train tickets to Waddell, and other white men, to travel across the state to Goldsboro for a "White Supremacy Convention". A crowd of 8,000 showed up to hear Waddell share the stage with Simmons, Charles Aycock, Thomas Jarvis, and Major William A. Guthrie and the mayor of Durham. Preceding Waddell on the stage, Guthrie declared: Waddell followed by accusing blacks of "insolence", "arrogance", which he claimed was overshadowed only by their "criminality". He insinuated that black men were disrespectful to white women, and blamed the "evils of negro rule" on the white men who had empowered them by "betraying their race". Once again, he concluded his speech assuring them that white men would banish blacks, and their traitorous white allies, even if they had to fill the Cape Fear River with enough black dead bodies to block its passage to the sea. Intimidation Waddell's speech so inspired the crowd that the Red Shirts left the convention and started terrorizing black citizens and their white allies, in the eastern part of the state, right away. They destroyed property, ambushed citizens with weapon fire, and kidnapped people from their homes and whipped them at night, with the goal of terrorizing them to the point where Republican sympathizers would be too afraid to vote, or even register to do so. The Populists accused the Democrats of crying "nigger" to distract from the issues, and of attacking the character of good men in order to get elected to office. Several Populists began trying to fight back in the court of public opinion, like Oliver Dockery, who was attacked by John Bellamy at the white supremacy convention: However, the Democrats continued to put more pressure on Republican and Populist, leading to candidates being too afraid to speak in Wilmington. Democrats sought to further capitalize on this fear by making efforts to suppress the Republican ticket in New Hanover County, arguing that a win by any political party opposing the Democrats would guarantee a race riot. They convinced the business community of this outcome: The Red Shirts, known to be "hot-headed," were looked down upon by the Wilmington white elite as "ruffians" and "low class". However, they deployed the Red Shirts around the city, who began holding a series of marches and rallies, organized by an unemployed sympathizer, Mike Dowling, an Irishman who, despite being the elected chair of the White Laborer's Union, had recently been