Race riots have stained the material of American historical past, forsaking tragic tales of violence, terror and resistance.
From the New York Metropolis Draft Riots of 1863 to the Purple Summer time of 1919, these uprisings gave white supremacist violence an area to spill from the nation’s pores into Black communities already struggling to seek out their place in a altering America.
One lesser-known flashpoint that not often receives the eye it deserves is the Robert Charles Riots of 1900 in New Orleans—a pivotal second on the daybreak of Jim Crow, marked by particular person Black defiance and a white backlash that just about tore a metropolis aside.
To grasp the chaos that might engulf New Orleans in the summertime of 1900, you first have to grasp the person on the heart of all of it: Robert Charles.
Robert Charles was a self-educated Black laborer who believed deeply that Black folks had a proper to defend themselves, a lot in order that it could ultimately price him his life.
Like many different Black folks throughout that interval, Charles moved from New Orleans to Mississippi looking for work and a greater life. Like a lot of the South, Mississippi was simmering with racial stress, and Charles’ self-defense beliefs would quickly collide with the brutal equipment of white supremacy, igniting probably the most violent episodes in New Orleans historical past.
In line with 64 Parishes, on the night of July 23, 1900, Robert Charles sat on a stoop in a predominantly white neighborhood along with his buddy Leonard Pierce. Round 11 pm, three white New Orleans cops—Sgt. Jules C. Aucoin and Officers Joseph D. Cantrelle and August T. Mora—approached and started questioning him. The encounter shortly escalated.
After being harassed for a bit, Charles determined to face up from the stoop when he was struck within the head with a baton by one of many officers.
Reacting to the sudden violence and fearing for his life, Charles pulled out a firearm and exchanged photographs with officer Mora. Each males obtained accidents, however Charles was capable of flee and escape police custody. Police later used Pierce to trace Charles to a close-by residence—however the bloodshed was removed from over.
But Charles, probably conscious of the violent destiny that usually awaited Black males who killed white males, decided to not give himself over to the police. Charles fired his Winchester rifle on the group of officers as they approached his door. Two officers fell useless. Charles in some way managed to flee the police as soon as once more.
That day, Robert Charles killed two cops and wounded one other, sparking one of many largest manhunts within the metropolis’s historical past. As police didn’t find him within the hours that adopted, white outrage unfold like wildfire.
By the subsequent day, that rage had taken bodily type, resulting in lots of of indignant white folks mobbing up in entrance of the residence the place Charles had killed officers the night time earlier than. On July 24, the gang turned its anger towards the broader Black neighborhood of New Orleans, launching sporadic assaults on Black residents all through the town
By July 25, the violence turned extra organized. Round 8 p.m., the white mob mobilized at what was then often called Lee Circle and started one other coordinated rampage all through the town, all underneath the guise of serving to police monitor down Charles. The mob killed three Black folks and left six others so badly wounded they needed to be hospitalized.
On July 27, police obtained an nameless tip about Charles’ location. When officers tried to storm the condo on Saratoga Road the place he was hiding, Charles opened hearth once more—killing two extra policemen. Phrase of the shootout unfold shortly and the identical armed white mob that terrorized the town descended on the constructing.
Charles and the armed mob exchanged gunfire for a number of hours. In line with stories, Charles killed three residents from the mob earlier than police set the constructing on hearth. He was ultimately killed attempting to flee the burning constructing, however the mob wasn’t completed.
After his dying, they dragged his lifeless physique by way of the streets, riddling it with bullets and blows—capturing him over thirty occasions—earlier than authorities transported his stays to the morgue.
Earlier than the Robert Charles Riots ended, the white mob additionally burned down the Thomy Lafon Faculty—probably the most esteemed Black faculties within the state—capping 4 days of racial violence and terror.
The Robert Charles Riots are a brutal reminder that justice in America as soon as appeared like mob rule— and white vengeance typically introduced terror to Black communities. When fact is blinded by concern, concern too simply transforms into violence and hate.
SEE ALSO:
The Ghost Of Willie Earle And The Haunting Of Pickens County Museum
The Antebellum Story Of Black Slave Lady Molly And The Haunting Of Sorrel-Weed Home
The Story Of The Robert Charles Riots In New Orleans
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