The Thibodaux Massacre

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Attribution to Jackson based on Catalogue of the W.H. Jackson Views (1898). Possibly Baton Rouge; cf. negatives D418-8131 to 8133. "7435" on negative. Detroit Publishing Co. no. 08135. Gift; State Historical Society of Colorado; 1949.

Cutting Sugar Cane in Louisiana

Ascension Parish Library's Gonzales branch hosts author John DeSantis on The Thibodaux Massacre: Racial Violence and the 1887 Sugar Cane Labor Strike.

On November 23, 1887, white vigilantes gunned down unarmed black laborers and their families over the course of two hours. The violence erupted due to strikes on Louisiana sugar cane plantations. Fear, rumors, 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. 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.

6:30 pm. Following the author's presentation, copies of his book The Thibodaux Massacre: Racial Violence and the 1887 Sugar Cane Labor Strike will be for sale.

For more information, or to register, please call the Ascension Parish Library in Gonzales at (225) 647-3955.