In November 1887, Black cane cutters in Louisiana asked to be paid in real money. The answer came in gunfire, and the silence that followed lasted more than a century. For a region built on the same crop, the story should sound familiar.
Calvin G. Brown | History | WiredJa
At first light on 23 November 1887, the back streets of Thibodaux, Louisiana, filled with armed white men. For roughly two hours, according to later accounts, they moved door to door through the town’s Black quarter, shooting unarmed people whose offence was to have gone on strike. By the time the smoke cleared, a labour movement lay dead alongside its members.
