In the summer of 1866, racial tensions ran high in Louisiana as a constitutional convention considered disenfranchising former Confederates and enfranchising blacks. On July 30, a procession of black suffrage supporters pushed through an angry throng of hostile whites. Words were exchanged, shots rang out, and within minutes a riot erupted with unrestrained fury. When it was over, at least forty-eight men―an overwhelming majority of them black―lay dead and more than two hundred had been wounded. In An Absolute Massacre, James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., examines the events surrounding the confrontation and offers a compelling look at the racial tinderbox that was the post-Civil War South. “Hollandsworth weaves a narrative of events shocking in themselves . . . almost wholly a police-perpetrated murder of dozens of blacks and pro-Union whites.”― ― Booklist “A superb narrative that brings to life the riot and its participants as never before.”― ― North and South “In sublime detail, and with a novelist’s flair, Hollandsworth takes the reader through the [riot], almost by the hour, describing both the fear and the fury.”― ― Register of the Kentucky Historical Society “Hollandsworth’s skillful use of riveting firsthand testimony and dramatic recreation of key events offer chilling insight into the deadly assault.”― ― Journal of Southern History “A compelling narrative that follows the riot from its wartime origins through its impact on subsequent Reconstruction policy. . . . A very engrossing read.”― ― American Historical Review James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., was the author of The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience during the Civil War and Pretense of Glory: The Life of Nathaniel P. Banks.