This Day in History

July 23, 1890: F. M. B. “Marsh” Cook Killed

Time Periods: 1877
Themes: Reconstruction, Democracy & Citizenship, Laws & Citizen Rights
F.M.B. "Marsh" Cook | ZInn Education Project

Assassination of F. M. B. “Marsh” Cook marker. Source: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

On July 23, 1890, six men ambushed F. M. B. “Marsh” Cook, a white Republican, in Jasper County in Mississippi, riddling him with 27 shots.

He was murdered because he took a stand against the upcoming 1890 Mississippi Constitutional Convention, led by white Democrats to restore white supremacy and undo the advances of Reconstruction.

The convention took place and the new Constitution included poll taxes and literacy tests to disenfranchise African Americans — a Constitution other Southern states soon imitated.

Read more at the Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. Find resources below to teach outside the textbook about the Reconstruction era.


Learn more in the Zinn Education Project national report, “Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction,” and find teaching resources on Reconstruction below.