Louisiana Voice

The Louisiana Courthouse on a Black Burial Ground

The Unsettling Legacy of the Colfax Massacre (Second Installment)

By Charles R. Moore

There is a place in Louisiana where the daily work of a state district court—hearings, trials, sentencing and the routine administration of justice—takes place in a courthouse which sits on and is surrounded by an unmarked mass grave of 54 or more executed Black men. When people first hear this, they are incredulous. When they learn that it is true, they are disturbed and cannot understand how a Louisiana district court can be seen as administering justice.

While we are not responsible for the past, we are responsible for deciding whether to ignore or confront its continuing injustice. That responsibility is greatest when continuing injustice undermines our system of justice and erodes confidence in our courts. That is the question which faces Louisiana at its district court in Colfax.

The men beneath the courthouse

The men buried in today’s courthouse square had been commissioned under Louisiana law by Grant Parish’s newly elected Republican district judge to defend the courthouse from an imminent attack by White supremacists who rejected the results of the election of 1872 and who sought to seize political power by force.

Only a few years earlier, many of these men had lived as slaves on plantations in what became Grant Parish. Emancipation and the Reconstruction Amendments transformed them from property into citizens, giving them the constitutional right to vote, hold office, and to participate in the political process.

The defenders dug a crescent-shaped trench in the courthouse square from which they would fight. The next morning, Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, the attackers demanded their surrender. The defenders responded that they would wait for expected state troops from New Orleans. Around noon approximately 120 heavily armed White men, many of them former Confederate soldiers, launched their attack in response to the cry of one of their leaders, “Boys, this is a struggle for White supremacy!”

The trench line held until the attackers moved a small cannon into position to fire down

the length of the trench.  The defenders broke and ran. Most retreated to the brick courthouse. Rather than storm the building, the attackers set it on fire. Some defenders burned to death hiding beneath the floorboards. Others were shot down as they tried to escape. Most surrendered. Their hands were bound and they were placed under guard.

The prisoners were told that they would be held overnight in a nearby plantation sugarhouse. Bound and defenseless, they were marched in pairs, each followed by an armed White rider on horseback. When the signal was given, the Whites opened fire. Some prisoners were deliberately positioned so that one bullet would kill two men.

Two days after the massacre a detachment from the Louisiana National Guard sent by the Governor to investigate the “troubles” in Grant Parish arrived in Colfax. Their report described a gruesome scene. The ground around the courthouse was “thickly strewn with dead.” Men attempting to flee had been “shot down without mercy.”  Many had been shot in the back of the head and neck. Bodies were cut with knives, mutilated, battered and disfigured. Most bore three to a dozen wounds. And many, the report stated, “had their brains literally blown out.”

While some of the dead had been carried away by family and friends, the military reported that 54 were buried in a trench they had dug by the courthouse from which they had fought.

Three White attackers were killed. Historians have described the Colfax massacre as the deadliest single act of racial and political violence of the Reconstruction era. Estimates of the Black dead range from about 80 to more than 150.

More than 150 years later, the men buried in the trench remain in the courthouse burial ground, still unacknowledged and unmarked.

Dead men in the way—but never moved

With its courthouse destroyed, Grant Parish rented the Shackleford store as a temporary courthouse. At the same time residents debated whether the parish—created by the reconstruction legislature in 1869 as a majority Black parish to give newly freed slaves political representation—should be abolished or whether the parish seat should be moved elsewhere.

As pressure grew to build a new courthouse, The Colfax Chronicle in February 1878 called on Grant Parish to build “your temple of justice,” describing the interim courthouse as “miserable, dirty and filthy barn-house, an eye-sore to humanity….”

Shortly afterward, the newspaper reminded its readers that the Black victims of the massacre lay buried in the courthouse square and urged that the “unfortunate victims” be “dug up and removed to some suitable place” because they were “in the way” and were being subjected to “indignity and abuse.” They were not moved.

The urgency for a new courthouse increased dramatically in June of 1878 when an arsonist using coal oil burned down the temporary courthouse and its records.

