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The Lafayette Parish Community Remembrance Project

The History of Lynching Exhibit

Ovide Belizaire

On the evening of July 19, 1895, a white mob murdered Ovide Belizaire, a black man in his forties, inside his own home in Youngsville, Louisiana. Searching the neighborhood for a thief, the mob knocked on Mr. Belizaire's door. Newspaper reports accused Mr. Belizaire of firing on the mob upon answering the door, but five of his family members testified at the coroner's inquest that he had invited the mob in to look around and was sitting on the bed when he was struck on the head with a blunt instrument and shot. The jury nonetheless concluded that Mr. Belizaire was murdered by 'unknown parties.' He was survived by his wife Sarah, his sons Wilson and Cornelius, and his relatives Cilla and Honore Burns. No one was ever held accountable for the murder of Ovide Belizaire, one of at least African American victims of racial terror lynching killed in Lafayette.

Excerpt from exhibit:

"On the evening of July 19, 1895, a white mob murdered Ovide Belizaire, a black man in his forties, inside his own home in Youngsville, Louisiana. Searching the neighborhood for a thief, the mob knocked on Mr. Belizaire's door. Newspaper reports accused Mr. Belizaire of firing on the mob upon answering the door, but five of his family members testified at the coroner's inquest that he had invited the mob in to look around and was sitting on the bed when he was struck on the head with a blunt instrument and shot. The jury nonetheless concluded that Mr. Belizaire was murdered by 'unknown parties.' He was survived by his wife Sarah, his sons Wilson and Cornelius, and his relatives Cilla and Honore Burns.

No one was ever held accountable for the murder of Ovide Belizaire, one of at least African American victims of racial terror lynching killed in Lafayette."