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The Memphis Massacre of 1866
All Around the Nation Same Song
Before May 1, 2025, I’d never heard of the Memphis Massacre of 1866. Two weeks later, after going down several rabbit holes of information. I learned more than I imagined, some things extending far beyond what happened the first three days of May 1866.
To understand the massacre, you need to appreciate what Memphis was like a year after the Civil War ended. Union soldiers had occupied Memphis since its capture in 1862. Tennessee was a slave state, the last to secede from the Union. Though sentiments were mixed throughout the state, West Tennessee, including Memphis, was mostly pro-slavery.
When the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, enslaved people in states like Tennessee that had seceded. To be free, enslaved people had to get to either a free state or an army base like Fort Pickering in Memphis. Several contraband camps had been set up in and around Memphis. By 1866, the Black population had increased from 3,000 in 1860 to over 20,000. They made up over half of the population.
The all-white Memphis Police Department had grown, too. The 15th Amendment had yet to pass, so only white men could vote. A large percentage of white men in the city were former Confederates who hadn’t sworn allegiance to the Union and therefore couldn’t vote. Irish people comprised…
