Louisiana Voice

THE LOUISIANA COURTHOUSE IN A GRAVEYARD

(The Aftermath of the Colfax Massacre)

By guest columnist Charles “Chick” Moore

In the aftermath of the Civil War and the emancipation of enslaved people, Louisiana entered a period of political turmoil and violence, particularly surrounding elections and the right of formerly enslaved Black citizens to vote. The election of 1872 was marked by fraud, intimidation, and violence throughout the state.

In Grant Parish, with Colfax as the parish seat, both the Republican and Democratic (Fusionist) parties claimed victory in the local election for parish offices, including sheriff and district judge. The Republican Party supported suffrage and civil rights for formerly enslaved people. The Democrats sought a return to white supremacy and the prewar social order to the extent possible.

At the center of the dispute stood the parish courthouse, the center of governmental power in the parish. Initially occupied by Democrats, the courthouse was later taken by Republicans, who relied upon judicial rulings recognizing their claim to office. Democrats then organized plans to seize the courthouse by force, but word of the planned attack spread.

Under Louisiana law, the district judge instructed the sheriff to form a militia to protect the courthouse and public records from seizure. That militia was composed predominantly of Black men.

When Democrats learned that the courthouse was being defended, calls went out to surrounding parishes for armed assistance. By Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, a heavily armed white force had gathered outside Colfax. Anticipating attack, the defenders had dug a crescent-shaped trench from which they would to fight to defend the courthouse.

The attack began around noon. Initially there was a standoff, but the defenders were eventually forced to abandon their position when a small cannon was positioned so that it could fire directly into the trench. The courthouse—a repurposed plantation stable with brick walls and a cypress shingle roof—was then set on fire.

Later during the day, those captured, their hands tied behind their back, were executed, some of whom were told to stand close to each other so one bullet would result in two kills.

Governor William Kellogg, having learned of the developing crisis, dispatched a contingent of the Louisiana National Guard to Colfax. The troops arrived two days too late.

The official report of the National Guard described the courthouse grounds as strewn with the bodies of dead Black men. Orders were given to bury many of the bodies in the defensive trench dug around the courthouse. The report stated that fifty-four Black men were buried there.  Other reports have the number higher.

Only three white men were reported killed. Estimates of Black deaths ranged from approximately eighty to as many as one hundred fifty, the latter figure appearing on a Louisiana historical marker erected in 1951.

The killings were acts of racial and political terror intended both as punishment and as a warning. Black citizens were killed for exercising civil rights newly guaranteed after the Civil War, most importantly the right to vote and participate in government. The massacre became one of the defining events of Reconstruction-era violence in the South.

From the beginning, however, the presence of bodies buried in and around the courthouse square appears to have troubled the community.

In 1878, the Colfax Chronicle urged that the remains be removed because “they are at present in the way, besides being subjected to indignity and abuse that no one approves.” The suggestion was ignored.

After the original courthouse burned, court was temporarily held in mercantile buildings pending construction of a replacement courthouse. During construction of the new courthouse in 1878, the Chronicle reported that a skull and several bones were unearthed. The newspaper observed that “it looks bad to have these ghastly relics exhibited now and then,” referring to “that grinning cranium with a round bullet hole bored clear through it.”

The discoveries continued for generations.

On April 22, 1899, the Colfax Chronicle, in an article entitled “Only a Negro’s Bones,” reported that workmen digging a hole had uncovered the skull and bones of “one of the negroes killed in the Colfax riot 26 years ago.” The article stated:

“At once an idle and gaping crowd gathered, and several little boys exhibited ghoulish glee digging and scratching out the grim remains for inspection. True, it was only a negro’s bones, but common decency prompts that they be covered out of sight, and humanity dictates that the children should not be allowed to play the role of jackal and grave digger.”

The excavation was associated with construction of an artesian well in the courthouse square. Because the water was mixed with natural gas, the well later became known as the “Famous Burning Well of Colfax,” a local tourist attraction even featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

In 1902 another courthouse was constructed on the same site. In 1923, while workers were digging a ditch and repairing curbing near the courthouse square, another skeleton was unearthed. In 1927, during installation of water pipes, additional human remains were discovered and sent to Louisiana State University.

The discoveries continued even into modern times.

In 1965, while an addition to the present courthouse was under construction, workers excavating the foundation for the addition

unearthed bones that were collected by a twelve-year-old boy and later given to LSU. The Colfax Chronicle later described the reaction of the workers:

“The discovery [of bones] was so emotional, so much so that workers refused to continue digging. Human bones were human bones, and as far as the workers were concerned, they were laying the new courthouse’s foundation in a cemetery. And technically, they were.”

