Emerson Bentley was a white school teacher who also printed articles. He printed what many local whites thought was a racially inflammatory article, describing violence that the Seymour Knights had used against the African American Democrats in Washington. He found a message in early September 1868, illustrated with a coffin, a skull and bones, and a dagger dripping with blood.Over the summer, armed white men harassed black families, shot at them outside of Opelousas (the largest city in St. Landry Parish), and killed men, women and children with impunity. Henry Clay Warmoth was a governor that fought in the civil war. His governorship was dominated by issues such as civil rights, suffrage, election fraud, party factionalism, and corruption. In 1872, Warmoth faced impeachment charges for official misconduct, but his trial ended when his term as governor expired.

An armed group of white supremacists attacks a courthouse guarded by a mostly-Black militia in the town of Colfax, Louisiana on April 13, 1873. A bloodbath ensues, as the militia surrenders and the white supremacists carry out a day-long campaign of terror that came to be known as the Colfax Massacre.

-Nancy Tallas