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

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. (Feb.)