To this day, the burial site of the Black victims remains unmarked at the courthouse. Nothing on the courthouse grounds acknowledges either their deaths or their burial there.

The memory of the white dead, however, has long been preserved.

When the burial site of the man who fired the cannon at the courthouse reportedly fell into disrepair, the Grant Parish Police Jury voted to move his remains to the public cemetery and place a headstone and white picket fence around the grave.

Near the fiftieth anniversary of the massacre, the Police Jury funded approximately forty percent of the cost of a twelve-foot white marble obelisk dedicated to the “three heroes … who fell in the Colfax Riot fighting for White Supremacy.”

For many years, the courthouse square also contained a Louisiana historical marker referring to the event as the “Colfax Riot.” The marker stated:

“On this site occurred the Colfax Riot in which three white men and 150 negroes were slain. This event on April 13, 1873 marked the end of carpetbag misrule in the South.”

That marker was removed in 2021 after criticism from historians and others because it described the massacre as a “riot” and endorsed white supremacist interpretations of Reconstruction history. It has not been replaced. No marker identifies the burial ground beneath and around the courthouse.

Ironically, however, a historical marker was placed commemorating the now dead “Burning Well of Colfax.”

In recent years, Rev. Avery Hamilton, the great-grandson of the first Black man killed in the massacre, and Dean Woods, a descendant of one of the white participants, worked together to create a memorial honoring the victims. Their memorial stands not at the courthouse itself, but near the Kansas City Southern railroad right-of-way, removed from the courthouse grounds. Information regarding the memorial may be found at The Colfax Memorial.

More recently, the continued use of the courthouse as the seat of the 35^th Judicial District Court has raised a modern legal issue.

Louisiana law requires that a parish provide a building for the sitting of the district court, but the statute further requires that the building be “suitable” for that purpose. The question has therefore been raised whether a courthouse constructed in and around an unmarked mass grave resulting from racial violence is a “suitable” place for the administration of justice.

The massacre occurred more than 150 years ago, and present generations bear no responsibility for the acts committed in 1873. We are responsible, however, for how we respond to the continuing aftermath of those events and for the effect that the present condition of the courthouse grounds may have upon public confidence in the judicial system.

Courts derive their authority not merely from law, but from public trust in the fairness, impartiality, and integrity of the judicial process. It is axiomatic that justice must not only be fair and impartial but must also appear to be fair and impartial.

That principle raises a difficult but important question for Louisiana today: whether a court can properly administer justice while sitting in an unmarked mass grave created by one of the bloodiest acts of racial and political violence in American history.

Charles R. Moore

If you think Louisiana politics is rife with corruption, try combining ours with the politics in neighboring Texas for a truly potent blend of underhanded dealings.

And when it involves Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton teaming up with a Louisiana district attorney to take down an opponent of the district attorney, it can lead to only one obvious outcome: an application for funding from Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund settlement of his lawsuit against the IRS.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The story actually begins long ago and far away—eleven years ago in Austin, Texas—when on April 20, 2015, Paxton issued a press release announcing the filing of a lawsuit against a Houston-based learning center that the Texas AG said was selling fraudulent high school diplomas and transcripts.

Named as co-defendants along with Parkview Home School in Houston were Christian Chesson of Lake Charles, Lilton Chesson Jr. of Houston Tara Rose Castellanos, Mindy Kay Ring, Legal Properties, LLC of Lake Charles and the Chesson Family Partnership of Lafayette. More on some of the defendants later. Castellanos and Ring both are sisters of Christian Chesson and both worked for Parkview Home School.

In his press release, Paxton said since 1994, Parkview Home School “has provided fake high school diplomas and transcripts to Texas consumers for a fee and employs no teachers, requiring little or no coursework or educational requirements on their students. Defendants claim to have provided services to 42,000 “students” and has obtained approximately $1.4 million from Texas consumers” by charging customers fees between $200 and $300 for bogus diplomas and transcripts that were “not accepted by community colleges, four-year universities, trade schools, the military, law enforcement academies or employers.”.

So, how did a Lake Charles resident become embroiled in alleged fraudulent operations of a Houston home school?

In a word, politics. Whether it was Louisiana-flavored or Texas-style politics remains something of a mystery but there seems to be no question there was collusion against Christian Chesson who was opposing the reelection of Calcasieu District Attorney John DeRosier.

Less than a month after Paxton’s announcement of the lawsuit that included Christian Chesson as a defendant, the attempted smackdown of Chesson began with a May 15, 2015, formal complaint against him with the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board’s Office of the Disciplinary Council.

