September 4 - Reconstruction Crumbles in Mississippi

Labor History in 2:00

On this day in labor history the year was 1875. That was the day anti-black violence erupted into a two-day massacre in Clinton, Mississippi.

As many as 2500 Black Republicans and their families met at Moss Hill, a former plantation destroyed during the Civil War. The day was one of festivities and political speeches ahead of the fall elections. The County Republican Party invited local Democrats to debate. The Democratic State Senatorial candidate did address the crowd. The editor of a local Republican newspaper and Union officer, Captain H.T. Fisher, followed him.

Soon a group of white Democrats began to heckle Fisher as he spoke. Republican politicians attempted to quell the growing tensions. Almost immediately the heckling whites opened fire on the crowd. Women and children fled in all directions as black Republican forces rushed to defend themselves and their families.

By the end of the day three whites and five blacks were killed. Clinton’s mayor fed off rumors of black retaliation. He called upon white paramilitary forces, the White Liners, from surrounding areas for assistance. Several hundred answered the call and filled the town’s streets. Historian Melissa Janczewski Jones notes that though heavily armed, the White Liners accompanied white locals as they rampaged door to door, looking for black Republicans to murder.

After two days, as many as fifty black Clintonians were killed by white Democrats looking to end Reconstruction and regain political control of Mississippi. A Senate Committee would later conclude, “The riots at Clinton were the result of a special purpose on the part of the Democrats to break up the meetings of Republicans and to inaugurate an era of terror, not only in those communities but throughout the state.”