Louis Wilson walked through St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, aware Black men had been lynched the previous day. Tensions were high in 1868 – the 14th Amendment had been passed only months earlier, and the upcoming presidential election would determine the future of Reconstruction.
But he didn’t notice the armed white men approaching until he was surrounded.
They beat Wilson and brought him to a camp where they held other freedmen hostage. During the night, the hostages were dragged outside and shot!
Wilson lay bleeding – and realized they’d left him for dead.
Cloaked by darkness, Wilson crawled, still bleeding, into a nearby cane field. He hid there for days, praying his captors wouldn’t find him. Eventually he made his way home.
On the journey, he saw countless destroyed Black businesses and houses, and a trail of Black corpses. It appeared that over 100 Black people had been murdered, seemingly randomly.
After generations of attempted erasure from authorities, this violence was only recently recognized as the “1868 St. Bernard Parish Massacre.” If Wilson hadn’t survived to tell his story, the truth may have been erased forever.
Today, we have access to technology to document white supremacy AND our resistance to it. It’s so important we do so – so future generations have examples of our people’s perseverance.
Like Wilson, we must know when to fight or flee, escaping white supremacy by any means necessary!