Calling again for a new courthouse, The Colfax Chronicle observed that most parish residents approved of locating it on the land which had been “baptized in blood”—the massacre site—even though it may not be fit for “divine” approval. Nevertheless, the paper conceded that it was the most desirable location.

After much prodding, the police jury finally called for bids to build a two -story 30 by 50-foot wooden courthouse. The Chronicle’s earlier warning proved prophetic when in April 1882, the paper reported that workers ”digging a ditch around the square in which the new court house is situated” about 60 feet from the site of the courthouse burned in the massacre, “unearthed a skull and several bones of the feet and hands of some of the victims on that occasion.”

The paper wrote that the burial trench had originally been marked by a mound, but the mound had been destroyed when the ground around the courthouse was leveled during construction. Without the mound, the paper observed, the burial ground would eventually be “obliterated” unless the bodies were removed, commenting, “It looks bad to have these ghastly relics exhibited now and then, as was the case last Tuesday with that grinning cranium with a round bullet hole bored clear through it.” This warning, like the first, went unheeded.

A tourist attraction remembered, dead men ignored

The 1882 wooden courthouse lasted only 20 years before complaints about its condition led to calls for yet another courthouse.  Efforts to move the parish seat from Colfax continued but again failed.

During this same time, an artesian well was drilled to provide “pure” fresh water for the courthouse and the public.  Instead of fresh water, the well produced salt water mixed with natural gas. When ignited, the gas produced a flame on the water, becoming a tourist attraction featured in Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

As workers were “digging the artesian well in the courthouse square,” they unearthed the skull and bones of one of the men killed in the massacre. The Colfax Chronicle reported the discovery on April 22, 1899, in an article entitled “Only a Negro’s Bones.”  The Chronicle wrote:

• At once an idle and gaping crowd gathered, and several little boys exhibited ghoulish glee digging and scratching out the grim remains for inspection. True, it was only a negro’s bones, but common decency prompts that they be covered out of sight, and humanity dictates that the children should not be allowed to play the role of jackal and grave digger.

Despite the discovery of the bones, the construction of the brick courthouse with a clock and bell tower began. The failed well was deliberately incorporated into the courthouse design. Set within an ornate octagonal basin, the flames burned in the center of the wide walkway leading to the courthouse entrance, illuminating the path into Grant Parish’s newest “temple of justice”. The flame, however, was not one of remembrance for the men who had died defending the courthouse, but instead was a curiosity meant to bring tourists to Colfax.

The flaming well died out in the early 50s. Nevertheless, a marker has been placed where it once burned. A marker for a dead well—but no marker for the dead men.

Bones continue to bear witness to the massacre

Bones continued to be unearthed at the courthouse. In 1913 a skeleton was dug up by workers fixing curbing on the north side of the courthouse square. In October 1927 workers putting down pipes for water works unearthed another skeleton. The bones were sent to LSU for their civil war relics collection, but the gift was refused as being too gruesome. The skull came with a bullet hole with the bullet still in it.

In 1965 workers digging the foundation for a new courthouse, dug up more bones. The Alexandria Town Talk reported that discovery of the bones so disturbed the workers that they refused to continue digging. The paper wrote:

• Human bones were human bones, and as far as the workers were concerned, they were laying the new courthouse’s foundation in a cemetery. And technically, they were. The bones were collected by a 12-year-old boy who put them in a box and gave them to his father who later donated them to LSU.

Only the graves of White men need to be marked

Three White men died in the fighting. They were treated as heroes. The number of Black dead remains uncertain, ranging from around 80 to 150 or more. Although the Black defenders had been commissioned under Louisiana law to protect the courthouse, they were long portrayed as “rioters,” unworthy even in death of acknowledgment, their burial ground treated as though it did not exist.

Recently Justice Alito, in referencing the massacre in a concurring US Supreme Court

opinion recognized that the defenders were the victims:

• The men had gathered at the courthouse to defend local Republican oficeholders who had been threatened by a White mob following a disputed election. After a cannon was used to set the courthouse on fire, many of the defenders were murdered after they surrendered.”

