alexandria, louisiana massacre

So, they could be looking for small targets at that point andit could become problematic. Landry Parish illustrates the local shift of power after 1868, where an instance of conservative boss rule occurred and the parish Republican Party was unable to fully recover for the remainder of Reconstruction, writes historian Matthew Christensen. Because Jensen had arrived at the scene from Hodgkinson's rear, he had a line on his target: Hodgkinson was 200 feet away but exposed. Camp Claiborne was situated in Rapides Parish about 18 miles south of Alexandria, off the intersection of US Highway 165 and present day La Highway 112, just north of the town of Forest Hill. In the case of thevictims of the Lee Street incident, Holt theorized that they could have been shroud burials, meaning they were wrapped in cloth,instead of buried in coffins. One eyewitness later claimed that the MP panicked when the mob jostled him and he fired directly into the crowd. Louisiana History Museum. Simpson also spoke with one of my distant cousins, State Trooper Charner Lyles, who revealed, somewhat reluctantly, he had seen at least one dead man on the street that night, which was 100% more than the government acknowledged. Some historians believe there was a cover-up by the United States military and researchers are hunting for a possible mass grave. Despite the scores of contradictory eyewitness accounts and widespread rumors that morticians and funeral parlors with government contracts had been called to work throughout the late night and early morning, the Town Talk reported the official line: Zero deaths, 28 injured, including a White state trooper who suffered a badly injured hand in wielding a flashlight over the head of a negro.. 21 lives lost: Uvalde victims were a cross-section of a small, mostly Latino town in South Texas. Opinion | Colfax, La., faces a long-overdue reckoning with historical Lorraine Boissoneault Lynching became routinized in Louisiana, a systematic way by which whites sought to assert white supremacy in response to African-American resistance, said historian Michael Pfeifer, the author of The Roots of Rough Justice: Origins of American Lynching, by email. "Before I even became a Buffalo Soldier, I would go to the Lee Street Riot memorial with Mrs.Compton and some other community leaders and that's where I learned about it. So that was completely alien to them. Lee Street Riot: Experts look at rumored mass grave site at - KALB In 1940, 8,000 construction workers began moving into Central Louisiana, building the entire place in less than a year. Everyone should be reminded that in 1942 the famed Louisiana Maneuvers was happening all around central Louisiana, Wynne told those at the briefing. He didn't witness the incident but heard about it and the aftermath. But on April 13, 1873, a small army of white ex-Confederate soldiers, enraged after attempts by freedmen to assert their new rights . St Landry's Black Codes of 1865 and the Opelousas Massacre The city had to budget about $100,000 for the . "I don't know how I got to safety after the riot," a black trainee at Camp Claiborne recalled. According to stories told about that night, afterward, a fight spilled over into the streets where the military police allegedly shot several hundred people including soldiers and civilians. However, in recent years, the commemoration has featured a temporary sign with an incorrect date (off by two full years) and the assertion that 200 people had been killed, a number so wildly exaggerated that it undermines the credibility of scholars and journalists who have spent decades working to reveal the historical truth. Only weeks earlier the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor had If you make it to Forest Hill, the self-proclaimed nursery capital of Louisiana, turn around; youve gone too far. According to the oral history of the incident,an unknown number of Blacksoldiers were killed on Jan. 10, 1942. And just as theyd been ordered to stay away from Glenmora, Black soldiers were told that Alexandria was also now off-limits.. Three whites and an estimated 150 blacks died in the conflict. The first violent contest over the Grant Parish courthouse took place April 1, 1873. All rights reserved. Just days before the academic year was supposed to end and summer break was to start, teachers and students at Robb Elementary were attacked in their own school. The Colfax massacre, sometimes referred to as the Colfax riot, occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, the parish seat of Grant Parish. It was a nightmare, total hell. 298 results. "And the theory behind this is, those larger areas area place where several people could have been buried at once. Louisiana Lynching Victims Memorial - America's Black Holocaust Museum Alexandria, La. On May 15, 2021, state officers, parish officials, and private citizens gathered in Colfax, Louisiana to watch local contractors remove an historical marker in front of Grant Parish Courthouse. Incorporated in 1749 with a history of slave trading, freedom, wars, murder, and death, Alexandria has many haunted, historic locations. All we did, basically, in some ways, was take pictures of the ground - X-ray the ground - no intrusive, no digging or anything like that. The