Holly Oak Cemetery was established around 1923 and according to Mike Wynne, local historian, is the most historic Black cemetery in Central Louisiana. LAWSON REALTY, LLC. "Dr. Holt is just aincredible expert on ground penetrating radar," said Wynne. 150 Years Ago, the Colfax Massacre Was the Largest Single Attack on "The thesis in my article, essentially was that the Army's official report was a distortion of what actually happened," said Simpson. All rights reserved. In erecting the marker, Wynne said the citizens of Alexandria are committing to becoming better people and telling"our children and our children's children of this tragedy., "It has been a long road to get to this point," said Wynne. 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. But the soldiers, both Black and white, would frequent Alexandria during their off-duty hours. The Alexandria Massacre of 11 June 1882 and the British - JSTOR So read the note found on the schoolhouse door by its intended recipient: Emerson Bentley, a white school teacher. Alexandria police investigate 4 homicides in January That Saturday night in 1942 was like any other, said Wynne. "Our city in recent years has often been considered by many around the state as one of the most enlightened cities of our state," said Wynne. The most serious and compelling scholarship on the subject of the Lee Street Riot was by Dr. Bill Simpson, a former history professor at Louisiana College. In this post slavery epoch, Louisiana would elect the first black mayor . I think that would bring a degree of closure, says Dr. Simpson. Top 10 Most Haunted Places in Alexandria - US Ghost Adventures 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. At this point, the process gets much more complicated. He also assisted in the research for the markers text. It is the principal city of the Alexandria metropolitan area (population 153,922) which encompasses all of Rapides and Grant parishes. The British Military Hospital, now known as Alexandra Hospital, was one of several military hospitals overwhelmed with casualties. I dont know how I got to safety after the riot, a Black trainee at Camp Claiborne recalled. This is where the violence began. "Thanksgiving and Christmas. The History Behind Alexandra Hospital Massacre - ExplorerSG Lamar is best known for his investigative reporting on public corruption, racism, and civil rights. Because he had recently moved to Louisiana,he had not but the conversation spurred his interest in the subject. There were few places in the country that would have looked the other way like Alexandria had in the aftermath of the night of Saturday, Jan. 10th, 1942, when a white military police officer incited a riot that allegedly resulted in at least 10 and as many as 15 Black soldiers killed and dozens more injured outside of a movie theater in the middle of downtown, on a street named in honor of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. We had The Knights of the White Camellia, The Ku-Klux Klan, and an Italian organization called The Innocents, who nightly paraded the streets of New Orleans and the roads in the country parishes, producing terror among the Republicans.. So that was completely alien to them. It's become known as the Lee Street Riot of 1942, but the story passed down through generations of Black Americans in the town is that it was more of a . St Landry's Black Codes of 1865 and the Opelousas Massacre In 1887, African-American cane workers in Louisiana attempted to . There were four major military training camps within fifty miles of Alexandria, and the influx of soldiers stretched the local police force thin. 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. "And whether it's one body, 20 bodiesor many more, we want to find where they are and finally bring resolution to the families who lost their sons in this tragic massacre.". April 7, 2011 contributed by: Michael Stolp-Smith. In order to catch the bus, a Black soldier had to walk five miles to get to the closest station. I only know one thing and that is, whenever anybody says, Remember Pearl Harbor, I will say, I will remember Lee Street.'. Speakers at . Lake Buhlow in Pineville features high-speed motorboat racing, and the Alexandria Riverfront Center hosts statewide conventions and galas. "First, the legality. And according to ananonymous letter, their bodies were buried in a mass grave at Holly Oak Cemetery in Pineville. . Lee Street would never again be the same kind of bustling commercial corridor it had been. alexandria, louisiana massacrebissap pour nettoyer l'uterus. The story of the incident that unfoldedJan. 