During the 1873 Colfax massacre (Colfax, Louissianna) an estimated 60 to 150 people were killed. An all-black militia took control of the local courthouse in response to a disagreement over the election of sheriff. A mob of former confederate soldiers, members of the KKK, and the white league surrounded the courthouse. The mob murdered somewhere between 60 and 150 African Americans as they surrendered.
The U.S. attorney in New Orleans, James Beckwith, prepared an indictment. With no help from the federal government, he was only able to arrest seven of the 98 defendants. They were charged with violating the Acts of 1870 and 1871. These Acts were intended to guarantee the rights of freedmen and fight Klan violence under the 14th and 15th amendments. Lawyers for the victims brought charges citing conspiracy instead of murder in front of a federal court in the case U.S. v. Columbus Nash renamed later as U.S. v. Cruikshank. The trial resulted in a hung jury. In a retrial, three defendants were found guilty of conspiring to violate the civil rights of the victims but U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph P. Bradly who had participated as a second judge, overturned the verdicts. This sent the case before the Supreme Court in 1876, and the justices overturned the lower courts’ convictions ruling that the Enforcement Acts applied only to actions by the state, not by individuals.
These ruling provided a loophole for white supremacists to avoid prosecution for hate crimes and made it possible for them to continue harassing and killing African Americans with impunity.
Colfax Massacre by Leeanna Keith, The Colfax Massacre Must not be Forgotten by Jon Krakauer, and The 1873 Colfax massacre by Danny Lewis
Attachment is an image of an account of the Colfax Massacre by Senator A.A. Sargent Sargent, A. A. (1875) Louisiana. [Washington? ?] [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/12009271/