Alexandria, Louisiana, Lee Street Riot (January 10, 1942).". The places we choose to forget often contain stories we would rather not tell. Weeks after the massacre, a Franklin, Louisiana, newspaper victoriously declared, "The negroes in St. Landry are, for the first time since the war, polite and well disposed, and work well." 8 New Orleans Republican, "The St. Landry Massacre," October 12, 1868, reprinting editorials from The Franklin Banner, October 10, 1868. It is unclear why there had been such a sense of urgency to remove instead of restore the mural, but regardless, it echoes what one discovers at Camp Claiborne. Every year on Memorial Day, the Alexandria chapter of the motorcycle club holds a memorial to remember the soldiers who died in the violent incident, saidKelvin Freeman, president of the Alexandria chapter. The team also went to Potters Field in Pineville to look at potential gravesites there. George Marshall, Omar Bradley, George Patton, and Dwight D. Eisenhower all spent time at the camp, though it is unclear whether any of them knew a kid from Frth, Germany who trained there named Henry Kissinger or a 23-year-old Black kid from Pasadena who seemed to be a natural athlete. . There would be no Republican organization in the parish for the next four years, and no Republican paper until 1876. Search Alexandria obituaries and condolences, hosted by Echovita.com. But their error pales in comparison to the governments. Black soldiers were stationed at Camp Claiborne while white soldiers were stationed at Camp Livingston and Camp Beauregard. Alexandria has a rich and intriguing haunted history that dates to the first Native American settlers. Something happened. Alexandria is the ninth-largest city in the state of Louisiana and is the parish seat of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. Alexandria was burned to the ground by the Union, and emancipation upturned the regions economy, which had been largely dependent on slave labor and the slave trade. That was an inescapable reality. Tess Marie Mata was fatally shot during the massacre at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022. Simpson relates what he had been told by those he interviewed. (KALB) - The Alexandria Police Department is investigating four homicides that occurred in Jan. 2021. She has previously written for The Atlantic, Salon, Nautilus and others. Lee Street Riot of 1942 Historical Marker - hmdb.org And the empty lot was the site of the Ritz Theater. Colfax was the scene of the Colfax massacre on Easter, April 13, 1873. He was hit in the left hip but . Golden Apple. But as far as a mass grave, at this point, I havent seen compelling evidence, says Dr. Holt. In this post slavery epoch, Louisiana would elect the first black mayor . The late Etta Compton, whose husband owned a business on Lee Street, kept the history of this 1942 incidentalive by telling others about it. 5716 Skye St, Alexandria, LA 71303. If any spots of interest are found, officials will then go through the process of digging up the site. The Ritz Theater was demolished in the late 1970s, as were several other buildings. the great harbour at alexandria - alexandria louisiana stock illustrations. Heplans to carefully diagram where every unmarked grave is located. Wynne, who spoke about the incident at the briefing,said the markerwillhonor an undetermined number ofBlack soldiers who were killed or injured on Jan. 10, 1942 while on liberty weekend. "But the oral testimony to me was compelling," said Simpson. 2023 www.thetowntalk.com. Okla., massacre that were recently exhumed from a mass grave at Oaklawn Cemetery. The U.S. Army was segregated in those days. "Others say a massacre occurred in a matter that reportedly lasted between 2 and 6 hours. The plantation was so large, in fact, that from . They paved miles and miles of new roads, installed underground sewerage systems, and laid gas and electricity lines. . By 5 June, six more warships had entered Alexandria harbour . Even though Republican nominee Ulysses Grant won, not a single Republican vote was counted in St. Landry Parish. ", The U.S. Army, said Wynne, issued a brief, unsigned statementsaying "29 colored soldiers were injured. Murders of Czar Nicholas II of Russia and His Family - ThoughtCo Top 10 Most Haunted Places in Alexandria - US Ghost Adventures Claiborne, the states first governor, Camp Claiborne was once a sprawling boomtown, hastily built and then quickly forgotten by the U.S. government, part of the Louisiana Maneuvers. On 15 February 1942, the British surrendered Singapore to the Japanese.15 Those who survived the massacre became prisoners of war (POWs) of the Japanese and had to endure three and a half years of captivity. In the 55 years between Reconstruction and the Second World War, time may have moved, but in Central Louisiana, almost everything else remained still. Please include title of story. is in Alexandria, Louisiana, in Rapides Parish. A significant historical date for this entry is January 10, 1942. The town makes most of its annual revenue by doling out speeding tickets, under the regime of Police Chief James Speedy Gonzales. Expert researchers and historians spent Tuesday at Holly Oak Cemetery in Pineville, searching for a rumored mass gravesite. Find an obituary, get service