10, 1942on Lee Street begins during the World War II era. Haywood Joiner Sr. was wandering about Lee Street, the bustling artery abutting the Black district of Alexandria, Louisiana. Memorial Day and the Lee Street Massacre - Medium "I believe my basic thesis has been accepted conclusively by others. The late Etta Compton, whose husband owned a business on Lee Street, kept the history of this 1942 incidentalive by telling others about it. Register or Buy Tickets, Price information. Colfax was the scene of the Colfax massacre on Easter, April 13, 1873. He collected oral histories of people who dispute the militarys account that only three soldiers were seriously injured. Alexandria, LA Map & Directions - MapQuest The Alexandria police department was the first to arrive. After Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed those enslaved in Confederate-occupied territory in 1863, the US Army conducted a ten-day raid up the Red River to Alexandria, where the Confederate governor of Louisiana, Thomas Moore, owned a large plantation. After delays due to Hurricanes Laura and Delta, Bristol, Holt, Ian Stewart, a USM graduate student, and Hayden Malloch, an Auburn University graduate student, came to Pineville in late October tosurvey 10 spots at the cemetery that Wynneidentified beforethe team's arrival. Bentley, an 18-year-old who also worked as one of the editors of the Republican paper The St. Landry Progress, was one of the few white Republicans in the Louisiana parish of St. Landry. We need contributions from you, our readers, to ensure the Bayou Brief can continue its work. They sent Ralph Williams, an award-winning correspondent, to Central Louisiana. Nearly half a million men were stationed at camps near Alexandria. . Lee Street Massacre - YouTube Everyone should be reminded that in 1942 the famed Louisiana Maneuvers was happening all around central Louisiana, Wynne told those at the briefing. Even though Republican nominee Ulysses Grant won, not a single Republican vote was counted in St. Landry Parish. In central Louisiana, residents and guests enjoy a treasured, peaceful lifestyle. 21 lives lost: Uvalde victims were a cross-section of a small, mostly Latino town in South Texas. Get the latest History stories in your inbox? A memorial to the three white men who died fighting for white supremecy during the Colfax Massacre stands in the town cemetery Thursday, April 13, 2023, in Colfax, La. (KALB) - Expert researchers and historians spent Tuesday at Holly Oak Cemetery in Pineville, searching for a rumored mass gravesite. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. See a spelling or grammar error in our story? With echoes of the bondage Read MoreThe Thibodaux Massacre (November 23, 1887) "And our city hasn't always been so enlightened.". If anything, the vengeance visited upon the Negro population was greater, as blacks were no longer protected by any consideration of their monetary value.. He then came across Dr. Douglas Bristol, a professor of history and co-director of the University of Southern MississippiCenter for the Study of the Gulf South, who wrote about the 1942 incident in his book, Integrating the U.S. Military.. The city had to budget about $100,000 for the careful exhumation of the remains, he said. Durand, the other editor of the St. Landry Progress, was murdered in the early days of the massacre and his body displayed outside the Opelousas drug store. . "You had thousands of soldiers in town on liberty weekend," said Simpson. Henry Clay Warmoth, a Republican, won the race for state governor, but the votes African-Americans cast for those elections cost them. The untold story of the slaying of a Southern town's ex-slaves and a white lawyer's historic battle to bring the perpretators to justice Following the Civil War, Colfax, Louisiana, was a town, like many, where African Americans and whites mingled uneasily. This year, the city of Alexandria, Louisiana installed a historical marker commemorating a confrontation between African American soldiers and white military police during World War II. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Previous photo. 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. It had been the most significant work of public art honoring African Americans in the city. After that incident that had happened on Lee St. they didnt see any of their soldier friends anymore, says Rhodes. "The Army continued to insist that withall of the fighting that went on, there were no fatalities," said Simpson. louisiana - alexandria louisiana stock illustrations. ALEXANDRIA, La. I think well have an answer today as to whether or not this cemetery is the spot where the mass graves are. "And subsequently, other significant, different places where the bodies might have been disposed of," said Simpson. IN THIS UNPRECEDENTED TIME, YOUR SUPPORT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER, James Carvilles Stirring Tribute to Louisiana Gov. 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. Holt and his team foundareas at Holly Oak Cemetery that they deemed to beworthy of further research. And just as theyd been ordered to stay away from Glenmora, Black soldiers were told that Alexandria was also now off-limits.. St. Only slightly better known is the 1873 Colfax massacre in which an estimated 60 to 150 people were killeda massacre largely following the pattern set by Opelousas. The Alexandria, Louisiana, Lee Street Riot (January 10, 1942) By WILLIAM M. SIMPSON' January 1942 brought Alexandrians, as it did most persons across the United States, bleak prospects for a happy new year. He found the message in early September 1868, illustrated with a coffin, a skull and bones, and a dagger dripping with blood. In one of its first reports about the unfortunate outbreak, the Town Talk even boasted about how pleased the military was with the paper. 