Since its creation in 1921, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has drawn crowds of tourists to Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the unidentified service members who died in U.S. conflicts.

Members of the public don’t typically get to walk directly on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier Plaza, however — that’s a privilege reserved for sentinels of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, or The Old Guard.

But for the first time in nearly a century, visitors are allowed to walk on the plaza and lay flowers in front of the tomb as part of a two-day centennial event.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Centennial Commemoration Public Flower Ceremony is free and open to the public on Tuesday and Wednesday, with registration required.

Visitors must have a government-issued ID and are encouraged to bring their own single-stem flowers, but the cemetery says it will distribute complimentary roses, gerbera daisies and sunflowers.

Additional rules and restrictions can be found here (no selfies, for example).

The cemetery explains that while ceremonies are held at the tomb almost every day, this particular commemoration was mandated in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. It will recognize the internment of the World War I Unknown Soldier and the dedication of the tomb exactly one hundred years ago, on Nov. 11, 1921.

And, officials added, it’s not likely to happen again anytime soon.

“We do not anticipate holding another event in our lifetimes in which the public will be able to approach the Tomb in this manner,” they said.

The cemetery will host additional events for Veterans Day on Thursday. These include a joint full honors procession and joint service flyover that members of the public can watch from a special procession route, as well as a Presidential Armed Forces Full Honor Wreath-Laying Ceremony at the tomb, which will be invitation-only because of the pandemic.

This story originally appeared on the Morning Edition live blog.

Prosecutors have brought some of the most serious charges stemming from the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol against alleged members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group that targets law enforcement and military veterans for recruitment. More than 20 suspected members of the Oath Keepers have been arrested, and some are facing charges of conspiracy. Now, an examination of hacked records – purportedly taken from Oath Keeper web servers – shows more defendants may have ties to the group than has been previously known.

The Oath Keeper records were obtained from the nonprofit organization Distributed Denial of Secrets. The organization describes itself as a “transparency collective” and has publicized a variety of leaked material. Included in the Oath Keepers leak were chat logs, emails and a list of nearly 40,000 names and contact information for members. Many of the people whose information appears in the Oath Keepers leak have confirmed to NPR and other news organizations that they did, in fact, sign up with the group.

Some defendants that appear in the leaked data have already been described as Oath Keepers by federal prosecutors. For example, Mark Grods signed up for an annual membership with the group in October 2016, according to the data. Grods has since pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding related to the storming of the Capitol, and has agreed to cooperate with the government.

At least five defendants charged in the Jan. 6 attack, however, have identifying information that appears in the leaked records, but have not been tied to the Oath Keepers as part of their Jan. 6 criminal cases. The news organization ProPublica first reported on three of those defendants. By comparing the Oath Keepers membership data to NPR’s ongoing database of all Capitol riot criminal cases, NPR was able to identify another two.

NPR contacted all five defendants as well as their attorneys by phone and email. Only one responded: Kevin Loftus of Chippewa Falls, Wisc.

Loftus entered the Capitol building on Jan. 6 and posted photos of himself inside the building on Facebook with the message, “That is right folks some of us are in it to win it,” according to court documents. He pleaded guilty to Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building, a misdemeanor, and is set to be sentenced at the end of January 2022. He has not been accused of committing any violence or property damage. None of the court documents in his case allege a connection to the Oath Keepers.

The Oath Keeper records, meanwhile, indicate that Loftus signed up for an annual membership with the group in November 2016. Loftus confirmed those details. He told NPR by phone that he first heard about the Oath Keepers from podcasts and web shows like Infowars, the conspiratorial media organization led by Alex Jones. Infowars has regularly featured the Oath Keepers on podcasts, videos, and articles going back about a decade.

Loftus said he served in the U.S. Army in the 1990s, and he was attracted to the group’s pro-Trump stance and their motto – taken from the military’s oath of enlistment – that they “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” So Loftus paid for an annual membership with the group, which cost $40 at the time. (The membership fee is now $50 per year.)

Loftus said he ultimately only participated in one event with the Oath Keepers. In October 2019, the group called on volunteers to provide “security escorts for rally attendees” at a Trump event in Minneapolis, Minn. Oath Keepers have frequently been seen at similar events openly carrying rifles, but Loftus said he went to Minneapolis unarmed, and just helped escort rally-goers back to their cars. He said he also briefly met the eyepatch-wearing founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes.

Loftus said he decided to stop paying dues to the group just a few months later. He said he was concerned with how the Oath Keepers spent the money received from members’ dues. “I don’t know where the money goes,” said Loftus. “There was no transparency.”

Around that time, Loftus said, he also started turning away from some of the media that introduced him to the Oath Keepers in the first place. “Back in those days, I’d listen to Alex Jones,” Loftus said. “I don’t listen to that nutbag anymore.”

By the time of the Capitol riot, Loftus said he had lost track of the group, and wasn’t aware that members of the group were in Washington, DC that day. When he heard the Oath Keepers were under federal investigation for their alleged involvement in the attack, Loftus said he thought to himself, “I’m glad I stopped paying dues.” He condemned the rioters who committed violence on Jan. 6, and said he accepted responsibility for his own actions. “I understand I did something wrong,” Loftus said, “and I’m going to pay the piper.”

