New Orleans Riot

The New Orleans Riot, which occurred on July 30, 1866, was a violent conflict outside of the Mechanics Institute in New Orleans during the reconvened Louisiana Constitutional Convention. The Radical Republicans in Louisiana, who reconvened the Constitutional Convention, were angered by the enactment of the Black Codes in Louisiana and by the legislature's refusal to give black men the vote. The reconvened convention was illegally formed and its intended purpose was to use the popular Republican swing in Washington, D.C. to attempt to take control of the state government. The riot itself "stemmed from deeply rooted political, social, and economic causes," and took place in part because of the battle "between two opposing factions for power and office."

New Orleans had been under martial law imposed by the Union for the greater part of the American Civil War but on May 12, 1866 Mayor John T. Monroe was reinstated as acting mayor, the position he held before the civil war. The convention was led by Judge R. K. Howell and was undertaken with the aim to seize the state government.

The riot illustrated conflicts deeply rooted within the social structure of Louisiana. It is noted that nearly half of the blacks in the riots were veterans of the Union army and more than half of the whites were former Confederate soldiers. The reaction to the riot was felt throughout the United States and led to the Republican Party taking control of both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate in the United States House election, 1866. The estimate of the number of casualties comes to 38 killed and 46 wounded.