Carnival of Fury: Robert Charles and the New Orleans Race Riot of 1900

by William Ivy Hair, Dwight Agner (Designed by)

The River Flows On offers an impressively broad examination of slave resistance in America, spanning the colonial and antebellum eras in both the North and South and covering all forms of recalcitrance, from major revolts and rebellions to everyday acts of disobedience. Walter C. Rucker analyzes American slave resistance with a keen understanding of its African influences, tracing the emergence of an African American identity and culture. Rucker points to the shared cultural heritage that facilitated collective action among both African- and American-born slaves, such as the ubiquitous belief in conjure and spiritual forces, the importance of martial dance and the drum, and ideas about the afterlife and transmigration. Focusing on the role of African cultural and sociopolitical forces, Rucker gives in-depth attention to the 1712 New York City revolt, the 1739 Stono rebellion in South Carolina, the 1741 New York conspiracy, Gabriel Prosser's 1800 Richmond slave plot, and Denmark Vesey's 1822 Charleston scheme. He concludes with Nat Turner's 1831 revolt in Southampton, Virginia, which bore the marks of both conjure and Christianity, reflecting a new, African American consciousness. With rich evidence drawn from anthropology, archaeology, and religion, The River Flows On is an innovative and convincing study.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, African American, Race

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

William Ivy Hair was Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Southern History at Georgia College in Milledgeville.

Reviews

[Gabrielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of Robert Charles, an itinerant Back-to-Africa sympathizer, whose botched arrest by white policemen sparked a one-man, fortnight-long revolt against white supremacy--and the only race riot in New Orleans during the 20th century.

Fury, which was published in the mid-Seventies is the only biography of this interesting man. The book also gives the reader an insight into the times that made Charles: his birth and coming-of-age in Copiah, MS; his getting into trouble; his migration, like so many other poor, unskilled, rural blacks to a city like New Orleans; and the unexpressed anger he felt about race discrimination and police brutality finding voice in the Back-to-Africa movement. Moreover, it shows the environment of New Orleans in 1900, with a prominent racist newspaper editor and publisher at the States-Item who helped stoke the flames of the riot, and with black New Orleanians who less than thirty years after the end of slavery were stratified, disunited, and fearful of what the century would bring.

It was a few members of the Back-to-Africa movement who clandestinely helped Charles escape detection far longer than anyone had expected. In all, Charles wounded or killed nearly 21 white men, mostly policemen. Even as time ran out for Charles, and the house where he had holed up was set ablaze by a mob of thousands, Charles kept firing until he nearly ran out of ammunition, and then he was shot by a policeman. His face and body was rendered unrecognizable by the mob; he was later secretly interred in the city's potter's field, then dug up just as secretly and his remains burned less than a year later. A black police informant who led the police to Charles' lair was later shot to death some months after the riot. A song was later written about Robert Charles, said one prominent jazz man, but it was considered too inflammatory to sing even twenty years later. Black Power advocates during the Sixties later resurrected Robert Charles as a hero.

I used part of Charles' story in the first chapter of my novel-in-progress, Sugar Wars.

[Allen Cheesman · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Ivy Hair's "Carnival of Fury" a well researched somber look at the racial hatred and mob violence in the early 20th Century. I highly recommend Hair's book for all to read. We can do better America! We must!

[WSB · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the late 1800s, packs of half-wild dogs were commonly seen roving around the Mississippi countryside. One estimate puts their numbers at four thousand.

At the same time, Copiah County, where Robert Charles was born, came to be the only county in Mississippi where whites and blacks formed a coalition to overthrow the wealthy and white Democratic party. Their supporters were quickly terrorized—"with democratic thunder," one newspaper wrote—and their leader, John Prentiss Matthews, shot dead while casting his vote at a courthouse.

Many of the poorer black folks in Copiah County practiced voodoo against the evil spirits purportedly found in white people. Fearful white residents saw a resurgence in West African customs in the late 1800s, with "snake skins, fangs, buzzard feathers and skunk fur" placed under pillows and doorsteps. Paris Green, a voodoo witch doctor in Copiah County, would supposedly ride around the countryside on a donkey, sporting a necklace of alligator teeth.

For a long time, the Louisiana Excavating Company had the task of taking all of New Orleans’s excrement and bringing it across Lake Pontchartrain, so the waste could be loaded onto barges by the company's tugboat, Flora (goddess of flowers). The city had no proper sewage system, and most of the waste never made it across the bridge: operators often decided to save the trip and dumped their cargo in the lake. From there it would float back to the shores of the city, along with dead animal carcasses picked up outside of city restaurants.

During the first riots against Robert Charles, the young black railroad worker who shot 4 policemen and two white men in New Orleans, a young man named Wallace Sabatier was stopped in the street. The white mob couldn't decide if Sabatier was black or white. In the end the mob had to place him under an electric street light to determine his race; they declared him white. "Sabatier was glad," wrote an observer.

