An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866In the summer of 1866, racial tensions ran high in Louisiana as a constitutional convention considered disenfranchising former Confederates and enfranchising blacks. On July 30, a procession of black suffrage supporters pushed through an angry throng of hostile whites. Words were exchanged, shots rang out, and within minutes a riot erupted with unrestrained fury. When it was over, at least forty-eight men -- an overwhelming majority of them black -- lay dead and more than two hundred had been wounded. In An Absolute Massacre, James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., examines the events surrounding the confrontation and offers a compelling look at the racial tinderbox that was the post-Civil War South. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
1 Give Us a Free State | 5 |
2 No Better Constitution | 19 |
3 There Is No Middle Ground | 28 |
4 We Are in Revolutionary Times | 43 |
5 Not More Than Half a Million Will Survive | 53 |
6 Please Instruct Me at Once by Telegram | 61 |
7 Tomorrow Will Be the Bloodiest Day | 69 |
9 Go Away You Black Son of a Bitch | 97 |
10 For Gods Sake Dont Shoot Us | 107 |
11 Hurrah for Hell | 117 |
12 Can I Go Home? | 126 |
13 The Rebels Have Control Here | 138 |
Postscript | 151 |
Bibliography | 157 |
165 | |
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An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866 James G. Hollandsworth Limited preview - 2001 |
Common terms and phrases
A. P. Field Abell's Absalom Baird Andrew Johnson arrest asked August Baird Banks Collection Banks's banquette Baton Rouge bitch Black Freedom black soldiers black suffrage Breaux Canal Street Chief Adams citizens Civil Congress constitutional convention crowd Crucible of Reconstruction Cutler Daily True Delta damned DCCL delegates District Dostie Dostie's Dryades election emancipation February fire former Confederates free black Free State legislature Freedmen's Bureau governor grand jury Horton Houzeau Howell HSCR Infantry institute John July 30 legislature lieutenant Lincoln and Black Lincoln and Reconstruction Louisiana State University March mayor McCrary Mechanics Michael Hahn military Mithoff Monroe Negro o'clock Orleans Daily Crescent Orleans Daily Picayune Orleans Daily True Orleans Riot Orleans Tribune Parish pistol police policemen political Poynot president prisoners Radicals rebels reconvene Sheridan shot slavery Stanton tion told troops Tunnell Union army Unionists University Press Vandal Voorhies vote Washington wounded