1895 New Orleans dockworkers massacre

Background

In the economic downturn following the Panic of 1893, shipping firms including the Harrison Line of Liverpool announced in February 1895 that they would lay off around 300 organized white dockworkers and replace them with unskilled, non-union black workers in New Orleans. This came just three years after the 1892 New Orleans general strike, in which black and white union dockworkers had displayed racial solidarity despite provocation from the anti-union New Orleans Times-Democrat. That unity had underpinned roughly fifteen years of racially integrated dockworker unions in the city.

Escalation and violence

Under economic pressure, competition between white and black worker groups for scarce jobs escalated into violence in March 1895. Gangs of white screwmen and longshoremen carried out organized assaults on black dockworkers. On March 11, a black dockworker named Philip Fisher was shot and wounded. At dawn the following day, a mob of several hundred white men descended on an ocean-going ship being loaded at the docks and opened fire on black longshoremen. A coordinated attack also took place on another cotton vessel upriver. Across the two locations, six men were killed.

Victims

The men killed in the attacks were identified as Henry James, Jules Calise Carrebe, Leonard Mallard, William Campbell, and two men who remain unidentified.

Aftermath

Louisiana Governor Murphy J. Foster called in the state militia to restore order following the violence. The massacre marked the end of the prior fifteen years of racially unified dockworker unions in New Orleans. Racial tensions among dockworkers continued, culminating in the separate 1900 New Orleans race riot. Nonetheless, in the 20th century, black and white dockworkers in New Orleans went on to implement racially cooperative work-sharing arrangements, including 50/50 representation on jobs.