The Custom House Conspiracy

In the summer of 1866, a group of freed slaves led by a radical white dentist, attempted to reconvene a State Constitutional convention with the express purpose of giving themselves the right to vote. Nearly four dozen of these delegates would be murdered and scores more wounded as a result. The ‘New Orleans Riot of 1866’, would serve as a catalyst to bring about the disenfranchisement the former Confederates, passage of the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, and place the defeated South under martial law for nearly a decade. Out of the rubble would arise a man whom even his enemies described as honest and untainted by corruption. Oscar James Dunn, America’s 1st. African American lieutenant Governor and the first to serve as Governor would spearhead a coup that would end with the impeachment of Louisiana’s most powerful and corrupt governor and the overwhelming endorsement of President Grant and Louisiana’s Republican Party to lead the ticket in 1872.