In 1951 the State erected a marker at the courthouse, referred to by local attorneys as the “scorecard.” The marker read:

• On this site occurred the Colfax Riot in which three White men and 150 negroes were slain. The event on April 13, 1873, marked the end of carpetbag misrule in the South.

Although the marker established that the massacre had occurred “on the site”—the present courthouse grounds—it omitted that at least 54 of the 150 Black men killed were buried in the field of battle at the courthouse. The marker was removed in 2021 because it “falsely” described the massacre as a riot.

When the grave of Stephen Parish, one of the three White men who died manning the cannon, was found to be in a dilapidated condition, Grant Parish paid to have his remains moved to the Colfax public cemetery where he was reburied marked by a headstone and enclosed by a white picket fence.  For the 50th anniversary of the massacre Grant Parish contributed 40% of the cost of erecting a 12-foot-tall white marble obelisk in “Loving remembrance to the heroes…who fell in the Colfax Riot Fighting for White Supremacy.”

The monument was dedicated in soaking rain. A band accompanied by White massacre veterans marched from the LeSage Hotel, across the street from the courthouse to the graveyard where the widow and daughter of two of the White dead and the high school student body were waiting. A judge served as masters of ceremonies. On his signal the band began to play, and the students walked slowly around the veiled monument, placing flower petals at its base. The veil was then dropped revealing the inscription.

The procession then went to a nearby pecan tree which was commemorated for the role it played in the massacre protecting the White attackers.  Later reports Stated that Black men had been hung from the same tree.  A plaque from the National Forestry Service was attached, marking the tree’s historical significance.

The procession then returned to the LeSage hotel where dinner was served, veterans of the massacre were recognized, and the judge and district attorney gave speeches.

The contrast between the treatment of the White and Black dead could not be greater. A grave was marked. A picket fence was placed. A memorial was erected. Even a tree was honored.

The Black burial ground has never been treated as a burial ground. The abuse reported by

The Colfax Chronicle in 1878, continues to this day. Located on public property at the very seat of justice it has never been acknowledged or marked as a matter of public policy. Louisiana and Grant parish knowingly permit the burial ground to continue to be disturbed, ignored and desecrated, even though Louisiana law requires that unmarked burial sites be treated equally without regard to race, creed, or religion.

The Black burial ground at the courthouse is not recognized as sacred

Louisiana law and traditions recognize that burial grounds are sacred places deserving dignity, respect and protection. A 1950 letter to the editor of The Colfax Chronicle illustrates the principle. The writer urged better care of the Colfax Cemetery because it was “this most sacred place.” He explained that “strangers” often asked to see the riot monument, but he was ashamed to direct them to the cemetery because it was in poor condition. He called for every efort “to make this sacred spot one that we will all be proud of, that we will take pride in showing to others, that will show the proper respect to our dead, that will beautify and glorify our town.”

The State and Parish have chosen not to recognize the courthouse burial ground as sacred ground. It is treated as just another piece of public property, the men buried there unworthy of remembrance, their humanity denied and their memory sought to be erased. There has been no letter to the editor calling for sacred ground to be treated as sacred ground. Politicians—State and local—with the power to fix it remain silent.

What is a suitable courthouse?

As a trial attorney I tried cases in courthouses across the State but never appeared in Colfax. In those years I had heard little if anything about the massacre. It was not until I read an article about the dedication of a memorial to the massacre victims that I wanted to know more. I drove to Colfax, expecting to find the memorial at the courthouse. Instead, I found it nearly half a mile away in the right-of-way of the Kansas City Southern Railroad. I needed to understand why it was there.

Searching for an answer led me to books, historical documents, contemporary newspapers, government reports and eyewitness accounts. I discovered not only that men had been massacred defending the courthouse but that many had been buried at the courthouse where they remain today, unacknowledged, while the court goes about its

daily business.  As a lawyer who had spent much of his professional life in courthouses, I found that deeply troubling.

