120 years ago: Parish Prison murders

On March 14, 1891, under the cover of a large, angry mob, teams of assassins hand picked by William Parkerson and other New Orleans political leaders, broke into Orleans Parish Prison and murdered eleven men held prisoner there.

An execution squad, supposedly assigned to bring Italian prisoners outside for trial by the mob, corners helpless men in the Orleans Parish Prison courtyard. While the men beg for mercy, the squad opens fire with rifles provided by its political bosses.

While the event is known as the Cresent City Lynchings and is recorded as the largest single lynching to take place on American soil, its cold-blooded and deliberate nature is at odds with our usual definition of "lynching," a spontaneous, emotional and violent uprising. Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia argues that the event was a calculated mass murder conducted for political rather than emotional reasons. The New Orleans Mafia, supposedly the target of the so-called "lynch mob," was left unharmed by the attack. Its boss, Charlie Matranga, was not even targeted by the execution squads.

Today, we recall the Italian-American victims of this attack:
- Joseph P. Macheca
- Manuel Polizzi
- Rocco Geraci
- Loreto Comitis
- Frank Romero
- Antonio Bagnetto
- James Caruso
- Charles Traina
- Pietro Monastero
- Antonio Marchesi
- Antonio Scaffidi

Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia (Softcover 2d edition)

Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia (Kindle 2d edition)