Colfax Correction

succeeded in removing a much disputed marker in front of Grant Parish Courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana. The marker commemorated one of the most blatant and violent assaults on post-Civil [], Tom Barber, who holds a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, and LSU graduate student Jeff Crawford credited LeeAnna Keith’s powerful 2008 book, , with alerting them to the marker’s celebration of White supremacy. Keith’s study, which the two read in 2016, details events long called the Colfax Massacre. In that April 13, 1873, melee, an estimated 150 Black men and three White men died violently when White supremacist mobs converged at the Grant Parish Courthouse. The assailants’ intent was to drive Black Republicans from the premises following a much-disputed statewide election. The plaque, installed in 1950, mischaracterized the slaughter as a riot marking “the end of carpetbag misrule in the South”—presenting the outcome as one of White rule rightfully restored. The marker’s “presence on public property perpetuated the myth that Black political power represented disorder,” Barber and Crawford wrote. “To us, the marker’s existence also condoned violence as a valid avenue for those dissatisfied with the democratic process.” The two note that prisoner-journalists at the inmate-edited publication in the Louisiana State Penitentiary had campaigned without success to remove the marker in 1989. According to Barber and Crawford, pointing out the inaccuracies to the Grant Parish Police Jury, on whose land the sign stood, had no effect. Parish officials dragged their feet until a White descendant of a veteran of the fight spoke up for removal and a state employee discovered that a different law governed ownership of the sign. The marker was removed peaceably on May 15, 2021.