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The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction Paperback – March 31, 2009

by Charles Lane (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 135 ratings
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"Absorbing . . . Riveting . . . A legal thriller."―Kevin Boyle, The New York Times Book Review

Following the Civil War, Colfax, Louisiana, was a town like many where African Americans and whites mingled uneasily. But on April 13, 1873, a small army of white ex–Confederate soldiers, enraged after attempts by freedmen to assert their new rights, killed more than sixty African Americans who had occupied a courthouse.

Seeking justice for the slain, one brave U.S. attorney, James Beckwith, risked his life and career to investigate and punish the perpetrators―but they all went free. What followed was a series of courtroom dramas that culminated at the Supreme Court, where the justices' verdict compromised the victories of the Civil War and left Southern blacks at the mercy of violent whites for generations. The Day Freedom Died is a riveting historical saga that captures a gallery of characters from presidents to townspeople, and re-creates the bloody days of Reconstruction, when the often brutal struggle for equality moved from the battlefield into communities across the nation.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    March 31, 2009
  4. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.79 x 8.5 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0805089225
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0805089226
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“One of the most memorable opening lines in English literature, from Ford Maddox Ford's novel The Good Soldier, is: ‘This is the saddest story I have ever heard.' That could be the epigraph for Charles Lane's shattering account of the post-Civil War betrayal of African Americans and the bloody collapse of Reconstruction.” ―George F. Will

“A highly impressive, deeply researched, engagingly written account of one of the lowest chapters in U.S. Supreme Court history.” ―David J. Garrow, author of Bearing the Cross

“If you want to understand twentieth century politics, you have to begin at the end of the nineteenth, when the battle lines were drawn not just over civil rights for African Americans, but over what kind of nation this country would become. It all starts here, with the unkept promise of Reconstruction, and Charles Lane has found the perfect narrative--meticulously researched and wonderfully told--to bring the story to life.” ―Nate Blakeslee, author of Tulia

“Lane has unearthed a tragic story that shows the real strength of human character and courage, and delivers a riveting account of the bloody struggle for racial equality after the smoke cleared the battlefields in the post-Civil War South.” ―Jan Crawford Greenburg, author of Supreme Conflict

“Charles Lane is one of the most astute observers of the Supreme Court. In this gripping narrative, he proves to be a first rate historical sleuth as well. With psychological and political insight, Lane unforgettably brings to life one of the most shameful episodes in American constitutional history.” ―Jeffrey Rosen, author of The Supreme Court

“In page after riveting page Charles Lane brings to life a massacre and its legal consequences that have been forgotten, ignored, or papered over by history. You'll put this book down amazed at how much you didn't know about race, Reconstruction, and the courts, and profoundly grateful that Lane had both the curiosity and skill to so powerfully fill in the blanks.” ―Dahlia Lithwick, Slate legal correspondent

“Brilliantly lays bare one of the most unknown but significant contributing events in the fatal collapse of Reconstruction. By transforming exhaustive historical research and detail into a dramatic portrayal of the high-stakes tug of war between racial, political, cultural, and sociological forces of the time, Charles Lane brings insight, urgency, and clarity to the Colfax Massacre. A vital and important contribution to our understanding of our country's history.” ―Lalita Tademy, author of Red River and Cane River

About the Author

Charles Lane learned about the Colfax Massacre case while covering the Supreme Court for The Washington Post. A former correspondent for Newsweek and editor of The New Republic, Lane has reported from Japan, Latin America, Europe, and southern Africa. His essays have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New York Review of Books, and The Atlantic. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard and studied law at Yale. He lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Holt Paperbacks; First Edition (March 31, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0805089225
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0805089226
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.79 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 135 ratings

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Charles Lane

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
135 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

