Overview

On November 23, 1887, white vigilantes gunned down unarmed black laborers and their families during a spree lasting more than two hours. The violence erupted due to strikes on Louisiana sugar cane plantations. Fear, rumor and white supremacist ideals clashed with an unprecedented labor action to create an epic tragedy. A future member of the U.S. House of Representatives was among the leaders of a mob that routed black men from houses and forced them to a stretch of railroad track, ordering them to run for their lives before gunning them down. According to a witness, the guns firing in the black neighborhoods sounded like a battle. Author and award-winning reporter John DeSantis uses correspondence, interviews and federal records to detail this harrowing true story.

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9781540201072

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Reviews

In this concise and vivid study, journalist DeSantis uncovers the long-hidden history of an 1887 bloodbath in which men from some of Louisiana s most esteemed white families murdered between 30 and 60 African-American men in the small town of Thibodaux. --Publishers Weekly Well-written, informative, and interesting...A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc. came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre. --Kirkus Reviews Well-written, informative, and interesting...A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc. came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre. Kirkus Reviews

Well-written, informative, and interesting...A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc. came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre. Kirkus Reviews In this concise and vivid study, journalist DeSantis uncovers the long-hidden history of an 1887 bloodbath in which men from some of Louisiana s most esteemed white families murdered between 30 and 60 African-American men in the small town of Thibodaux. --Publishers Weekly Well-written, informative, and interesting...A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc. came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre. --Kirkus Reviews

In this concise and vivid study, journalist DeSantis uncovers the long-hidden history of an 1887 bloodbath in which men from some of Louisiana s most esteemed white families murdered between 30 and 60 African-American men in the small town of Thibodaux. --Publishers Weekly Well-written, informative, and interesting...A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc. came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre. --Kirkus Reviews

In this concise and vivid study, journalist DeSantis uncovers the long-hidden history of an 1887 bloodbath in which men from some of Louisiana s most esteemed white families murdered between 30 and 60 African-American men in the small town of Thibodaux. --Publishers Weekly Well-written, informative, and interesting...A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc. came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre. --Kirkus Reviews Well-written, informative, and interesting...A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc. came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre. Kirkus Reviews

"In this concise and vivid study, journalist DeSantis uncovers the long-hidden history of an 1887 bloodbath in which men from some of Louisiana s most esteemed white families murdered between 30 and 60 African-American men in the small town of Thibodaux. --Publishers Weekly ""Well-written, informative, and interesting...A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc. came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre."" --Kirkus Reviews "" ""Well-written, informative, and interesting...A little-known massacre is brought to light.In 1887, the tumultuous elements of the recent past slavery, sharecropping, a new movement in unionizing workers, etc. came together in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in a devastating manner, as the tension between plantation owners and poorly paid workers led to a strike on sugar plantations. Journalist DeSantis (The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, 1994, etc.) spent more than a decade trying to peel back the layers of history to shed light on what locals referred to as the Thibodaux Massacre."" Kirkus Reviews"""

Author Information

John DeSantis is the senior staff writer at the Times of Houma, Louisiana. A product of New York City, his work has previously appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and other publications. A journalist whose criminal justice background was attained at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, he has covered social justice and race relations extensively in New York, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, North Carolina and California. He is also a former city editor at the Thibodaux Daily Comet. His other books include For the Color of His Skin: The Murder of Yusuf Hawkins and the Trial of Bensonhurst and the New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence. A recipient of numerous awards from the Louisiana Press Association, the Associated Press Managing Editors Association and other news media organizations, DeSantis resides in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.

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