In my first year as a law student, Professor Robert Pascal repeatedly lectured his students that lawyers were “Priests of the Law” and the courthouse was a “Temple of Justice.” He explained that the responsibility of a lawyer extended far beyond representing clients.

Lawyers were also duty-bound to maintain the integrity of the judicial system and preserve

the public’s confidence that justice is being administered fairly, impartially, and without fear or favor.

The oath I took on admission to the bar commanded honesty, integrity, fairness, justice and due respect for the courts. The Code of Professionalism reminds lawyers of our responsibility to the judicial system, the public, our colleagues and the rule of law.

Those principles recognize a fundamental truth: in our courts, justice must not only be done, but it must also be seen to be done. Public confidence in the judiciary depends as much upon the appearance of fairness and impartiality as upon fairness itself. The perception of injustice can be as damaging as actual injustice because both erode public confidence in the courts. Every person entering a courthouse should have confidence that justice is being administered in a place that itself respects the law rather than contradicts it.

Louisiana law requires the parish to provide a “suitable” building to be used by its district court. Suitability embodies the fundamental principles upon which the administration of justice rests and encompasses far more than the physical structure itself. It includes not only the courthouse building but also the land on which it sits and the courthouse square, together form the setting in which justice is administered.  For a building to be suitable for use as a courthouse, its structure, grounds and setting must support—not undermine—the dignity, integrity, impartiality and public confidence upon which the administration of justice depends.

Furthermore, our courts, under the Louisiana Constitution, possess the inherent power to protect the integrity of the judicial system to ensure that justice is done and appears to be done.

Measured against those standards—or any other measure in a society committed to equal justice under law—the Grant Parish courthouse as presently constituted is not a suitable building for use as a district court.  It sits on and is surrounded by an unmarked mass grave of Black men who lawfully defended the courthouse against what Justice Alito described as a “White mob” using violence to enforce White supremacy because they rejected the results of an election. When the defenders surrendered, they were bound, executed, brutalized and mutilated. They were hastily buried in the trench they had dug to defend the courthouse.

These men were executed because they acted as freemen exercising their rights under the Constitution and federal law. The violence against them was not merely political retaliation. It was retribution—punishment for refusing to submit to the will and dominance of White supremacists.

They have remained in the same unacknowledged, unmarked trench on the same courthouse grounds. Requests to remove their remains have been ignored.  Bones have repeatedly been unearthed, testifying to the massacre yet public officials have always chosen to build their courthouses on the same soil “baptized by blood.”

These repeated decisions send a message that the courthouse is a place for White justice and a warning, which to this day has not been repudiated, that exercising one’s rights and defying White supremacy could be answered with violence and death.

Their resting place has never been treated as sacred ground. They have never received the same dignity and protection afforded to those buried in the Colfax Cemetery. Today, government action by the parish—and inaction by the State—prohibits the placement of any marker at the courthouse acknowledging the massacre and the men buried there.

Louisiana has chosen to continue to permit the racial violence and injustice of its past to undermine the integrity of the administration of justice in our own time. At Louisiana’s flagship public law school, Professor Pascal repeatedly emphasized that lawyers were “Priests of the Law” and that the courthouse was a “Temple of Justice” where law was applied equally and fairly. The Colfax courthouse is no such temple. It is an anachronism—a relic of an era of White supremacy where Whites ruled over Blacks through violence. It represents a past so deeply embedded in Louisiana that today neither the State nor the parish can summon the courage to act to free the courthouse from the legacy of racial violence and White supremacy.

Although we bear no responsibility for the past, it falls upon us to transform this ground—baptized in blood and for more than 150 years a symbol of unresolved injustice—into the Temple of Justice that Louisiana law requires and that Professor Robert Pascal envisioned.

Louisiana today should not tolerate the message that still lingers in the courthouse square. We—and our leaders—have a choice. We can continue the legacy of violence and bigotry that has shaped this place for generations, or we can break that chain of injustice and restore this ground so that it reflects the justice, equality, and human dignity our judicial system is sworn to uphold.