The Louisiana White league was nothing if not earnest in its effort to “re-establish a white man’s government” in Louisiana in 1874. Mixing the tools of political mobilization and racial terrorism, the group would speedily move from its organizing convention in July to a bloody attempted coup in September.
Unlike its predecessors the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camellia, the White League carried out many of its functions in public, published newspapers, and openly endorsed candidates. Under the direction of former Confederate officers, its militants also drilled for street warfare in New Orleans and plotted clandestine attacks on Black leaders in the countryside. Its most well-known action of 1874 would be the “Battle of Liberty Place” in September which was still celebrated by White New Orleanians until the 1960s.
The document below is from the 1874 platform of the White League. As with many platforms of white supremacist groups, it begins by blaming Blacks for the groups formation. It also, absurdly, criticizes Blacks for not joining the WHITE LEAGUE! And of course it claims that Black people will only find true happiness when whites are in control the government and society. But we all know that the White League was not organized to secure interracial harmony. It was, in the words of the platform, set up to “teach the blacks to beware of further insolence.”
Source: Documentary History of Reconstruction by Walter Fleming pp 368-359.
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