with both the darkness and the grace.
This Sunday, CBS News Sunday Morning turns its cover story toward one of the most consequential and least remembered events in American political history: the 1898 white supremacist coup in Wilmington, North Carolina. For a brief window after Reconstruction, Wilmington was something genuinely unusual in the South — an integrated city where Black and white residents shared governmental power and civic life. In 1898, armed white supremacists destroyed that experiment by force, killing scores of Black residents and seizing control of the city's multiracial government. It remains the only successful violent overthrow of an American government in the nation's history — a distinction that has been largely scrubbed from popular memory.
The segment draws from Lauren Collins' new book, published by Penguin Press, in which the New Yorker journalist investigates her own hometown's darkest hour. In conversation with correspondent Lee Cowan, Collins traces not only what happened in 1898 but how that violence has traveled through generations — through the families who survived it and through the city itself, which has carried the weight of that history largely in silence.
Elsewhere in the broadcast, correspondent Conor Knighton explores the unlikely global life of John Denver's 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' — a song about West Virginia written by someone who had never been there, which somehow became a universal expression of longing for home. Country star Brad Paisley reflects on what the song means to him personally.
Steve Hartman reports on Roman Butzlaff, a four-year-old in Concord, North Carolina, whose habit of waving at neighbors from his front porch quietly became the seed of a genuine community. Correspondent Tracy Smith sits down with Gracie Abrams, the 26-year-old singer-songwriter who describes herself as shy but has built a devoted following through intimate, whispered songs — and who has gone from posting early recordings online to opening for Taylor Swift in sold-out stadiums. Her new album, 'Daughter From Hell,' arrives July 17.
The program also examines President Trump's controversial proposals to remake Washington D.C., including a 250-foot arch near the Lincoln Memorial and the demolition of the White House's East Wing to accommodate a ballroom — plans that have drawn a wave of lawsuits from preservation groups. Additional segments offer a look behind the scenes of HBO's Emmy-nominated medical drama 'The Pitt,' a report on a centuries-old Italian barrel-racing tradition in Montepulciano, and an arts feature on a French artist's installation of floating porcelain bowls designed to fill a room with chiming sound and stillness.
This Sunday's edition of CBS News Sunday Morning, the Emmy-winning program that has made a habit of excavating overlooked corners of American history, turns its attention to one of the darkest chapters in the nation's past: the 1898 white supremacist coup in Wilmington, North Carolina.
For a brief moment in the late nineteenth century, Wilmington was something rare in the post-Reconstruction South—a genuinely integrated city where Black and white residents shared power in government and held leadership positions side by side. It was prosperous, functioning, a living contradiction to the racial order that white supremacists were determined to restore across the region. In 1898, that experiment ended violently. Armed white supremacists seized control of the city's multiracial government by force and unleashed a campaign of terror that left scores of Black residents dead. The coup succeeded where others failed, making it the only successful overthrow of an American government by force in the nation's history—a distinction that has been largely erased from the popular historical record.
The cover story this week draws from Lauren Collins' new book, "They Stole a City: Wilmington's White Supremacist Coup and the Families Who Live With Its Legacy," published by Penguin Press. Collins, a journalist for The New Yorker, is reporting on her own hometown's darkest hour. In conversation with CBS correspondent Lee Cowan, she explores not just what happened in 1898, but how that violence has reverberated through generations—how the families who survived it, and the city itself, have carried the weight of that history forward into the present day. The book arrives at a moment when Americans are increasingly reckoning with suppressed histories of racial violence and political upheaval.
Beyond the cover story, Sunday Morning's lineup reflects the program's characteristic range. A segment examines "Take Me Home, Country Roads," the John Denver song that has become a global anthem for longing and belonging, despite being written by a songwriter who had never actually visited West Virginia. Correspondent Conor Knighton explores how a song about a specific place became a universal expression of home for people around the world, with country star Brad Paisley discussing what the song means to him personally.
Steve Hartman reports on a four-year-old boy named Roman Butzlaff in Concord, North Carolina, whose simple habit of waving at neighbors from his front porch became the foundation for an unexpected community bond. What began as a friendly gesture transformed into something larger—a neighborhood that came together around a child's openness and warmth.
In the music segment, correspondent Tracy Smith sits down with Gracie Abrams, the 26-year-old singer-songwriter whose whispered, intimate songs have earned critical acclaim and a devoted following. Abrams, who describes herself as shy, has worked her way from posting early recordings online to performing in sold-out stadiums, including as an opening act for Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift. She discusses her latest album, "Daughter From Hell," set for release on July 17.
The program also covers President Trump's sweeping plans to remake Washington, D.C., which have triggered a wave of lawsuits from preservation groups and opponents. The proposals include constructing a 250-foot arch that would tower over the Lincoln Memorial and demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make room for a ballroom. CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes examines both the president's vision and the legal and cultural battle unfolding over the nation's capital.
Other segments include a behind-the-scenes look at HBO Max's Emmy-nominated medical drama "The Pitt," which has received 25 Emmy nominations including Outstanding Drama Series; a report on the Bravìo delle Botti, an August tradition in the medieval Italian town of Montepulciano where competitors race to roll 200-pound wine barrels uphill through narrow streets; and an arts feature on a French artist's installation at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, where porcelain bowls floating in water create chiming sounds meant to induce a state of grace.
Citações Notáveis
Lauren Collins discusses how the families who survived the 1898 coup have carried the weight of that history forward into the present day— CBS News Sunday Morning cover story description
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does a story from 1898 matter now? It's more than a century old.
Because it was erased. Most Americans don't know it happened at all. That erasure is part of the violence—it's how a coup becomes invisible, how a city forgets what was taken from it.
But Wilmington recovered, didn't it? The city still exists.
It exists, but not as it was. The integrated government, the Black leadership, the possibility of something different—all of that was destroyed. What recovered was a segregated city, a diminished one. The families who lived through it carried that loss forward.
Why is Lauren Collins the right person to tell this story?
She's from there. She grew up in Wilmington. This isn't distant history to her—it's her hometown's story, the ground she walked on. That proximity matters. She's not observing from outside; she's reckoning with her own inheritance.
What does it mean that this was the only successful coup in American history?
It means we've built a mythology around American stability and democratic resilience that isn't quite true. We survived a civil war, but we didn't survive this—not intact. A government was overthrown by force, and we moved on. That's the part we forgot.
Do people in Wilmington talk about it now?
Some do. There are museums, tours, people working to restore the memory. But for a long time, it was silence. That's what Collins is trying to break—the silence, and the comfortable distance we keep from our own history.