An armed group of white supremacists attacks a courthouse guarded by a mostly-Black militia in the town of Colfax, Louisiana on April 13, 1873. A bloodbath ensues, as the militia surrenders and the white supremacists carry out a day-long campaign of terror that came to be known as the Colfax Massacre.
In the years following the U.S. Civil War, a number of freedmen and white candidates sympathetic to the cause of racial equality were elected to office across the South. This progress stirred up deep resentments among other white Southerners, bitter over the loss of the Civil War and eager to once again enshrine white supremacy into law. During this period, known as Reconstruction, federal troops were stationed throughout the South to pacify the region and protect elections. The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871 prohibited people from congregating with the purpose of disrupting an election and gave the federal government the authority to use its troops in defense of African Americans and their recently granted constitutional rights.
