The scale of the massacre and the political conflict it represents are of state and national significance in relation to Reconstruction and United States racial histories . Despite this , the event has been hidden in local history for decades . Moreover , the site has changed : some of the areas have been paved , and the old courthouse was torn down and a new courthouse was built . Finally , without archeological work to establish where victims were buried at the site , people have had difficulty defining a site to gain approval for a historic memorial . In 1920 , a committee met in Colfax to purchase a monument to memorialize the three white men who died . This monument stands in Colfax Cemetery and reads " Erected to the memory of the Heroes , / Stephen Decatur Parish / James West Hadnot / Sidney Harris / Who fell in the Colfax Riot fighting for White Supremacy . " In 1950 , Louisiana erected a state highway marker noting the event of 1873 as " the Colfax Riot , " as the event was traditionally called in the white community . The marker states , " 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 . " The Colfax massacre is among the events of Reconstruction and late 19th-century history which have received new national attention in the early 21st century , much as the 1923 massacre in Rosewood , Florida did near the end of the 20th century . In 2007 and 2008 two new books were published on the topic : Leeanna Keith 's '' The Colfax Massacre : The Untold Story of Black Power , White Terror , and the Death of Reconstruction '' , and Charles Lane 's '' The Day Freedom Died : The Colfax Massacre , the Supreme Court , and the Betrayal of Reconstruction . '' Lane especially addressed the political and legal implications of the Supreme Court case , which arose out of the prosecution of several men of the white paramilitary groups . In addition , a film documentary is in preparation
1923 massacre
Rosewood massacre
Colfax massacre