Summary Of The Colfax Massacre On Easter Sunday

Lemann begins his historical narrative with a depiction of the Colfax Massacre on Easter Sunday in 1873 to emphasize the significance that violence and terror had on blacks and the Reconstruction effort. “Colfax was part of an experiment, a new Louisiana that would resemble the abolitionists’ prewar dream of how the South should be after its defeat in the Civil War” states Lemann in the prologue where he explains that Colfax was a settlement where hundreds of blacks had fled to because they were afraid of the white terrorist groups that were beginning to spread throughout the south. On Easter Sunday of the year 1873, Colfax was attacked by Columbus Nash, a Democratic sheriff, and his company of some two or three hundred volunteers in response