The Thibodaux Massacre: Racial Violence and the 1887 Sugar Cane Labor Strike

by John DeSantis, Foreword by Burnell Tolbert (Foreword by)

Overview

Fear, rumor and white supremacist ideals clashed with an unprecedented labor action spawned an epic tragedy.

On November 23, 1887, white vigilantes gunned down unarmed black laborers and their families due to strikes on Louisiana sugar cane plantations. A future member of the U.S. House of Representatives was among the leaders of a mob that routed black men from houses and forced them to a stretch of railroad track, ordering them to run for their lives before gunning them down. According to a witness, the guns firing in the black neighborhoods sounded like a battle. Author and award-winning reporter John DeSantis uses correspondence, interviews and federal records to detail this harrowing true story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467136891
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	11/14/2016
Series:	True Crime
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 16.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

John DeSantis is the senior staff writer at the Times of Houma, Louisiana. A product of New York City, his work has previously appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and other publications. A journalist whose criminal justice background was attained at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, he has covered social justice and race relations extensively in New York, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, North Carolina and California. He is also a former city editor at the Thibodaux Daily Comet. His other books include For the Color of His Skin: The Murder of Yusuf Hawkins and the Trial of Bensonhurst and the New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence. A recipient of numerous awards from the Louisiana Press Association, the Associated Press Managing Editors Association and other news media organizations, DeSantis resides in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.

Table of Contents

Foreword Burnell Tolbert 9

Preface 11

Acknowledgements 15

Prologue 19

Part I Sugar, Slaves and Civil War

1 Bittersweet Beginning 25

2 Civil War and Occupation 39

3 Unreconstructed Rebels 49

Part II Birth of a Movement

4 Trouble in Town and Fields 75

5 Seeds of Revolt 91

6 Battle Lines 101

Part III A Page Torn From History

7 Violence and Threats 111

8 A Deadly Ball 119

9 Massacre 133

10 Aftermath 141

Epilogue 151

Notes 155

Bibliography 163

Index 167

About the Author 173

Editorial Reviews

In this concise and vivid study, journalist DeSantis uncovers the long-hidden history of an 1887 bloodbath in which men from some of Louisiana's most esteemed white families murdered between 30 and 60 African-American men in the small town of Thibodaux. Publishers Weekly

Well-written, informative, and interesting...A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past—slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc.—came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre. Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Sept. 7, 2016
A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past—slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc.—came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Threats during the strike turned into a mass murder of black workers so hushed by the media and overlooked by society that to this day, the actual number of deaths is unknown. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre. The author is the first to acknowledge that in 10 years of research, he was able to learn surprisingly little about the killings, but when new information came to light in the form of direct accounts contained in a pension file, it formed the basis of the story he presents here. It is perhaps the seasoned reporter’s drive for hard facts and the bigger picture that work against DeSantis, because in the final product, they act to obscure the crime at the center of the book. Though the massacre itself lasted only hours, that is the story the author strives to impart, and details about those hours take up precious little space in the narrative. Without the pieces that lend color to the crime itself, DeSantis relies heavily on historical details instead. Some of these quite obviously lend context to the massacre, helping readers understand the tensions that existed and how the situation came to a head. Other information, though, seems tangential and distracting. Though well-written, informative, and interesting, the book lacks a clear focus on the crime at its heart. A better choice for Southern history buffs than for true-crime junkies.

Kirkus Review