(Sources: 18, 53, 59, 88, 152.)

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, William Ivy Hair sketches out the life of an obscure New Orleans resident of elusive origins who in 1900 killed 27 white men, including several police officers, and started a race riot.

Despite evident through and detailed research on Robert Charles, Hair is forced to admit that due to a dearth of evidence a great many details on his life cannot be known. Even his place of birth and his residence during his early childhood is unknown, although Hair presents circumstantial evidence that it was probably Copiah County, MS. As a result, Hair seeks to place his life in the context of the times in which he grew up, with the ultimate purpose of uncovering the type of man he was and why he did what he did (later in his life, before the riot and when he is living in New Orleans, when there is more documentation Hair moves away from this approach).

Aspects of the book I found particularly interesting is his description of non-Democrat political activity in and around Charles' probable home in Copiah County and the depressing, if completely expected, assassination and suppression that resulted from it. (When Point Matthews went to vote I was left wondering how nobody anywhere could not have seen the importance the secret ballot.) Also, Hair's description of turn-of-the-century New Orleans, with its lack of public sanitation, political corruption, widespread vices, underfunded police force, and economic woes is phenomenally enrapturing. Finally, the description of the riot itself is fast-paced, exciting, and far more enjoyable than I was expecting.

In all, I found this book eminently enjoyable for its depiction of the times as much as for its description of the Robert Charles and the Riot he started. I recommend it to anyone interesting in the event, the time period, New Orleans, or race in the Gilded Age South.

[LMLH · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a bit slow paced every two chapters and certain characters were exposited upon that had no bearing to the overall story. I really did like this book, but I was forced to read it for my History class and I have to say that I willed myself to read this in one sitting.

Robert Charles was no monster, but he wasn't a saint. He was a human being stuck in a time where his kind were prejudiced and harshly disenfranchised. I can sympathize with his plights but I cannot condone his actions of murder. Call me whatever you want, but his intentions to fight for his cause were somewhat just, but he went about it in the wrong way.

Overall a decent read, probably wouldn't read it anytime soon, unless needed for a class.

[Sean Chick · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best written history books of all time. A fair and nuanced account of what might be the low-point of New Orleans history. Hair does not fall into the traps of the long dead Dunning School or the more currently popular Neo-abolitionists, who often misinterpret events. Indeed, this allows the human tragedy of this event to come to the fore, such as the fact that two of Charles' victims were excellent police officers.

[Ronald Jones]

A very well researched book about a black laborer in turn-of-the century New Orleans who kills twenty seven whites in a gun battle. The author covers this event with great depth. He also provides the historical and social context that laid the groundwork for this violent confrontation.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

You think you know New Orleans, and then you read this. A bitter, violent story, and a riveting one. Larry Davis had nothing on Robert Charles.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think every Southerner should read this one.

[HeavyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well written book about a not so well known incident from New Orleans' past. It shows that resistance has been going on for a long, long time.

[Matt Neely · Rating 5 out of 5]

History that reads like a novel. Much like Devil in a White City.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

The New Orleans Race Riot of 1900 involves a Black labourer, Robert Charles, that made national headlines in its day. It is an integral part of resistance to mostly white law enforcement in the city's history. He shot twenty-seven white people--seven of them police officers--in a series of encounters with what's now the NOPD. This book follows Charles's origins as a Mississippi sharecropper to showing us all that led to his acts of resistance and ultimately his violent death on New Orleans's Saratoga Street. It's a challenging narrative, and one that illuminates much about New Orleans society at the time, particularly the differences between whites, creoles of colour, and Black communities, as well as the layers of complexity between them.

[Jason Scoggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent contribution. This work encapsulates turn of the century New Orleans very well, and illuminates Robert Charles life for examination contemporaneously during our wavering time of race relations in the 21st century

[janel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still love Robert Charles

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinating book about Robert Charles who's shooting of over 24 whites in 1900 sparked a race riot. The best part of the book is its description of New Orleans and Mississippi at the turn of the Century. Its full of interesting facts, such as Black "Roustabouts" who loaded Cotton bales on the Mississippi Riverboats could make almost $120/month at time when a Police Captain made $83.

The author tries to make Charles out to be an extraordinary person, but there was nothing amazing about him other than being a good shot and violent. After resisting arrest, Charles killed five policeman and 3 vigilantes. Many of the deaths occured because the police/vigilantes were reckless and untrained.

The killing spree sparked a race riot, and later a reaction from Liberals in Boston, where a certain Miss Jewett held a meeting of the "Anti-Lynching League". Some of the speakers took the side of Charles, leading Southern Newspapers to label Jewett a "female John Brown". Death threats were sent to Miss Jewett, who took legal action, unsuccessfully.