A group of about one hundred and…
March 1891 CE
The following morning an ad appears in local newspapers calling for a mass meeting at the statue of Henry Clay, near the prison.
Citizens are told to "come prepared for action."
The Daily States editorializes:
Rise, people of New Orleans! Alien hands of oath-bound assassins have set the blot of a martyr's blood upon your vaunted civilization! Your laws, in the very Temple of Justice, have been bought off, and suborners have caused to be turned loose upon your streets the midnight murderers of David C. Hennessy, in whose premature grave the very majesty of our American law lies buried with his mangled corpse — the corpse of him who in life was the representative, the conservator of your peace and dignity.
As thousands of demonstrators gather near the Parish Prison, Pasquale Corte, the Italian consul in New Orleans, seeks the help of Louisiana governor Francis T. Nicholls to prevent an outbreak of violence.
The governor declines to take any action without a request from Mayor Shakspeare, who has gone out to breakfast and cannot be reached.
Meanwhile, at the Clay statue, attorney William S. Parkerson is exhorting the people of New Orleans to "set aside the verdict of that infamous jury, every one of whom is a perjurer and a scoundrel."
When the speech is over, the multi-racial crowd marches to the prison, chanting, "We want the Dagoes."
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Northern North America
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