Opelousas massacre

While estimates of casualties vary widely, several sources number the deaths between 150 and 300 black people and several dozen whites.

The Louisiana Constitution of 1868, ratified in April,[1] established a bill of rights, gave Black men the right to vote, established an integrated public education system throughout the state, and gave Blacks guaranteed access to public accommodations.

In July, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, leading to increased tensions between white supremacists and newly enfranchised Black citizens.

[5] At one point, a misfired rifle almost caused tensions to erupt into chaos, but it ended peacefully with two provisions: Future attendees at gatherings would not be permitted to carry firearms, and newspaper editor Emerson Bentley of the Republican St. Landry Progress would refrain from publishing inflammatory anti-Democrat rhetoric in the paper.

[5][6][4] On September 28, 1868, Bentley was instructing a class at the Freedmen's School when he was interrupted and confronted by three Seymour Knights: John Williams, James R. Dickson, and Sebastian May.

[5] Bentley escaped but fled in secret, hiding out in Republican safe houses for several weeks before reaching New Orleans.

[4] Twenty-seven of the first Blacks captured were lynched the next day,[3][6] and families were chased and shot both in public and in their homes.

The white mobs destroyed the Freedmen's school and the office of the St. Landry Progress and lynched C. E. Durand, Bentley's co-editor, leaving his body displayed outside the drug store in Opelousas.