The Ballad of Robert Charles: Searching for the New Orleans Riot of 1900

by K. Stephen Prince

For a brief moment in the summer of 1900, Robert Charles was arguably the most infamous black man in the United States. After an altercation with police on a New Orleans street, Charles killed two police officers and fled. During a manhunt that extended for days, violent white mobs roamed the city, assaulting African Americans and killing at least half a dozen. When authorities located Charles, he held off a crowd of thousands for hours before being shot to death. The notorious episode was reported nationwide; years later, fabled jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton recalled memorializing Charles in song. Yet today, Charles is almost entirely invisible in the traditional historical record. So who was Robert Charles, really? An outlaw? A black freedom fighter? And how can we reconstruct his story?

In this fascinating work, K. Stephen Prince sheds fresh light on both the history of the Robert Charles riots and the practice of history-writing itself. He reveals evidence of intentional erasures, both in the ways the riot and its aftermath were chronicled and in the ways stories were silenced or purposefully obscured. But Prince also excavates long-hidden facts from the narratives passed down by white and black New Orleanians over more than a century. In so doing, he probes the possibilities and limitations of the historical imagination.

Genres: History

264 pages, Hardcover

Published March 1, 2021

Reviews

[Laney · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
I loved getting more background of New Orleans during the Jim Crow era, especially how so much is still so relevant today. The dedication the author put into trying to piece together Robert Charles life or what it could be like without having a direct account is commendable

[Scott Delgado · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm glad I read this because it illuminated me to an event I never knew about. It was very thorough. I did find that reading the Wikipedia page on the Robert Charles Riots kind of gave me all of the information the casual historian would need. But for a deep dive, this book is the way to go.

[Kevin McAvoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

There should be a statue of him in New Orleans.
Good book tells of the racism in 1900 USA. Well researched. I do hope he escaped but sadly someone else had to be murdered in his place.