Here are five race massacres you should be aware of.
COLFAX, LOUISIANA, MASSACRE (1873)
Despite some people claiming America was “
great” for Black people seven years after the Civil War, Black men and women were being massacred in plain sight during Reconstruction. One of the most horrific incidents -- that we know of -- was April of 1873 in Colfax, Louisiana. Approximately 150 Black men were murdered by white men with guns and cannons for trying to freely assemble at a courthouse.
Sadly, the exact number of deaths is unknown because many Black bodies were thrown into what was called the Red River.
WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA, MASSACRE (1898)
By 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina, was a thriving area with a majority Black population. There were also several Black elected public officials, forcing whites to share power. Of course,
“the threat of Negro rule” created illogical white racial resentment.
The media frequently reported, erroneously, that "white womanhood" was threatened by Black men. A white
Wilmington newspaper printed a speech by a Georgia feminist that read, "If it requires lynching to protect woman's dearest possession from ravening, drunken human beasts, then I say lynch a thousand negroes a week ... if it is necessary."
By the election of 1898, Black men were prevented from voting to push out the Black elected officials. However, white supremacists could not stop the economic power that Blacks had already created. Therefore, they destroyed Black Wilmington with terrorism.
The day after the 1898 election, whites announced the “white declaration of independence.” They overthrew the Wilmington government, destroyed the printing press, forced out the mayor, and a mob of white men attacked Black residents.
There were reportedly 60 to 300 Black people killed by this act of domestic terrorism. For over 100 years, the powers that be in Wilmington tried to erase the massacre from its history. Until 2000, when “the General Assembly established the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission to develop a historical record of the event and to assess the economic impact of the riot on African Americans locally and across the region and state,” according to the
NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
The massacre is now in the state’s historical record.
ATLANTA MASSACRE (1906)
Like many race massacres, the violence in Atlanta at the turn of the century began with white women accusing Black men of rape. On September 22, 1906, Atlanta newspapers reported that four white women alleged they were assaulted by Black men — a claim that was completely unfounded.
In reality, whites were threatened by upwardly mobile Black communities in Atlanta, which they believed were taking away their jobs. This bogus report of sexual assault drove as many as 2,000 white men to the streets. The terrorists went into Black communities to beat, stab and shoot any Black people in sight.
PBS reports “a disabled man was chased down and beaten to death.”
Communities were destroyed and the unofficial death toll was up to 100.
ELAINE, ARKANSAS, MASSACRE (1919)
The
Encyclopedia of Arkansas calls the Elaine Massacre “by far the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history and possibly the bloodiest racial conflict in the history of the United States.”
Blacks outnumbered whites 10 to 1 and were demanding economic justice, as many of them were forced into sharecropping. A union was created to protect sharecroppers and whites were outraged at even the smallest move toward equality.
In September of 1919, there was a union meeting among Black workers, and whites showed up to riot. As a result, one white man was shot and killed. Whites convinced themselves there was a threat of a "Black insurrection” and, as usual, reacted with violence.
Hundreds of white men attacked Black residents but many fought back -- including Black veterans. Sadly, there were reports of over 200 Black people, including children, were killed.
Many who weren’t killed were arrested and tortured while in custody. They were forced to “confess” about an insurrection with 12 men receiving the death penalty. They eventually became known as the Elaine 12. With the help of the NAACP, their case went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1923, and they were exonerated.
This was one of the first times the NAACP won a case in front of the Supreme Court.
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