Vwegba Blogging World

The 1873 Colfax Massacre Was a Racist Attack on Black People’s Democratic Rights The US government had abandoned the region, as well the people in it, leaving political, judicial, and police power up for grabs. Many Americans have never heard of one of the most important episodes of mass murder in US history: the Colfax Massacre—exactly 150 years ago today—when white supremacists slaughtered over one hundred fifty black men in the northwest corner of Louisiana. The power struggle in Colfax had first turned deadly earlier in April, when a band of white supremacists murdered a black man in his front yard. Union veteran William Ward, who served as a black state representative, local Radical leader, and militia captain, ordered his company to muster immediately. Historian LeeAnna Keith estimates that about three hundred black militiamen, along with their families, flocked to Colfax’s town center, occupying the courthouse (which, in the war-torn rural South, was a “repurposed” p...