jdvb books
5.0 out of 5 stars An important book in the context of not to understand the past presents the danger of reliving our mistakes
Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2017
Verified Purchase
After 30 plus years of visiting relatives in Colfax and seeing the monument that still stands to the "Colfax Riot" with what to me was peculiar wording: "April 13, 1873 marked the end of carpetbag misrule in the South" I got this book to try to better understand the history of central Louisiana. This book helped me understand a great deal more than local history. It speaks to the tragic days post Civil War as well as the extremely low point of the Supreme Court and Congress which used the literal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (which purposely avoided the questions of slavery in what was supposed provide freedom to all citizens) and the wording of the 14th amendment to excuse convictions of citizens who committed mass murder and support "states' rights" to develop laws which deny human rights and voting privileges to Americans of color. No one should graduate from high school let alone college without throughly understanding this deplorable history and the many echos in the 21st Century. I did not find the writing or flow to be at all challenging. My children and yours should read this book.
6 people found this helpful
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Timothy D. Stone
5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable Account of the End of Civil Rights Despite the End of the Confederacy
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2014
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In The Day Freedom Died, Chuck Lane has produced an indispensable, detailed account of the heartbreaking end of Reconstruction, and arguably, the continuation of the Civil War through political means, as several southern states used terror, backed even by the U.S. Supreme Court, to negate many of the laws and ideals that the Union supposedly had secured in vanquishing the Confederacy. Lane has used a cast of dozens of characters and anecdotes to document how a racist backlash terrorized African Americans in the American South after the end of slavery, despite the opposition of President Grant, an ardent supporter of civil rights. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the struggle for civil rights in America and the legacy we must never forget in order to safeguard a fair and civil society for all.
4 people found this helpful
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Paul E.Foster
5.0 out of 5 stars A touching tale of horor courage and deception.
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2017
Verified Purchase
The awesome an emotional story that quite possibly touches my family. Mr. Eli Nelson a slave from Colfax LA is one of important figures in the book and could be a ancestor of my Foster Mother who was also a Nelson from Colfax. A must read for anyone trying to understand the brutal nature of racist white after the civil war in Louisiana and other parts of the confederacy.
6 people found this helpful
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Prison Guy
4.0 out of 5 stars A microscopic version of reconstruction
Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2013
Verified Purchase
Eric Foner's RECONSTRUCTION is far more informative and understandable in history's relevance to the 21st century, but this book is much more emotionally grabbing and personal. Any one interested in legal reasoning and politics - as it was both then and now - can get a lot from Mr. lane's book.

I think the most powerful statement about race in our society (at the end of the book); is President Grant's wish that the confederate states had been held in some form of territorial status after the war FOR A DECADE OR MORE so that government control could have been more helpful during this terrible time in the USA.
10 people found this helpful
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JoeyP2
5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2017
Verified Purchase
A must read of an event that has been overlooked. Provides excellent insight into why things in the South went down as they did during Jim Crow, and how even in the North the cause of the freed blacks was pushed aside. This is critical reading if you want to understand our nation, and the long and hard road we're still traveling down.
3 people found this helpful
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marcel
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2019
Verified Purchase
Helped me understand a lot about reconstruction and how it ended. This book explained how the foundation was laid for lynching in the south and how Jim Crow became the law of the land.
5 people found this helpful
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Scott Harland
5.0 out of 5 stars Good book
Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2020
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Not the usual history read, actually for interesting. An addicting read
One person found this helpful
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Wendell F. Wentz
5.0 out of 5 stars The Supreme Court has not always sided with justice
Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2014
Verified Purchase
The Supreme Court did not find the defendants guilty as charge for their massacre at Colfax. It was a time when the national political parties did not want to offend the South thinking the South was important in winning national elections. This account of events and the decision of the Supreme Court set justice back for decades.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Philip Colfox
5.0 out of 5 stars A Legal Compromise that Averted Another Civil War Later.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 5, 2014
Verified Purchase
Being a Colfox (a cousin of the eponymous Colfax after whom the town was named) I was most intrigued by this history of how the emancipation of black slaves in the south of USA was postponed for about 100 years between about 1873 and the Kennedy and Obama eras of the 1960s and 2010s. As a foreigner living 2500 miles away in England I would never have guessed that the American Civil War having been won by those who abolished slavery did not lead to blacks having equal rights in America. America thinks of itself as the land of freedom and equality but it took 100 years or more for that to come about if indeed it has. As I have realised in many other contexts the struggle between good and evil, between freedom and oppression, between justice and injustice is very difficult. It is actually a matter of balance - for good to exist we do need evil: too much of one thing can lead to oppression of a different kind which is what the defeated whites of the South of the United States were more than fearful of when their previous slaves became mayors, judges and sherifs. For them this was too much, too quickly. They needed more balance and they continued their oppressive and murderous ways for many years, first continuing to lynch and murder blacks as at the Colfax massacre the subject of the book and later with support from the US Supreme Court introducing a system of apartheid that denied blacks the vote, the right to be educated together and many other forms of discrimination. The Civil War had been won to give the black man his freedom but the peace was won by the white man who kept the black in his place for another 100 years or more. The book also describes the political compromise, tough and brutal and unfair that it was that enabled there to be peace of sorts and 100 years later further democratic reform without the need for another civil war. This book is the story of the massacre that led to the compromise endorsed by the Supreme Court and it describes the legal process how the Supreme Court agreed to that compromise.
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R Helen
4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful book on the end of Reconstruction
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 22, 2016
Verified Purchase
This book is a discussion, both of the infamous Colfax Massacre itself, and of the legal issues surrounding it. It is a very in depth discussion of the legal issues surrounding various Reconstruction Acts and Amendments and how they relate to the Colfax Massacre. I had a hard time following much of the legal analysis and I would have liked many of these issues to be explained better. In a nutshell, however, the main thrust of this book is the failure of Supreme Court to act and affirm the Enforcement Act, and thereby, the ultimate eventual failure of Reconstruction, in general. Interestingly, the author, Charles Lane, points out, that many of the issues faced in the Cruikshank case have not been overturned even now. It is a sobering thought for Americans to realize that the great country they live in has some serious fundamental flaws in its system.
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