That letter was written by none other than DeRosier who wrote while Chesson’s campaign reported no contributions to his campaign, “Parkview Baptist School issued Mr. Chesson a $25,000 check on August 22, 2914, right before the date of qualifying for this election, and issued him a $20,000 check on December 15, 2014. Parkview Baptist School also issued Mr. Chesson a $9,000 check on October 31, 2014. Page 15 of Mr. Chesson’s 21-page March 1, 2015, report shows that he loaned his campaign $9,000 that same day.”

His complaint asserted that the checks constituted campaign contributions that far exceeded the $2500 limit set by state law.

Derosier noted that Chesson had claimed his campaign was “totally funded” by his personal loans to his campaign and that he further publicly denied any affiliation with the school. His complaint listed Chesson’s address as 4151 S.W. Freeway, Ste. 340, in Houston but Chesson’s attorney, John Green Jr., responded in an Aug. 21 letter that his client had been in LSU Law School during the time in question and was subsequently employed as a law clerk in Lake Charles until 1996 and was not residing in Houston.

Green went to explain in his letter that Chesson did indeed receive each of the payments claimed by DeRosier and used portions of the payments to loan money to his campaign. But the payments from Parkview, he said were for reimbursement of money that Chesson had spent on mortgage notes for his home in which his father, Lilton, was residing and for improvements to the Lilton Home where Christian Chesson was residing in Lake Charles.

A reconciliation of amounts spent by both parties conducted by a CPA revealed that Lilton Chesson still owed Christian Chesson $117,473.60.

“In short,” Green wrote, “the checks were made payable to Mr. Chesson, not his campaign, and were for personal loans unrelated to Parkview.

In the end, both the complaint to the Attorney Disciplinary Board and a complaint filed with the Louisiana Board of Ethics were dismissed along with Paxton’s filing of a “nonsuit with prejudice,” dismissing Chesson as a defendant—but only after Chesson had already incurred nearly $60,000 in legal fees.

Chesson called the entire affair “a quid pro quo between Paxton and his friend John DeRosier. What DeRosier gets in return from Paxton holds not just ethical concerns but also criminal charges,” he said in his own ethics complaint filed on Sept. 15, 2016. He said in his complaint that Paxton, during a trip to Lake Charles, “dined with his friend…John DeRosier. At that dinner, according to someone in attendance, Paxton and DeRosier planned ways to cause problems for me and my family after I had the ‘audacity,’ as DeRosier told the Louisiana Bar, to run against him.

“Part of that conspiracy launched by DeRosier against me was to target my family, friends and clients,” he said.

DeRosier died last October.

Chesson pointed out correctly that both DeRosier and Paxton had their own ETHICS PROBLEMS in the past.

But Chesson may yet have the last laugh.

When Donald Trump settled his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for the establishment of a $1.8 billion slush fund to award those whom had been “persecuted” and otherwise “improperly prosecuted” by the government, it may have opened an unanticipated Pandora’s Box for Republicans.

On Saturday, May 23, Chesson drafted an application for formal submission under the “Weaponization of Federal and Interstate Governmental Process for Political Retaliation Program” established under the fund.

The “Interstate Governmental Process for Political Retaliation” is the key clause here for his being named as a defendant in Paxton’s lawsuit certainly qualified as “interstate.” He likely will not receive anything with his application but it should be sufficient to cause at least some discomfort among the Trumpians.

Perhaps another of his attorneys, Gwen Richard, said it best when she messaged Chesson to say, “Hey Chris, this is a very clever use of the Republican B.S. fund. Someone obviously wasn’t thinking ahead to the fact that it could be used against them. I don’t know anybody with the [James]Talarico campaign, but I will check around with some of my political friends and see if they can recommend a connection. As for me, I’m getting the hell out of this country.”

Talarico is the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Texas. He will face the winner to today’s Republican Primary between Paxton and incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.

Ah, Louisiana. The political fights are never dull.

Meet West Monroe’s version of Donald Trump:

State Sen. John C. “Jay” Morris (R-West Monroe)

State Sen. John C. “Jay” Morris may not be a billionaire, he’s not POTUS and there’s no evidence he’s a philanderer.

But he is a member of the Trump Party (formerly called the Republican Party) and he seems to have this thing about wanting to suppress/dilute/eliminate the African-American vote and to carry out a political vendetta-type campaign against the (Orleans Parish, at least) judicial system.

And there is enough circumstantial evidence—despite his claims to the contrary—that he used his office as a state senator to his financial benefit and that he sponsored (and voted for) legislation that worked to strengthen his bottom line. There was enough smoke to attract the attention of Britain’s most prestigious publication, THE GUARDIAN, which boldly goes where most Louisiana media dare not go.

