The Lafourche Parish Council Honors Black Victims of 1887 Thibodaux Massacre in Louisiana

Pat Young

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Featured Book Reviewer
Joined
Jan 7, 2013
Location
Long Island, NY
The Lafourche Parish Council has honored the victims of the 1887 Thibodaux Massacre of striking African American sugar workers. The Parish will observe a moment of silence at noon on November 23. According to local news reports:

The proclamation, presented Tuesday, was proposed by Councilman Jerry Jones and read by Council Chairman Corey Perrillioux. The proclamation recognizes the day in Lafourche Parish’s past, honors and remembers the eight known and countless unknown victims and asked that Lafourche residents hold a moment of silence at noon Nov. 23 in honor of the 30 to 60 victims of the massacre.

“The Lafourche Parish Council condemns the violence that occurred on Nov. 23, 1887, acknowledging its extrajudicial and extralegal nature,” Perrillioux said. “We do hereby proclaim Nov. 23, 2017, as 1887 Commemoration Day and encourage a moment of silence in memory of the victims. Furthermore, we support and encourage reconciliation and dialogue between all those whose family histories were touched by the violence and continued efforts to explore this history to facilitate justice and further reconciliation.”

On Nov. 23, 1887, armed white mobs shot black men and women in Thibodaux’s streets in response to a month-long strike by thousands of sugar cane workers who had been evicted from Terrebonne and Lafourche parish plantations and had taken shelter in town. The precise number of victims is unknown, but eight names and evidence of the event were uncovered by local journalist John DeSantis for his book “The Thibodaux Massacre: Racial Violence and the 1887 Sugar Cane Labor Strike.”

Descendants of some of the victims were on hand for the proclamation. Sylvester Jackson, the great-grandson of victim Jack Conrad, spoke before the council, thanking the members for the proclamation and DeSantis for bringing the hidden history to light.

“We look around us in this nation, in our state even, and we see division, we see strife, we see bad things, and yet Lafourche Parish has shown tonight that Lafourche Parish knows how to work with its history. And even though this piece of history is not a pretty one at all, this is the reconciliation and how it occurs,” DeSantis said. “Seeing what’s happened here, I just hope your action can be a model for other communities that have had difficult histories and shows who we are in 2017 and the future.”

DeSantis said Louisiana’s then-Lt. Gov. Clay Knobloch had been head of the Lafourche Parish militia, which was involved in the killings.

The city of Thibodaux made a similar proclamation on Sept. 5.
 
Back
Top