details, leave condolence messages or send flowers or gifts in memory of a loved one. The Terrifying Story of the Congressional Baseball Shooting The Bayou Brief is Louisianas only statewide, completely free, member-supported digitally-oriented publication. The Thibodaux Massacre Left 60 African-Americans Dead and Spelled the But they never, never found out how many soldiers were killed.". Cookie Settings, War, Politics, and Reconstruction: Stormy Days in Louisiana, The Roots of Rough Justice: Origins of American Lynching, Five Places Where You Can Still Find Gold in the United States, Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Otherand the Birds Loved It, Balto's DNA Provides a New Look at the Intrepid Sled Dog, The Science of California's 'Super Bloom,' Visible From Space, What We're Still Learning About Rosalind Franklins Unheralded Brilliance. This is where the violence began. "The Black troops who were in town on liberty weekend, were not armed," he said. Today, you can still find the bones of its sports arena, hollowed-out water tanks, the foundation of the bank, and the old officers club, next to its emptied-out swimming pool. Twitter The truth remains elusive and the search will go on to find out if black soldiers training to fight Americas enemies overseas also faced a deadly threat at home. Where they had never lived in segregation or the social etiquette that went along with how to negotiate interactions with whites. The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the A century before it hosted the Louisiana Maneuvers, 69% of the population of Rapides Parish were enslaved African Americans. In one of its first reports about the unfortunate outbreak, the Town Talk even boasted about how pleased the military was with the paper. The city had to budget about $100,000 for the careful exhumation of the remains, he said. It features over 500 exotic animals belonging to diverse species. Golden Shield. In 1940, Alexandria had a population of more than 27,000 people, and although nearly half were African American, there were only 17 Black registered voters in the entire city. Personally, Wynne says he feels itcould be closer to 20. He hopes that schools will have field trips to the site and have someone such as one of the members of the Buffalo Soldierstalk to students about about what happened. The police never patrolled out there; they couldnt. If anything, the vengeance visited upon the Negro population was greater, as blacks were no longer protected by any consideration of their monetary value.. 1874-1875. Opelousas, Louisiana - Equal Justice Initiative Reports The four-block area had been hastily cordoned off, and the military commanded Black soldiers to return to their respective bases, either Livington or Claiborne. If a dozen more black soldiers were massacred, its unknown where they are buried. As legend has it, someone got the bright (and likely drunken) idea to hijack a tank and drive it into town. About The Caucasian. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1874-1875 Marker acknowledges tragic night in Alexandria's history Like our page to stay informed about passing of a loved one in Alexandria, Louisiana on facebook. Colfax Massacre descendants set out to correct historical account Camp Claiborne had been scrubbed from the map. Down Home Louisiana. About 60 armed MPs showed up along with city police and state troopers, said Simpson. City Erects Marker Recognizing Lee Street Riot of 1942 The Colfax Riot - The Atlantic Alexandria, LA 71301 (318) 483 . The Thibodaux Massacre (November 23, 1887) - BlackPast.org Heart of Louisiana: Alexandrias Lee St. riot, Skull fragment found in Lake Pontchartrain identified as prehistoric indigenous remains, Jazz Fest day 2 features Ed Sheeran, The Revivalists, How family support keeps Vaucresson Sausage at Jazz Fest, Alfred Banks prepares to take the Congo Square stage with glblwrmng, Bayou Wear official outfits of Jazz Fest 2023. So it just became this rampage through the Lee St. area, says Dr. Bristol. For the past thirteen years, every Memorial Day, members of the citys chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club, one of the largest black biker organizations in the country, place a wreath in honor of the men who lost their lives on Lee Street. When they did start reporting the next week, they could only give the information that the Army gave them.". All rights reserved. The British Military Hospital, now known as Alexandra Hospital, was one of several military hospitals overwhelmed with casualties. Alexandria Obituaries | Obits for the Alexandria, LA Area - Legacy.com The bloodshed continued for two weeks, with African-American families killed in their homes, shot in public, and chased down by vigilante groups. The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the It lies on the south bank of the Red River in almost the exact geographic center of the state. And generally, the consistent theme was that the bodies were taken to the bus barn and then shipped to Camp Livingston which was an encampment north of town.". Halloween is just around the corner, and if you're looking for some spooky fun then you've come to the right place. Simpson spent several years interviewing witnesses and researching the event, widely believed to be the most significant race riot during WWII, and when he published his findings in 1994 in an essay titled A Tale Untold? 