Call it business smarts or opportunism or even brazen insider-trading, but don’t call it coincidence.

It can’t be all happenstance that Morris:

• Signed on as co-sponsor to a pair of senate bills that would make him even richer;
• That he co-sponsored legislation that freed up a state agency to enter into deals that would benefit him financially;
• That he lobbied the Public Service Commission for approval for Meta to build one of the largest datacenters in the world in Rayville, just outside his senatorial district;
• That he neglected to inform anyone of his business connections to the legislation;
• That he would subsequently become a vendor for one of the entities he lobbied for, making him even more money in the process.

So, the skeptic might ask, why would he co-sponsor legislation in another senatorial district?

Well, you see, there’s this one last thing: he owns a lot of land over in Richland Parish and he’s been buying and selling acreage to all the right people since the datacenter project began. In fact, much of it (80 acres, in fact) is just across the street from the project site. Less than two months after Morris signed the deed to purchase the land, a senate committee he sits began considering a second bill that would give the Louisiana Economic Department the authority to sell state-owned property and within a month or so, Morris had signed on as cosponsor and voted for passage of the 2024 bill. That was SB 494 by Sen. Beth Mizel (R-Franklinton). The bill had smooth sailing in the HOUSE, passing by a 91-3 vote and by a unanimous 37-0 vote in the SENATE and Gov. Landry signed it into law (Act 590).

Morris, undeterred by the appearance of impropriety, instead of recusing himself, voted for both bills despite his business interests in their passage. He subsequently monetized the deal even more by turning the property into a dirt quarry for use on the Meta job site. Wow. How fortunate for him to have been in the right place at the right time.

During the entire process of legislative proceedings, Morris never once mentioned that he had a financial interest in what was—and is—the state’s largest economic development project. “A lot of my colleagues know that I have land holdings in Richland Parish, some of which are near the Meta site,” Morris sniffed. But no…I didn’t put it in the record and announce it. But there was nothing to require me to do that and I don’t know why I would need to do that.”

Wait. What? “A lot of his colleagues” knew of the connections and yet no one in the Loozeraner Legislature asked a single question about what appears to one important person to be an obvious conflict of interest. That speaks volumes about the ethos of his “colleagues” and sounds very much like the way Republicans in Congress address the ethical lapses of Trump. Funny how that works. Must be a Republican thing—or maybe just a Louisiana thing.

La Koshia Roberts, a former chair and the longest currently-serving member of the Louisiana Board of Ethics which investigates potential ethical misconduct by government officials (investigates, yes, but does nothing for the most part since being rendered virtually powerless by former Gov. Bobby Jindal way back in 2008), said, “The fact that he actually voted and didn’t recuse himself is a major concern of mine. He should not have voted for it.

Morris even reached way back to the mid-29^th century when he described those who have complained about dust from the construction project as being “from out of state” a-la local politicians’ claims of  “outside agitators” during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and ‘60s.

Morris lobbied PSC member Jean-Paul Coussan for approval of a $3.2 billion plan by Entergy to construct 100 miles of high-voltage transmission lines for the datacenter. The commission approved Entergy’s proposal by a 4-1 vote and four weeks later, Morris and his business partners signed agreements to sell nearly 300 acres to Entergy for construction of one of the company’s methane-fueled power stations for the datacenter which is named Hyperion.

Morris said he didn’t reveal his dealings with Entergy “because I was under an NDA  (nondisclosure agreement).”

Well, that’s a pretty convenient escape hatch.

That, of course, is the very purpose of NDAs: to shield the activities of public officials from public scrutiny—and sadly, it’s working.

NDAs have increasingly become a sore point with Louisiana voters and a state district judge recently ruled that Ascension Parish must open its NDAs for public disclosure, a decision that is being appealed. The fact that they hide from public view agreements such as that between Morris and Entergy and his property investments with the datacenter is the driving force behind the opposition to the documents which state and local officials have signed in every one of the state’s 64 parishes.

Morris, if you will recall, is also the one who has introduced the new congressional redistricting map that eliminates one of the state’s two Black congressional districts, diluting African-American representation to one-sixth of the state whose population is one-third Black.

He likewise is the senator who introduced legislation to reduce the number of judges and to eliminate one elected clerk of court position in Orleans Parish despite being located some 300 miles from New Orleans.

Both The Guardian and The Illuminator are exemplary in what real investigative reporting should be and in their coverage of the dark underbelly of Louisiana politics. Good to know that outstanding journalism still exists.

Guest column by Paul Spillman

Author and poet Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.” But the modern world shows us that not “everybody” faces the consequences of their choices. At least not in this life. No more obvious example exists than the President of the United States.

