Mixed Race Studies

Anti-Miscegenation Movement

Columbus Enquirer-Sun
Columbus, Georgia
1886-09-24
page 5, column 3

Source: Digital Library of Georgia

Organization In Louisiana to Prevent the Intermarriage of Whites and Blacks

New Orleans. September 20.—A practical movement has been inaugurated in Bossier parish, in this state, for the abolition of miscegenation. There have been during the past year or so several spasmodic efforts in this direction, both in Louisiana and Mississippi. Self-constituted vigilance committees have warned white men with negro wives and mistresses to leave them and lead a regular life, and when this failed have ridden through the parish, severely whipping both men and women who disobeyed this order.  In Mississippi there were several arrests, convictions and sentences for violation of the law prohibiting intermarriages between the races, and in Louisiana one man was severely cut in a scrimmage arising from this movement. But these anti-miscegenation raids were spasmodic, the freaks of a few wild young men. The present movement is more serious and more general, and is a thorough and practical organization, like that of the prohibitionist, to break up miscegenation.

The first meeting was held in Bossier parish in July, whore the subject was generally discussed, and adjourned over to this month to find the drift of public opinion. It was found that public sentiment among the whites was well nigh unanimous on the subject. The recent meeting held at Cottage Grove, in the upper portion of Bossier parish, was the result. There was no secrecy or mystery about it. It was an open mass meeting, in which all the people of the neighborhood—farmers, clergymen and others—assembled. The meeting was opened with prayer and presided over by a clergyman. The resolutions were of the strongest character. Those guilty of miscegenation were threatened with social boycott, and warned that they were insulting the race feelings and moral principles of the community. But the gist of the meeting was the appointment of a vigilance committee of nineteen to serve notices on these white men living with negro women—the vigilants were not instructed as to what they should if this warning is unheeded—and the appointment of another committee to assist in the organization of anti-miscegenation societies in other parishes in the state.

This plan of operation is warmly supported by the press. The Bossier Banner declares that race purity must be preserved at all hazards, the line must be sharply and distinctly drawn, and those who cross it must pay the penalty. The Robeline Reporter of Natchitoches, edited by the father of the present attorney-general of the state, approves the idea.

As this sentiment prevails in most of the neighboring parishes, it is thought that the present organization, by giving a start to the anti-miscegenation sentiment, which in this part of the state is now stronger than the anti-liquor sentiment, it will spread through north Louisiana if not into the neighboring states of Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas. There is no law in Louisiana against the intermarriage or cohabitation of f[r]aces, this prohibition, which was strongly urged by many persons, being voted down in the late constitutional convention, but miscegenation is growing rarer every day, in deference to the strong public sentiment on this point.