LAEASTBA-L Archives

From: Martha Hardcastle Guthrie <>
Subject: Re: Lynching documentation?/Central history
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2000 14:18:24 -0500
In-Reply-To: <5b.fa9b75b.2777a110@aol.com>

Lynchings were not something that were necessarily chronicled or made
public. While I don't know of any in my family I have found some disturbing
clues about various things - the least of which is that every ancestor in
the proper time period I have found so far seems to be a slave owner.

A lot of things have been hushed up for various reasons. For example, my
great-grandmother was Clara Josephine Thibodeaux, born in East Baton Rouge
Parish to first cousins from West Baton Rouge who were the children and
grandchildren of Acadian emigrants to Louisiana from exile in France. In
other words, Cajun to the core. However, my family was in total denial that
there was any Cajun and differentiated themselves by saying they were "from
France." This was partly because she became a Baptist.

I found some rather disturbing propaganda in my mother's things as a
teenager that I asked about and she unfortunately destroyed. It was a
pamphlet or tract that told how the Knights of Columbus were going to rip
babies from the wombs of the wives of Freemasons - extraordinarily vitrolic
and anti-Catholic. It apparently belonged to my grandfather, who was the
son of an Irish woman who became a Baptist on her deathbed.

Athough it is a different matter, there are many things that are not spoken
of today. The lynchers probably preferred anonyminity and the family of the
lynchee was probably terrified into silence.

When I was growing up, I always heard about the fact that my grandfather
donated the land for Central School on the condition that they never hold
dances there. I found out later that there was another caveat - that it was
only to be for the education of white children.

I do think it's interesting that the Central Wildcats were the Central
Demons when my mother graduated in 1931 - I'd like to know the
circumstances of the mascot change in those days before political and
religious correctness.

Martha



At 01:57 PM 12/24/00 -0500, wrote:
>HI:
>I'm researching the BROWN family in East Baton Rouge. My relatives are all
>over the area.
>
>My grandfather, now 91, has told me about a lynching in his family. I'd like
>to document whether this happened. It may have happened before the turn of
>the century, in Louisiana. He has no other details, except that it happened.
>
>Has anyone on this list researched such an event? A few people on other
>genealogy lists have told me they checked newspapers from the period to
>document similar events in their families.
>
>I have checked "lynching" in the google.com search engine and found a list of
>those killed by lynching, but didn't recognize any names. Am trying to figure
>out how to procede from here in researching this.
>
>All info appreciated. Thanks.
>K. Berry
>
>
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  • Re: Lynching documentation?/Central history by Martha Hardcastle Guthrie <>