I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War against Reconstruction

by Kidada E. Williams

The following spring, afraid that right-wingers in Grant Parish would use the White League to seize control over their evenly divided community, an all-Black militia took control of the local courthouse in Colfax, the parish seat. The men had reason to be concerned. Vigilante bands had returned. On April 5, 1873, one went to the home of Jesse M. Kinney and shot him in the head, in what one congressional report would describe as “an unprovoked, wanton, and deliberate murder.”18 Indications of future violence and white rumors about Black men run amok inspired Black residents of Grant Parish to brace for attack. A white mob of almost two hundred—composed of Confederate soldiers, Klansmen, and White Leaguers and whites not affiliated with any group—set upon the courthouse, firing a cannon inside. After a brief exchange of gunfire, the white men set fire to the roof. Hoping to escape the fire but not wanting to be slaughtered as they fled, the Black men surrendered. The white men did not bother trying to keep up the pretense of law and order. They executed the Black men. The congressional report described the Colfax massacre as “without palliation or justification; it was deliberate, barbarous, cold-blooded murder.” It saw between sixty and 150 fatalities, which lawmakers described as “a foul blot on the page of history.”19 Authorities arrested ninety-seven members of the mob, but only nine were charged, and only with violating the Enforcement Acts. The defendants appealed thei...