North Carolina GOP leader accuses Democrats of 'murdering blacks' in unhinged Twitter rant

A Republican leader from North Carolina this week went on an unhinged Twitter rant in which he accused the North Carolina Democratic Party of "murdering blacks" in response to an official party tweet in support of the Voting Rights Act.

The trouble started when the North Carolina Democratic Party sent out a tweet that celebrated the anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act while also noting that "we must fight to keep moving forward."

NCGOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse responded to the tweet by accusing the NC Democratic Party of "murdering blacks" while citing the 119-year-old Wilmington Race Riot as evidence.

The News & Observer asked Woodhouse why he was using a massacre that occurred in the 19th century to attack the modern-day North Carolina Democratic Party, and he "cited the Wikipedia and Encyclopedia of North Carolina entries on the 1898 event that NPR called 'the only coup d’etat in U.S. history.'"

The News & Observer also notes that, while the Democratic Party in the Southern United States was solidly aligned with white supremacists throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its grip on the South loosened "beginning in 1948 when some Southern Democrats who disapproved of desegregation and other policies of Democratic President Harry Truman formed the 'States Rights Democratic Party' in support of then-South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond in his bid for the presidency."