Black holocaust
The Paris Horror and a Legacy of Texas Terror
Paperback
198 Pages ISBN 9781681790176 Retail Price $19.95 |
Another negro burned at the stake in Texas. Common hanging or riddling with bullets has become obsolete in mob practice. Nothing now seems to satiate the mob’s thirst for vengeance short of the barbarities once practiced by the worst of savages.
The Daily Northwestern, March 14, 1901 From 1891 to 1922, Texans burned an average of one person of color at the stake a year for three decades. These burnings typically featured carnival atmospheres with thousands in attendance, including men, women and children who later described the spectacles as jovial “barbecues” or “roasts,” and commemorated the events with “lynching” postcards. It was a period when many white Texans—previously enraged by Reconstruction—reasserted white primacy and terrorized black Texans with impunity. Join author E. R. Bills in this recounting of an African American holocaust.
About the author
Born in Fort Worth and raised in Aledo, Texas, E. R. Bills received a degree in journalism from Texas State University. He does freelance historical, editorial and travel writing for publications around the state and he is the author of Texas Obscurities: Stories of the Peculiar, Exceptional and Nefarious (History Press, 2013) and The 1910 Slocum Massacre: An Act of Genocide in East Texas (History Press, 2014), the latter of which led to a much-contested but successful effort to erect a state historical marker commemorating the victims of the Slocum Massacre.
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