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 the press had very little information. The vigilante groups were so widespread that they often included nearly every white man in the region. The Uvalde school shooting victims: What we know | The Texas Tribune The 1868 Louisiana Massacre that Reversed Reconstruction-Era Gains The victims of the Texas school shooting in Uvalde - Los Angeles Times According to the Jan. 24, 1942 edition of The Afro American Newspaper, the incident began in The Ritz Movie Theater when a whitemilitary police officer beat aBlacksoldier. It's possible, but it's definitely going to be an uphill battle between the legal action as well as the monetary costs.". The people generally are well satisfied with the result of the St. Landry riot, only they regret that the Carpet-Baggers escaped, wrote Daniel Dennet, editor of the Democratic Franklin Planters Banner. If there is a site here, it's primarily in the cleared area. So she called the local police officer over who of course immediately started to arrest him and other soldiers that had come out with him that night, came around and this became a police riot because one among the things they reported where police were doing things like just shooting into black barbershops. 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. But their error pales in comparison to the governments. Compton would lay a wreath at the site each year in remembrance of those who were killed that night. 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 up and the over with. Colfax Massacre descendants set out to correct historical account About 60 armed MPs showed up along with city police and state troopers, said Simpson. On the fateful day of 8 February 1942, the Japanese launched a night invasion into Singapore, sparking the week-long Battle of Singapore. So, it led to conflicts anywhere they were positioned in the South, says Dr. Doug Bristol. Instead, their actions sparked a massacre. "On weekends there would be upwards of 1,000 or more African-American citizens and soldiers walking on Lee Street enjoying the local businesses in a five-block area," Wynne said. Colfax Massacre | Red River Historian The Thibodaux Massacre Left 60 African-Americans Dead and Spelled the End of Unionized Farm Labor in the South for Decades. . It was a tradition she later passed on to the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club as she got older and couldn't do it anymore. Wynne says there is rumored to be anywhere from 20 to 300 bodies. Lee Street Riot: Experts look at rumored mass grave site at Holly Oak Cemetery in Pineville. Wynne has taken photos of all the potential sites Holt marked. An anonymous letter about a violent incident nearly 80years ago in Alexandriais the impetus for a renewed effort to discover what happened during and after an incidentonLee Street in 1942. "But there were those who told me that they saw the bodies of soldiers lying in the street. By the end of the two weeks, estimates of the number killed were around 250 people, the vast majority of them African-American. ALEXANDRIA, La. 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. 12 Best Things To Do In Alexandria, Louisiana | Trip101 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? Named after W.C.C. A memorial to the three white men who died during the Colfax Massacre stands in the town cemetery Thursday, April 13, 2023, in Colfax, La. (60 of the 90 men who responded were military police officers who had been stationed at nearby training camps). Lamar is a graduate of Rice University in Houston and the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Landrians reacted to armed Negroes and rumors of an uprising in the same manner that Southerners had reacted for generations, wrote historian Carolyn deLatte in 1976. With the help of tens of thousands of black citizens who finally had the right to vote, Republicans handily won local and state elections that spring. It is time after nearly eight decades to find the truth of what really happened on the night of Saturday, January 10, 1942. Alexandria is the ninth-largest city in the state of Louisiana and is the parish seat of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. The Alexandria, Louisiana, Lee Street Riot (January 10, 1942). Lee Street Riot: Experts look at rumored mass grave site at - KALB Alexandria has a rich and intriguing haunted history that dates to the first Native American settlers. The shiny new black marble monument dedicated to the victims of the Colfax Massacre sits next to the railroad tracks on Eighth Street, not far from where the atrocity took place on April 13, 1873. This would be an important precedent for the subsequent wave of lynchings that occurred in Louisiana from the 1890s through the early decades of the twentieth century, in which lynch mobs killed more than 400 persons, most of them African American.. Legal Advocate. It is the principal city of the Alexandria metropolitan area (population 153,922) which encompasses all of Rapides and Grant parishes. There probably are relatives still around of the men who were killed. The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community 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. Wynne is an amateur historian and retired law enforcement officer in Alexandria has been pushing to find those answers. . The Bombardment of Alexandria in Egypt by the British