"Indianapolis Indiana Voting Riot" (May 5,1876)

Long after the 15th Amendment to the  Constitution was ratified,many white Hoosiers,in Indiana continued to work against enfranchisement for African Americans citizens.Laws limiting the civil rights of African Americans were kept in the state constitution;in many towns & cities,African Americans were intimidated or physically assaulted.Intimidation of nonwhites at the polls was common during the 19th century,carried out by such groups as a paramilitary unit known as The Wide Awakes.The 1872 elections saw several such attacks;the 1876 elections in Indianapolis are where the worst recorded violence against African American citizens occurred.
May 3,1876,was Election day for Indianapolis city offices.As the wore on,news began to spread in the city's African American neighborhoods that  African American voters were being physically attacked and assaulted at the voting stations in Ward Six.A group of African American citizens from the city's fourth ward set out to investigate,and as they approached the voting site,police met them.Armed with wooden spokes manufactured by
a neighborhood wheel company,police had arrived in the Fourth Ward and had been joined by white residents of the neighborhood.The combine group converged on the African American citizens and attacked them;several African Americans were injured,one man stabbed,two or three were shot,and several beaten.The man who had been stabbed later from his wounds;there were no reports o injuries among the police of the white men present.
One Indianapolis newspaper reported that day the voter suppression had been successful:"One man was knocked down and dragged out and others kept aloof from the polls rather than incur the risk of meeting alike fate."The next day,the Indiana Sentinel,Indianapolis News,and Indianapolis Journal all carried stories about the events,but produced conflicting testimonials as to who had started the riot.The Sentinel laid all of the blame on the African Americans,claiming that they had arrived carrying bludgeons and describing them as "murderous" and frenzied" the same newspaper,in another story,declaired that all African Americans voters were "slaves" of the Republicans Party,turned 'vicious" by their new masters.Several white were arrested,all of the cases were dismissed.Incidents of intimidations of African Americans voters continued,the violence of the Election Riot of 1876  was not repeated.It was not until 1881 that Article XIII of the 1851 state constitution,which denied nearly all rights to African Americans,was struck from that document.