Cleveland (Oh.) Gazette, 25 October 1902.

After George H. White left Congress in 1901, Democrat Claude Kitchin of Scotland Neck — organizer of the terror-dealing Red Shirts and leader of the 1898 Wilmington Massacre — was elected to represent the black-majority Second District. (Days before the massacre, he proclaimed in an rally: “We cannot outnumber the negroes … And so we must either outcheat, outcount, or outshoot them.”)

Kitchin stood for reelection eleven times, defeating all challengers, including Samuel H. Vick in 1902. With the overwhelming majority of black voters newly disenfranchised, and many of the remaining terrified to exercise the franchise, Vick garnered a paltry four votes, and Kitchin obliterated the field.

The Morning Post (Wilmington, N.C.), 29 November 1902.

Immediately after his re-election, Kitchin joined the call to remove Vick from his position as postmaster.

Newton (N.C.) Enterprise, 12 December 1902.