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The Colfax Massacre: The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror and the Death of Reconstruction
by Leeanna Keith

The Colfax Massacre: The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror and the Death of Reconstruction Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

On Easter Sunday, 1873, in the tiny hamlet of Colfax, Louisiana, more than 150 members of an all-black Republican militia, defending the town's courthouse, were slain by an armed force of rampaging white supremacists. The most deadly incident of racial violence of the Reconstruction era, the

Colfax Massacre unleashed a reign of terror that all but extinguished the campaign for racial equality.

LeeAnna Keith's The Colfax Massacre is the first full-length book to tell the history of this decisive event. Drawing on a huge body of documents, including eyewitness accounts of the massacre, as well as newly discovered evidence from the site itself, Keith explores the racial tensions that led to

the fateful encounter, during which surrendering blacks were mercilessly slaughtered, and the reverberations this message of terror sent throughout the South. Keith also recounts the heroic attempts by U.S. Attorney J.R. Beckwith to bring the killers to justice and the many legal issues raised by

the massacre. In 1875, disregarding the poignant testimony of 300 witnesses, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in U.S. v. Cruikshank to overturn a lower court conviction of eight conspirators. This decision virtually nullified the Ku Klux Klan Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871--which had made

federal offenses of a variety of acts to intimidate voters and officeholders--and cleared the way for the Jim Crow era.

If there was a single historical moment that effectively killed Reconstruction and erased the gains blacks had made since the civil war, it was the day of the Colfax Massacre. LeeAnna Keith gives readers both a gripping narrative account of that portentous day and a nuanced historical analysis of

its far-reaching repercussions.

Review:

"It happened in Colfax, La., on Easter Sunday, 1873; when it ended, the 'the largest number of victims in the history of racial violence in the United States,' more than one hundred and fifty African-Americans, were dead. Keith places the massacre at the center of her book, but her sharpest focus is upon white political figures and the slave-holding Calhoun family (the character Simon Legree in Uncle Tom's Cabin was based upon a Calhoun forebear), most notably William, who witnessed the violence. Keith traces the fortunes of the Calhoun family to the events leading to the massacre, then turns to the Colfax Courthouse assault and judicial aftermath that deepened the complexity of this tragic event. Three white men were convicted, not for murders but for conspiracy in one murder. These convictions were then overturned, and Reconstruction effectively ended according to Keith. Louisiana's Governor Kellogg declared 'no white man could be punished for killing a negro.' Later memorialized by the state with a plaque 'celebrating the demise of 'carpetbag misrule in the South,'' the horrific massacre has received scant attention from American historians. Keith's aim is admirable, but the execution could be bolstered with more substantive research." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"Unbeknownst to most Americans, our nation's history includes homegrown terrorism as well as attacks from abroad. Scholars estimate that during Reconstruction, the turbulent period that followed the Civil War, upwards of 3,000 persons were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and kindred groups. That's roughly the same number of Americans who have died at the hands of Osama bin Laden.

In... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review)

About the Author

LeeAnna Keith teaches history at Collegiate School in New York City. Her historical articles have appeared in The Dictionary of American History and The Encyclopedia of American Foreign Relations. She is co-author, with Sandra Fekete, of Companies Are People, Too.

Table of Contents

Introduction: On Bones and Their Markers


Chapter 1: Alabama Fever


Chapter 2: The Philosopher


Chapter 3: The Fall


Chapter 4: Led by a Damned Puppy


Chapter 5: A Town Called Fight


Chapter 6: Carnival of the Animals


Chapter 7: Battle of the Colfax Courthouse


Chapter 8: Voyage of the Ozark


Chapter 9: Getting Away with Murder


Chapter 10: The Legacy of Cruikshank


Notes


Bibliography


Index


Product Details

ISBN:
9780195310269
Subtitle:
The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror and the Death of Reconstruction
Author:
Keith, Leeanna
Publisher:
Oxford University Press, USA
Subject:
United States - Reconstruction Period (1865-1877)
Subject:
Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Histor
Subject:
United States - State & Local - South
Subject:
History
Subject:
History, American | Civil War and Reconstruction
Subject:
United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877)
Publication Date:
February 2008
Binding:
Hardcover
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
219
Dimensions:
8.66x5.96x.89 in. .93 lbs.