| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866. By James G. Hollandsworth Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. xviii, 168 pp. $28.95, ISBN 0-8071-2588-1.)

James G. Hollandsworth Jr.'s An Absolute Massacre traces the events leading up to and through the New Orleans "race riot" of 1866. In this well-written and convincing account, Hollandsworth argues that the "riot" was really an organized massacre of black suffrage advocates. The conservative whites who were willing to kill for their beliefs, the violent men who served in the New Orleans police, and naïve radical leaders all shared some responsibility for the massacre. Hollandsworth argues, however, that the greatest responsibility for these events lay with the Reconstruction policies of President Andrew Johnson. 1

During 1864 President Abraham Lincoln and his advisers led the occupied portions of Louisiana through the creation of a new state constitution. By 1866, Louisiana Republicans saw their political power fading as a result of growing Democratic success. Several Republican leaders decided to join with proponents of black suffrage in an attempt to build a new voting constituency that could overwhelm the Democratic opposition. Black suffrage supporters gladly embraced this movement. Together they recalled the convention of 1864, which had never officially adjourned, to amend the state constitution to permit black male suffrage. . . .

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