An Absolute Massacre

Download or read book An Absolute Massacre written by James G. Hollandsworth, Jr. and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2004-10-01 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 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.