The African American Experience in Louisiana

estimated thirty-four whites and 154 African Americans were killed in Caddo. 174 Aside from the
New Orleans Riot of 1866, other major race riots were the Colfax Riot of 1873, and the
Coushatta Massacre of 1874. Rioting also erupted in St. Landry Parish in September 1868 and in
New Orleans in October 1868. During the latter, mobs trashed and robbed black homes,
businesses, and other establishments, stealing voter registration papers along the way. 175 One of
seven fatalities was the ten-year-old son of state senator C. C. Antoine. The boy is believed to
have been trampled by a frightened crowd running from gun fire. 176 In 1874, the aggressive anti-
Republican and anti-African-American activities of secret societies emerged from the shadows
with the formation of the White League. Even when African Americans were not personally
threatened with violence, they could suffer from the League’s intimidation tactics in other ways.
Following the 1874 election, members of the White League persuaded planters in Iberville Parish
to dismiss workers who had voted Republican from their plantations, leaving some 160 African
American families destitute. 177 That same year the White League also waged a campaign of
violence against school integration in New Orleans. 178 Under these conditions, African
Americans displayed extraordinary bravery and resolve by continuing to vote and challenge all
acts of discrimination. With every vote and every act of defiance, like riding a restricted street
car, they took the first steps toward achieving civil rights in Louisiana.
The Battle for Equality: Post-Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement
In 1966, a member of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) interviewed Civil Rights
activists in rural Louisiana. A seemingly straightforward opening question of her interviews,
“When did you first become involved in the movement?,” often provoked confusion. A. Z.
Young of Bogalusa answered the question and provided the reason it may not have made sense
with one simple statement: “I’ve been involved in the movement all my life.” 179 This may seem
illogical considering that this was 1966, that Mr. Young was in his forties, and that the Civil
Rights movement is popularly considered to have begun in the 1950s, but in fact it points to a
very logical truth. The Civil Rights movement was not a new phenomenon that was birthed
spontaneously in the mid-twentieth century. It can be better understood as the apex of the
struggle for full and complete equal rights that had been quietly ongoing since Reconstruction
and grew more active from the 1930s onward. The four main themes that appear throughout the
decades of this struggle – economic independence, education, political participation, and safety
from violence – can all be traced back to the nineteenth century. 180
174 Ibid., 210, 215.
175 Melinda Meek Hennessey, “Race and Violence in Reconstruction New Orleans,” in The African American
Experience in Louisiana: Part B, ed. Charles Vincent (Lafayette: University of Southwestern, LA, 2000), 243-44,
first published in Louisiana History 20 (1979): 77-91.
176 Ibid., 240-41.
177 Gilles Vandeal, “Politics and the Violence in Bourbon Louisiana: The Loreauville Riot of 1884 as a Case Study,”
in The African American Experience in Louisiana: Part B, ed. Charles Vincent (Lafayette: University of
Southwestern, LA, 2000), 386.
178 Harlan, in Vincent, Part B, 320-21.
179 Great De Jong, A Different Day: African American Struggles for Justice in Rural Louisiana, 1900-1970 (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 1-2.
180 Ibid., 4.
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