22 Nov 1887 Jahr - Thibodaux massacre

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November 22–25, 1887

A racial attack mounted by white paramilitary groups in Thibodaux, Louisiana following a three-week strike during the critical harvest season by an estimated 10,000 workers against sugar cane plantations. Spaning four parishes: Lafourche, Terrebonne, St. Mary, and Assumption, The strike was the largest in the industry and the first conducted by a formal labor organization, the Knights of Labor.

The local white paramilitary forces attacked black workers and their families in Thibodaux. Although the total number of casualties is unknown, at least 35 black people were killed in the next three days (more historians believe 50 were killed) and as many as 300 overall killed, wounded or missing,[2][3] making it one of the most violent labor disputes in U.S. history. Victims reportedly included elders, women, and children. All those killed were African American.

A black newspaper described the scene:
'Six killed and five wounded' is what the daily papers here say, but from an eye witness to the whole transaction we learn that no less than thirty-five "...fully thirty negroes have sacrificed their lives in the riot on Wednesday..." Negroes were killed outright. Lame men and blind women shot; children and hoary-headed grandsires ruthlessly swept down! The Negroes offered no resistance; they could not, as the killing was unexpected. Those of them not killed took to the woods, a majority of them finding refuge in this city.

After the massacre, labor organizing among sugar workers essentially was suspended; plantation workers returned to work under the owners' terms. White Democrats, who dominated the state legislature, soon passed laws for disenfranchisement of blacks, racial segregation and other Jim Crow rules. There was no more effort to organize sugar workers until the 1940s.

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