Louisiana
The state, between 1882 and 1968, recorded 391 total lynchings with 335 of the victims being black. Most of these murders occurred in South Louisiana, where mob violence was more prevalent. These lynchings were a manifestation of the system of racial hierarchy that underlay South Louisiana’s sugar economy, writes Michael J. Pfeifer. In June 1896, Walter Starks, an African American was killed by white lynchers after being accused of robbing and attempting to murder a wife of a plantation owner in St. Mary Parish.
