Warning. This episode contains depictions of graphic violence that may not be suitable

for younger audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

From the morning of March 14, 1891, every newspaper in New Orleans and many throughout

the nation featured the same story in their headlines. Nine of the 19 men accused of

the assassination of police chief David Hennessy were either acquitted or excused from prosecution.

Roughly five months earlier, Hennessy had been shot down in the mud of Girard Street, not far

from his home. A friend, Bill O'Connor, rushed to his side and asked the dying man who

did it. Hennessy replied with a derogatory term for Italians.

Day goes, he said, and he died of his wounds the following morning.

The murder of rocked New Orleans. Its implications were far reaching, from docks along the Mississippi

River to white tablecloth dining rooms of the rich mansions. But the mass roundup of Italian

Americans and immigrants that followed was the tragic story that would endure.

On the morning of March 14, something else appeared in every newspaper in the city,

an advertisement for a mass meeting that read, all good citizens are invited to attend

a mass meeting on Sunday March 14 at 10 o'clock a.m. at the Clay Statue to take steps to

remedy the failure of justice in the Hennessy case. The Clay Statue was that of Henry Clay,

the Kentucky Senator. It was on Canal Street near the prison where the 19 suspects were

being held. The advertisement added one more line of text that read, come prepared for

action. The ad had been signed by the Committee for Safety. It was a group of affluent and

influential men, men like Attorney William Parkerson and prominent businessmen James Houston.

For some, their cause really was the justice they believed David Hennessy had not received.

But for many, the call to action was about race and money. When civic leaders began to

...