It’s unclear to what extent any of the remaining four defendants may have been involved in the Oath Keepers. The leaked records that appear to match these defendants state that they all signed up for memberships with the group long before the Capitol riot, and as far back as 2012. Here’s what court papers and these records state:

Dawn Frankowski of Naperville, Ill., allegedly breached the Capitol and can be seen on video inside the building. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Court records reference the last four digits of Frankowski’s phone number. The leaked Oath Keeper records include a membership entry for Dawn Frankowski and a phone number with the same last four digits. The records state that Frankowski signed up for an annual membership with the group in February 2012.

Andrew Alan Hernandez of Riverside, Calif. also allegedly breached the Capitol on Jan. 6. In court papers, federal investigators said that Hernandez appeared to promote a variety of conspiracy theories, including “Q-Anon, health and science related conspiracies, financial conspiracies, and various conspiracies associated to US political figures.” He has pleaded not guilty. The Oath Keeper records match Andrew Alan Hernandez’s full name, physical address, and include an email address that exactly matches an online account cited in court documents. The records state Hernandez signed up for an annual membership with the Oath Keepers in February 2012.

John Nassif of Chuluota, Fla. allegedly posted on Facebook about breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, while wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat. He has pleaded not guilty. The Oath Keepers records state that a John Nassif signed up for an annual membership, but do not specify a date. The phone number included in the leaked records is associated with a social media account that matches an account cited by prosecutors in the case against Nassif. Some of the Oath Keeper data state what activities new Oath Keepers might be able to assist with. Next to Nassif’s entry, it states, “Writing articles. Organizing local chapter. Strategy and planning.”

Sean David Watson of Alpine, Tex. allegedly sent texts and photos sent shortly after the riot, one of which read “I was one of the people that helped storm the capitol building and smash out the windows . We made history today. Proudest day of my life!” He has pleaded not guilty. Photos allegedly depicting Watson inside the Capitol are included in court records, and show Watson wearing a T-shirt with the logo of the anti-government Three Percenter movement. The Oath Keepers and Three Percenters share much of the same ideology. According to a photo obtained by Marfa Public Radio, the side of Watson’s house features the spray painted phrase “DEMOCRATS STOLE THE ELECTION” on the side. A “Veterans for Trump” sign could also be seen hanging outside. NPR was not able to confirm Watson’s military history. The Oath Keepers have focused on current and former military servicemembers and law enforcement officers for recruitment. The group’s records indicate a Sean David Watson with the same address signed up with the group in December 2012.

There is no publicly available evidence that any of these defendants joined the criminal conspiracies that federal prosecutors have alleged against Oath Keepers in court related to the Capitol riot. And some people included in the Oath Keepers data leak have since told reporters that they just supported the group’s political stances or wanted an Oath Keepers T-shirt and had no further involvement.

Whatever the case, the records suggest that the Oath Keepers’ extremist ideology may have been more widely adopted than was initially understood.

Rhodes’ message in speeches and interviews often focuses on attacking “Marxists” who have supposedly taken over both the Republican and Democratic parties and are “killing our country from the inside”; making baseless claims of widespread “voter fraud”; and calling for individual Americans to arm themselves with “modern infantry weapons” to protect against a wide range of “domestic enemies.” Rhodes has been a vocal supporter of Trump since the former president sought the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

After Trump lost the 2020 election, Rhodes joined the pro-Trump “Stop The Steal” movement that tried to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. He also indicated that he was supporting that movement with an armed militia.

Ahead of a Nov. 2020 pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C. – known as the “Million MAGA March” – Rhodes told Infowars that, “we’ll be inside DC, we’ll also be on the outside of D.C. armed, prepared to go in, if the President calls us up.”

Again, ahead of Jan. 6, 2021, which Trump had promised would be the day of a “wild” protest, Rhodes posted on the Oath Keepers website that the group would “have well armed and equipped QRF [Quick Reaction Force] teams on standby, outside DC, in the event of a worst case scenario, where the President calls us up as part of the militia to to assist him inside DC.” That statement has since been cited in indictments of alleged Oath Keepers for allegedly conspiring to attack the Capitol. Prosecutors have alleged that members of the group planned for weeks and months to gather weapons and armor, set up encrypted communication channels, and use military-style tactics to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Rhodes has denied any involvement in the Capitol riot. He was in Washington, D.C., that day, and allegedly met with Oath Keepers who breached the Capitol outside the building, but has not been accused of entering the Capitol himself.

Some commentators on the far-right have suggested that Rhodes may actually be a federal informant himself, because he has not been federally prosecuted. Rhodes has vehemently denied that he has any association with the FBI, and said in an interview in July that the accusation is “a defamation campaign.”

He said he also stands by any Oath Keepers who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“I don’t think they did anything wrong. I don’t think they committed any crimes,” said Rhodes. “Do I think it was stupid? Yeah. Because it left our enemies a chance to demonize and persecute them. But I do not disavow them.”

Huo Jingnan contributed to this report.

