Sept. 28, 1868: Opelousas Massacre

Lesson. By Bill Bigelow. 17 pages.
This role play engages students in thinking about what freedpeople needed in order to achieve — and sustain — real freedom following the Civil War. It’s followed by a chapter from the book Freedom’s Unfinished Revolution.

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this activity, students take on the role of activist-experts to improve upon a Congressional bill for reparations for Black people. They talk back to Congress’ flimsy legislation and design a more robust alternative.

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 2020.
Unit with three lessons on voting rights, including the history of the struggle against voter suppression in the United States.

From the urban rebellions to the salute at the Olympics, commemorations of 1968 — a pivotal year of Black Power — are popular every year. Yet there is another anniversary of Black Power that merits our attention — 1868 during Reconstruction.

The Make Reconstruction History Visible project is an opportunity for students and teachers to identify and advocate for public recognition of Reconstruction history in their community and the significant accomplishments made by newly freed people and their white allies.

As African Americans marched peacefully in response to their expulsion from elected office, more than a dozen were massacred near Albany, Georgia.

The St. Bernard Parish massacre of African Americans was carried out by white men to terrorize the recently emancipated voters in Louisiana.

During a clear sign of Reconstruction era voter suppression, a Black militia was accused of blocking a road and punished with the Hamburg Massacre.

Between 30-60 striking Black Louisiana sugarcane workers were massacred.

The elected and interracial Reconstruction era local government was deposed in a coup d’etat in Wilmington, North Carolina.

This massacre was committed against African Americans by a mob of about 5,000 white people in Springfield, Illinois.

Citizens in the small, predominately African American town of Slocum, Texas, were massacred.

Two African American men were burned at the stake in Sulphur Springs, Texas.

The Bogalusa Labor Massacre was an attack on interracial labor solidarity in Louisiana.