https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_14,_1891_New_Orleans_lynchings
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — History
ITTY — 7 years ago(March 08, 2019 03:34 AM)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_14,_1891_New_Orleans_lynchings
In a letter responding to an inquiry about immigration in New Orleans, Mayor Joseph A. Shakspeare expressed the common anti-Italian prejudice, complaining that the city had become attractive to "…the worst classes of Europe: Southern Italians and Sicilians…the most idle, vicious, and worthless people among us."
On the evening of October 15, 1890, New Orleans police chief David Hennessy was shot by several gunmen as he walked home from work. Hennessy returned fire and chased his attackers before collapsing. When asked who had shot him, Hennessy reportedly whispered to Captain William O'Connor, "Dagoes".
The following morning an ad appeared in local newspapers calling for a mass meeting at the statue of Henry Clay, near the prison. Citizens were told to "come prepared for action."
The Daily States editorialized:
"Rise, people of New Orleans! Alien hands of oath-bound assassins have set the blot of a martyr's blood upon your vaunted civilization! Your laws, in the very Temple of Justice, have been bought off, and suborners have caused to be turned loose upon your streets the midnight murderers of David C. Hennessy, in whose premature grave the very majesty of our American law lies buried with his mangled corpse — the corpse of him who in life was the representative, the conservator of your peace and dignity."
As thousands of demonstrators gathered near the Parish Prison, Pasquale Corte, the Italian consul in New Orleans, sought the help of Louisiana governor Francis T. Nicholls to prevent an outbreak of violence. The governor declined to take any action without a request from Mayor Shakspeare, who had gone out to breakfast and could not be reached. Meanwhile, at the Clay statue, attorney William S. Parkerson was exhorting the people of New Orleans to "set aside the verdict of that infamous jury, every one of whom is a perjurer and a scoundrel."
When the speech was over, the multi-racial crowd marched to the prison, chanting, "We want the Dagoes."
The racial politics are further complicated by the fact that the 1891 lynch mob included some black residents.
This is kinda funny tbh. Whites and blacks came together in their mutual hatred of Italians lol. -
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Platonic_Caveman — 7 years ago(March 08, 2019 03:59 AM)
Every new immigrant group got the same treatment - Irish, Italian, Greek, Jewish. The mob was Jewish before it was Italian.
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— 7 years ago(March 08, 2019 03:37 AM)