On Nov. 10, 1898, a mob descended on the offices of The Daily Record, a Black-owned newspaper in Wilmington, N.C. The armed men then moved into the streets and opened fire as Black men fled for their lives.

Finally, the rabble seized control of the racially mixed city government. It expelled Black aldermen, installed unelected whites belonging to the then-segregationist Democratic Party and published a “White Declaration of Independence.” Historians have called it a coup d’etat. The number of people who died ranges from about 60 to as many as 250, according to some estimates.

Reckoning with a haunted past

It’s a past that had been largely forgotten or ignored by Wilmington’s white population — and discussed only in hushed tones among the town’s Blacks. In recent years, however, the city has embarked on a reckoning of sorts.

This week, Wilmington is marking 123 years since the massacre. In one event over the weekend, a procession and funeral were held at Wilmington’s Pine Forest Cemetery to honor Joshua Halsey and Samuel McFarland, two of the few identified victims of the 1898 violence. Halsey’s unmarked plot finally received a headstone.

In 2019, John Sullivan and his research partner, Joel Finsel, of the nonprofit Third Person Project, located the only known physical copies of the The Daily Record, which ceased publication after 1898. Then they set about searching for some of the victims of the massacre, finding Halsey’s gravesite last year and McFarland’s this year.

“You had a lot of bodies pushed into the river,” Sullivan tells NPR. “You had bodies buried privately in backyards, sometimes days after the killings, because families were afraid to come forward and be associated with the victims.”

He says others who hid in the swamps surrounding the city likely died of exposure or were lynched by the mob. The remains of the vast majority are unlikely to ever be found, according to Sullivan.

“Wilmington was the largest city in the state at that time,” explains Kenneth Janken, a professor of African, African American, and diaspora studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “The majority of elected officials in the city government were African American.”

Calls for lynching helped spark the massacre

Janken says that a white supremacist conspiracy to take over Wilmington was in the works for some months. It appeared to gain steam in the summer, when the owner of the The Daily Record, Alex Manly, wrote a rebuttal to a speech delivered by prominent Georgia writer, lecturer and white supremacist Rebecca Felton. She called for lynching African American men to “protect” white women. “I say lynch a thousand times a week if necessary,” Felton proclaimed.

Manly’s editorial, which accused whites of some of the same crimes they accused Blacks of, was picked up by white newspapers and circulated widely, Janken says. It proved incendiary.

“I’m not sure how much attention it got immediately, but it did catch somebody’s attention,” he says.

By the time of the election in early November, white supremacists had organized into “red shirt” squads that intimidated Black voters, leading to low voter turnout and ensuring a Democratic victory. Even so, because many aldermen were not up for reelection, the city remained in the hands of a governing coalition between Republicans and Populists.

That is until Nov. 10.

Prior to the violence, the city’s population was just over half African American, with many of them prosperous business owners. But between those Blacks killed and the ones either driven out or forced to flee, the racial makeup of the city was forever altered. Elaine Cynthia Brown, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and now lives in California, is a great-granddaughter of Halsey. Sometime after the violence, his widow, Sallie, left Wilmington and never returned.

Brown says her family is spread across the U.S. as a direct result of what happened. “It changed our lives forever.”

Finding the gravesites proved challenging

For Sullivan and Finsel, finding the remains was no easy task. On the centenary of the massacre, the city convened a commission to examine the history of the event. It produced a report in 2006 that mentioned two graves of victims believed to be in private plots at Pine Forest, but said they could not be found.

“The cemetery record-keeping was chaotic,” Sullivan says. Over the years, things were moved, he says, “and there’s a swamp right by the cemetery that floods occasionally, so things get wiped away.”

The cemetery’s handwritten registry was a major obstacle. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Finsel was allowed only short visits to the library. “He went back like 50 times, but he finally got the whole 900-page registry digitized, and then we started going to work transcribing it,” says Sullivan.

Finsel likens the state of the archive to the Dead Sea Scrolls. “They were in tatters,” he says.

The maps of the cemetery were like “fun house mirrors,” Sullivan says. “There were five different systems used over the 170 years … to locate information like how to categorize locations of graves.”

Then Sullivan and Finsel got a key clue that helped them to triangulate Halsey’s plot. The Pine Forest groundskeeper was able to locate the grave of Halsey’s brother, who remained in Wilmington and died 23 years after the 1898 massacre. Joshua Halsey was buried nearby.

“We knew that they had been looking,” Brown says. “Then John [Sullivan] called us and invited us to a Zoom meeting.”

“We were just like, ‘Oh my God,’ ” she says. “We all knew, as far as the family goes, what it meant.”

Sullivan says he is just happy to make a contribution and document history in some small way. He thinks there could be others found buried at small cemeteries elsewhere in the city. For many of the victims, however, even if remains are found, “you’d have to get lucky with DNA.”

As for McFarland, work is still underway to examine his headstone, which has deteriorated with age, according to Sullivan.

“I feel like our attempt to honor those killed is always going to have this cloud of scores of unknown dead hanging over it,” he says. “The trick is to remember them whenever we’re commemorating individual aspects of the massacre.”