ABSTRACT
Robert Charles, a Black man who was born and raised in Mississippi and later resided in New Orleans, Louisiana, shot 27 White people (including seven police officers) between Monday, July 23, and Friday, July 27, 1900. Seven died, eight were seriously wounded, and 12 had minor injuries. White newspapers described Charles as “an unreasoning brute,” a “cocaine fiend,” a “worthless, crapshooting negro,” and a “ruthless black butcher” (Hair, 2008, p. 2). In a piece titled “The Making of a Monster,” one reporter for the New Orleans Times-Democrat pondered,
It is only natural that the deepest interest should attach to the personality of Robert Charles. What manner of a man was this fiend incarnate? What conditions developed him? Who were his preceptors? From what ancestral strain, if any, did he derive his ferocious hatred of the whites, his cunning, his brute courage, the apostolic zeal which he displayed in spreading the propaganda of African equality? These are the questions involving one of the most remarkable psychological problems of modern times. (Quoted in Wells-Barnett, 1900/2005, p. 45)
