From the Sugar Rows to the Statehouse: Bernard Babtiste on Black Leadership in 1896alt Louisiana
In this 1896alt editorial, freedman Bernard Babtiste defends Black political legacy in Louisiana, remembering the years when they governed—and built.
An Editorial by Bernard Babtiste, 1896alt
Published in The New Southern Standard
The editors of The Opelousas Courier ask if the Negro shall again dominate Louisiana, as though we ever truly did. I reckon they forgot we were here—on this land, in these fields, in those chambers. Or more likely, they never forgave the fact that for a brief flicker of years, the people who once plowed the soil were allowed to shape the laws that governed it.
I write as a freedman, yes. But I also write as a father, a farmer, and a citizen of this state—not a subject of it.
In the years following the war, we tasted something close to justice. In Pointe Coupee and Saint Landry, Black men like myself voted, held office, and governed with dignity. We helped balance budgets, build schools, and bury old hatreds beneath new harvests.
We had a Lieutenant Governor, Oscar Dunn—Black, brilliant, and bold. And Antoine Dubuclet, a sugar planter like me, served as State Treasurer for a full decade, trusted with every dollar of Louisiana’s public purse. You may try to whitewash the windows, but those names are carved into the ledger of this land.
Now I read these editorials that warn of our return as if we are a plague. That call us ignorant, violent, unfit. But what scares them isn’t our ignorance—it’s our memory. We remember being free. We remember governing. We remember what you stole.
And still, we ask for no revenge. We ask only that the vote be sacred. That the soil be fair. That the law serve all who live beneath its shadow.
If the white man fears that the Black man will dominate, it is only because he cannot imagine a world where we govern together. But I have seen it. I saw it in the schoolhouse my son Elias opened, where both freedmen and Creoles taught under the same roof. I saw it in the cooperative mills where we pooled sugar profits to build homes.
That world was not a dream. It was a brief reality. You buried it with bayonets and ballots soaked in fraud.
But roots run deep in Louisiana. And I say this plainly:
We have already governed once. We remember how. And we will not forget the way back.
—Bernard Babtiste, Opelousas, March 1896alt
Further Reading & Historical Context
This editorial is a fictionalized response to the real article titled "What It Means" published in The Opelousas Courier [volume], February 22, 1896, Image 1, archived by the Library of Congress at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov.
Oscar James Dunn (1826–1871) Born into slavery in New Orleans and freed as a child, Oscar Dunn rose to become the first Black man elected as Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana—and the United States. A staunch Radical Republican, he championed civil rights, education, and universal suffrage. He died mysteriously while in office, and some suspected poisoning.
Antoine Dubuclet (1810–1887) A successful sugar planter and one of the wealthiest Black men in the South before the Civil War, Antoine Dubuclet served as Louisiana’s State Treasurer from 1868 to 1878. He was the longest-serving official in that role during Reconstruction, overseeing finances with stability and integrity amid intense political turmoil.
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