Mediterranean Fleet took place on 11-13 July 1882. . "Aside from the civilians and soldiers enjoying that night, were dozens of military police from the local camps, both Black and white, with the white MPs being the only ones fully armed to handle any trouble caused by the soldiers on Lee," he said. A November 1942 memo to the Secretary of War from Truman Gibson, Civilian Aide to the Secretary, detailed "violent and abusive treatment of Negro military personnel by civilian public authorities in the South." It listed incidents in Alexandria, La., Columbia, S.C., Norfolk, Va., Mobile and Montgomery, Ala., Beaumont, Texas and Little Rock . The bloodshed continued for two weeks, with African-American families killed in their homes, shot in public, and chased down by vigilante groups. Were definitely finding some evidence of lots of unmarked graves here, says Dr. Holt. The Bayou Brief is Louisianas only statewide, completely free, member-supported digitally-oriented publication. Photograph of Alexandria police by Win McNamee/Getty Images. The Thibodaux Massacre Left 60 African-Americans Dead and Spelled the Different stories have been told about what initially sparkedthe incident on that Saturdaynight. and race riots such as the 1873 Colfax Massacre, in which many white citizens of Rapides Parish took part. But they never, never found out how many soldiers were killed.". "There's no guarantee. "We must also acknowledge the good work of the Buffalo Soldiers, some of who are here present today,who have annually conducted ceremonies on Lee Street remembering this event," said Wynne. This event on April 13, 1873 marked the end of carpetbag misrule in the South. Displeased with the way Bentley had portrayed the Democrats, Democrats John Williams, James R. Dickson (who later became a local judge), and constable Sebastian May visited Bentleys schoolhouse to make good on the anonymous threats of the earlier September note. This much is known: The rioting started at around 8PM, after a white M.P. Where they had never lived in segregation or the social etiquette that went along with how to negotiate interactions with whites. 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. Hearts 'shattered': Here are the victims of the Texas school shooting. Loving children and beloved educators were killed at Robb Elementary School on May 24 in the . Okla., massacre that were recently exhumed from a mass grave at Oaklawn Cemetery. Copyright 2020 WVUE. The U.S. Army was segregated in those days. 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. Avery Hamilton told a crowd gathered for the monumentsdedication ceremony last week, in the small community about 120 miles southeast of Shreveport, Louisiana. Freeman said he is grateful to the City of Alexandria for erecting the marker but the Buffalo Soldiers will still continue their work. It lies on the south bank of the Red River in almost the exact geographic center of the state. The Thibodaux Massacre took place in Thibodaux, Louisiana on November 23, 1887. The Alexandria Massacre of 11 June 1882 and the British Occupation of Egypt M. E. Chamberlain In the early aftemoon of Sunday, 11 June 1882, an Arab donkey boy, named El Ajjan, deposited his passenger, an unidentified Maltese,' at the cafe Kawat-el-Gezaz in the wide Rue des Soeurs in the European 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. "We've been doing this for over 10 years," said Freeman. 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. William Ward's white rival in Colfax, the Fusionist James W. Hadnot, had told one of his black laborers that he . Heplans to carefully diagram where every unmarked grave is located. . The City of Alexandria will be placing a historic marker along Lee St. at the site of the 1941 violence. The Calhoun compound enslaved at one point over 1,000 people, and its location on the east bank of the Red River made it a perfect place for trade beyond its cash crops. While there is scant evidence of premeditation or planning, his initial reporting on deaths was later corroborated, at least in part, by White officers themselves. The Opelousas massacre also set the stage for future acts of violence and intimidation. Some say it was 20 while others think it could be as high as 300. Like our page to stay informed about passing of a loved one in Alexandria, Louisiana on facebook. The team also went to Potters Field in Pineville to look at potential gravesites there. The summer of 1868 was a tumultuous one. The Alexandria, Louisiana, Lee Street Riot (January 10, 1942). 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.". Louisiana Lynching Victims Memorial - America's Black Holocaust Museum "And then I'm going to let the holidays pass," he said. About The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918 "I don't know how I got to safety after the riot," a black trainee at Camp Claiborne recalled. 160 Fox Fire Ln USD 27 Jun 04 75th Anniversary Celebration. Address: 3601 Bayou Rapides Road, Alexandria, LA 71303, United States. 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. Search Alexandria obituaries and condolences, hosted by Echovita.com. The Colfax Massacre has been known as the "Colfax Race Riot" or the "Easter Sunday Massacre.". C.E. 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.