The Colfax Massacre: White Supremacists Attack Democracy
On Easter Sunday in 1873, White supremacists used violence to expel three Black and White officeholders in Colfax, Louisiana, resulting in the deadliest attack on democracy during the Reconstruction era.
Ibram X. Kendi
Partner • #GirlDad • Scholar @BU_Tweets • Dir @AntiracismCtr • @NationalBook Award Winner • #1 NYT Bestselling Author • MacArthur Fellow • Surviving Cancer 🐍
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As in TN recently, #OTD 150 years ago, White supremacists tried to expel three Black and White officeholders in Colfax, Louisiana. On Easter Sunday in 1873, they used violence, killing over 150 Black people in the deadliest attack on democracy during the Reconstruction era. A🧵1/ pic.twitter.com/bBX0cS4Gtr
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) April 13, 2023 -
In November 1872, Louisiana voters elected Union veteran William Pitt Kellogg as governor, despite the suppression of Kellogg’s Black and White voters. Kellogg defeated John McEnery, a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Confederate Army. But McEnery refused to concede. 2/ pic.twitter.com/r0llTjfBd1
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) April 13, 2023 -
In January 1873, Governor Kellogg certified the elections of Robert C. Register as judge and Daniel Wesley Shaw as sheriff in Grant Parish where Colfax is. William Ward, a formerly enslaved Union Army veteran, had also won his election to be the area’s state representative. 3/ pic.twitter.com/rGvy4LgX25
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) April 13, 2023 -
Great lies about elections are as old as the KKK. McEnery recognized Alphonse Cazabat as judge and Christopher Nash as sheriff as if they were elected in Grant Parish. Then, by April, Colfax White supremacists decided to violently expel the Colfax Three: Register, Shaw & Ward. 4/ pic.twitter.com/IO3fQW3rxV
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) April 13, 2023 -
Colfax White supremacists like Cazabat & Nash were violent aggressors. But they spread fake stories about Black men planning to kill White men and rape White women. A New Orleans Picayune headline on April 8 read: “THE RIOT IN GRANT PARISH. FEARFUL ATROCITIES BY THE NEGROES.” 5/ pic.twitter.com/2oXzqcqobK
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) April 13, 2023 -
Representative Ward also commanded the Red River regiment of the Louisiana State Militia. Based in Colfax, these Black soldiers had long protected area citizens from the Klan. Now, they prepared to defend democracy, digging trenches around the Colfax courthouse. 6/ pic.twitter.com/qdhTy2TPMn
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) April 13, 2023 -
On April 13, 1873, about 300 White supremacists—and a cannon—laid siege on the Colfax courthouse. As they aimed the canon, some of the 60 Black soldiers fled and were killed. Others surrendered and were executed. Indiscriminate killing spread into the town and into the night. 7/ pic.twitter.com/AyEzpSWAeS
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) April 13, 2023 -
By the time Gov. Kellogg's troops arrived the next day, more than 150 Black people and two or three White men were dead. A mere three White men were convicted for the Colfax Massacre. SCOTUS overturned their federal convictions in the cruel US v. Cruikshank decision in 1876. 8/ pic.twitter.com/ssL3pLlb90
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) April 13, 2023 -
The massacre site received a historical marker in 1951 to *celebrate* the “Colfax riot” for ending “misrule in the South.” It was removed in 2021 in the aftermath of Jan. 6th. But the White supremacist siege of multiracial democracy—this historical marker—remains to this day. 9/9 pic.twitter.com/3yclqh9wcZ
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) April 13, 2023