The litany of consequences Trump has escaped would take days to write from the bankruptcies and lawsuits he has faced as a private businessman to Jan. 6 to his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein to the slush fund he wants to establish with our tax dollars to pay off criminal cronies and lawbreaking sycophants. And Trump wants even more than escaping consequences. He wants to guarantee he never faces any. The slush fund his corrupt Department of Justice set up for him also includes a provision the IRS will never audit his taxes. The “Republican” party is trying to find ways to give it to him.

Nor are examples confined to Trump or politicians. The uber wealthy routinely buy their way out of consequences. The Sackler family comes to mind. The family owned Purdue Pharmaceuticals and addicted America to Oxycontin with false testing, kickbacks, and lies. But “consequences” for the Sackler family amounted to dissolving the company and paying a $4.5B fine. Did that leave the Sacklers impoverished? Well they have nine years to pay out the fine and are worth more than $11B so none are going hungry anytime soon. Or going to prison.

But consequences still apply for some. Ask Bill Cassidy or Thomas Massie. Ask Calvin Duncan who spent 25 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit because of a corrupt prosecutor. Duncan taught himself law, eventually won his release, ran for office and was elected in a landslide. But there are consequences for Duncan – consequences for being a living example of the corruption in the Louisiana judicial system. The Louisiana legislature – on a motion from a West Monroe politician – voted to eliminate Duncan’s New Orleans city office.

Still, for the powerful, for the wealthy, for the connected there are few consequences, if any.

 And recently we had a good example of that right here at home. LSU has hired former head coach Ed Orgeron as a special assistant to head coach Lane Kiffin.

Orgeron led LSU to arguably the greatest season in college football history complete with Heisman winner, undefeated record, and national championship. Every LSU fan will be forever grateful to Ed Orgeron for that season of football. But then it went south. Orgeron seemingly let his success go to his head. He embarrassed himself and LSU with his personal life antics and let the program deteriorate in the process. When he was fired midway through the 2021 season he made a snarky comment about giving him the money and telling him which door to walk out of. By the end of that season LSU football had only 39 scholarship players to field a team with for a bowl game. Post 2019 LSU won a combined eleven football games in two years under Orgeron.

But now Orgeron is back at LSU. Because there are no consequences for the favored, the connected, or your good buddy. Only for the poor saps without power, money, or important friends. Early reactions seem positive from fans. The glory of 2019 still shines bright. If any doubts are raised they are drowned out by pleas for a second chance and redemption. But second chances shouldn’t automatically mean third and fourth chances, too. And redemption can be found out of the spotlight as much as in it. Orgeron was a head coach at Ole Miss, unsuccessfully, and got a second chance at LSU – more of a second chance than he maybe first thought. Les Miles hired him as a defensive line coach but through a series of events most are already familiar with Orgeron was named interim head coach in 2016 and permanently named following that season. Second chances indeed. And redemption on a grand scale. The 2019 season was nothing short of magical, a season for the ages. No one will ever be able to take that from Orgeron. But then came the aftermath and the eventual firing.

In the grand scheme of things LSU hiring Orgeron is less than a drop in a bucket, but so indicative of what ails our modern society. What lessons are learned from examples such as this? Live for yourself. Make selfish choices. Hurt people. Cause financial harm. Leave with the money and some snark. But don’t worry. In a few years we’ll all act like it never happened. There’s no need to fret over a lack of morals or ethics. No need to reward honesty or punish dishonesty. It’s all about maxing out your own desires in the right-here-and-right-now. And those who are successful are celebrated, even elected president. They are certainly rewarded with endless opportunity to do it all again. In politics, in business, in sports. In all aspects of modern life.

And what of the rest of us. Those without power, money or connected friends? For the rest of us cynicism sets in. We begin to accept it all as normal, not something we can do anything about. Hope for the future becomes a victim of the times. A sense of helplessness, even despair, slowly becomes the norm. We feel defeated. There is something inherently wrong with escaping the consequences of your choices and each of us feels it in our bones. It offends us on a cellular level. If there are no consequences then selfishness is the only worthy pursuit. But consequences should be absolute. Redemption can be possible. But reward and celebration should follow redemption, not follow the absence of consequences.

Perhaps Orgeron seeks redemption at LSU. Or maybe he just wants a stepping stone back into coaching. Either way his good buddy Lane Kiffin is helping him out. Anyone at LSU who might have objected has been sent packing. And if it doesn’t work out Orgeron still has that $13 million buyout. He’s not going hungry anytime soon, either. Because that’s just the way the world turns in 2026.