The “Black Belt” is a region of the United States that stretches from Virginia to Texas that historically has counties were Black people are the majority of the population. In Wilmington’s Lie, it typically refers specifically to the section of the Black Belt located in North Carolina. Zucchino writes, “The Black Belt region was set in the hard clay soil and sandy lowlands of the coastal plain that stretched eastward from Raleigh to the Atlantic” (66). Wilmington was historically part of this Black Belt. Zucchino describes how this region was historically the heart of Black political organizing in North Carolina.

In 1898, the Democratic Party was a rightwing, white supremacist party in the South. This is very different from the modern Democratic Party in the United States, which has its base in the Northern United States and West Coast. The shift took place following the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Wilmington’s Lie focuses on the machinations of the 1898 Democratic Party to regain power in North Carolina through the white supremacist strategy following their defeat by the Fusionists.