150 Years Ago, the Colfax Massacre Was the Largest Single Attack on Local obituaries for the . Compton told Jacksonthat the state police were on rooftops and allegedly shot down on people. Its rumored they could be in Pinevilles Holly Oak Cemetery. Colfax Memorial Organization Dedicates Memorial on 150th Anniversary of Colfax Massacre. The battle-turned-massacre took place in the small town of Colfax, Louisiana as a clash between blacks and whites. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. The majority of the Black soldiers who were present were from Michigan and Indiana, a detail that the Town Talk emphasized several times in a brazen attempt to assign blame to outside agitators and to deflect the citys own culpability. Image 1 of 15 368 Stovall Rd, Alexandria, LA 71303 . Harris had heard a harrowing story about what Black soldiers stationed at Camp Claiborne experienced during a Saturday night in nearby Alexandria in January of 1942, barely a month after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Something happened that night. Thousands of white men began arming themselves and raiding houses around the area. Basketball legend Rivers, longtime Globetrotter, dies at 73, Public Inspection File - digicomm@kalb.com - (318) 483-4211. ALEXANDRIA, La. April 7, 2011 contributed by: Michael Stolp-Smith. Nearly forgotten in Alexandria'shistory is a chapter known to only a few thathas been passed down orally for many years. "You had thousands of soldiers in town on liberty weekend," said Simpson. "We've been doing this for over 10 years," said Freeman. In central Louisiana, residents and guests enjoy a treasured, peaceful lifestyle. the company that made the rifle used in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, . Haywood Joiner Sr. was wandering about Lee Street, the bustling artery abutting the Black district of Alexandria, Louisiana. That would mean there isorganic material surrounded by organic material. That's when Bristol told Wynne that USM had ground penetrating radar and introduced him to Dr. David Holt,a professor of geography at USM. . Yet for all that it was the deadliest instance of racial violence during the Reconstruction period, the Opleousas massacre is little remembered today. Erected on June 14, 1951, the sign's bold white letters announced that a civil disturbance claimed the lives of "three white men and 150 negroes." The Read More Read More I think well have an answer today as to whether or not this cemetery is the spot where the mass graves are. (WVUE) - At a time when close to a half million troopers were training for World War II, a Louisiana town was ground zero for a riot, or massacre, that highlights the racial . Later on, she started the tradition of laying awreath each Memorial Dayat the site of the former Ritz Theater to honor soldiers killed. On the fateful day of 8 February 1942, the Japanese launched a night invasion into Singapore, sparking the week-long Battle of Singapore. Event starts on Friday, 17 November 2023 and happening at 160 Fox Fire Ln, Alexandria, LA. D.S. The bodies were removed, and taken to the site of an old mine, where the executioners did their best to hide the identities of the corpses. When I was a high school student, more than 50 years after the camps closure, kids would drive out to Claiborne to drink beer and smoke pot. Alexandria, LA Is Among the Most Dangerous US Metro Areas In the 1990s,William M. Simpson, former Louisiana College history professor, interviewed scores of peopleincluding former policemen, former state troopers and civilians and included their stories in his articleA Tale Untold? The crowd, including soldiers and civilians, resented the actions of the MP. 31 18.408 N, 92 26.774 W. Marker. Alexandria police investigate 4 homicides in January 2. He also assisted in the research for the markers text. It is the story of a violent incident that at the time was referred to as the Lee Street Riot. One Democratic newspaper editor estimated that more than 3,000 men belonged to the Knights of the White Camellia of St. Landry Parishan area that included only 13,776 white people in total, including women and children. He found the message in early September 1868, illustrated with a coffin, a skull and bones, and a dagger dripping with blood. Marker is on Lee Street north of 9th Street, on the right when traveling north. There were fantastical rumors that devil-worshippers used part of the grounds for their ceremonies. Crittle was 16 years- old in 1942. Were very excited about it. In the wake of Simpsons scholarship, even the Town Talk had been forced to publicly acknowledge its own complicity in manufacturing what now was clearly revealed to be an egregious cover-up. Named after W.C.C. I think that would bring a degree of closure, says Dr. Simpson. "Mrs. Etta Compton introduced me to it and from there we collaborated with her until her passing.". This was the clearest opportunity yet to take him down. With Louisiana passing a new state constitution in April 1868 that included male enfranchisement and access to state schools regardless of color, Bentley had reason to feel optimistic about the states future.
Peppertree Heights Yucaipa, Articles A