This guide provides information and links to websites that detail the many racially inspired slaughters of African Americans in the United States of America by those considered white Americans.
"The Colfax Massacre occurred on April 13, 1873. The battle-turned-massacre took place in the small town of Colfax, Louisiana as a clash between blacks and whites. Three whites and an estimated 150 blacks died in the conflict."
On Easter Sunday, 1873, in the tiny hamlet of Colfax, Louisiana, more than 150 members of an all-black Republican militia, defending the town's courthouse, were slain by an armed force of rampaging white supremacists. The most deadly incident of racial violence of the Reconstruction era, the Colfax Massacre unleashed a reign of terror that all but extinguished the campaign for racial equality.LeeAnna Keith's The Colfax Massacre is the first full-length book to tell the history of this decisive event. Drawing on a huge body of documents, including eyewitness accounts of the massacre, as well as newly discovered evidence from the site itself, Keith explores the racial tensions that led to the fateful encounter, during which surrendering blacks were mercilessly slaughtered, and the reverberations this message of terror sent throughout the South. Keith also recounts the heroic attempts by U.S. Attorney J.R. Beckwith to bring the killers to justice and the many legal issues raised by the massacre. In 1875, disregarding the poignant testimony of 300 witnesses, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in U.S. v. Cruikshank to overturn a lower court conviction of eight conspirators. This decision virtually nullified the Ku Klux Klan Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871--which had made federal offenses of a variety of acts to intimidate voters and officeholders--and cleared the way for the Jim Crow era.If there was a single historical moment that effectively killed Reconstruction and erased the gains blacks had made since the civil war, it was the day of the Colfax Massacre. LeeAnna Keith gives readers both a gripping narrative account of that portentous day and a nuanced historical analysis of its far-reaching repercussions.
Understanding the context of terrorism requires a trek through history, in this case the history of terrorist activity in the United States since the Civil War. Because the topic is large and complex, Terrorists Attacks on American Soil: From the Civil War to the Present does not claim to be an exhaustive history of terrorism or the definitive account of how and why terrorists do what they do. Instead, this book takes a representative sampling of the most horrific terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in an effort to understand the context in which they occurred and the lessons that can be learned from these events.
Support for Reconstruction waned in the North and black politicians became targets of scorn, ridicule, and racist propaganda. Democrats were emboldened in the South. White vigilantes slaughtered black Republicans in Louisiana in 1873, resulting in only three convictions. Distributed by PBS Distribution.
In this article the author discusses the deliberate omission of the Coflax massacre, that occurred in Coflax, Louisiana in 1873, from the historical account of the American reconstruction. He states that the historians deliberately chose to omit the tragedy of Colfax from their narratives because of White supremacy. He informs that during the riots 3 Whites and around 150 African Americans have died and states that Colfax put insight on the tradition of slavery and the life of slaves and families.
The article provides information on sixth Essence Book Club revealing a tale of brutality and bravery in Sam Tademy's novel "Red River". The author discusses the Colfax massacre on Easter Sunday in 1873 when more than 100 freed black men, who had voted in the elections were killed by a group of White Supremacists. Sam has also penned another novel named "Cane River," and is now working on a third book.
Highsmith, William E. “Some Aspects of Reconstruction in the Heart of Louisiana.” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 13, no. 4, 1947, pp. 460–491. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2198323.