The Pulaski riot illustrates post-Civil War racial violence against freedmen in Tennessee, where white attackers faced no legal consequences.
Key Facts
- Date
- January 7, 1868
- Location
- Pulaski, Tennessee
- Black men killed
- 1 killed, 1 mortally wounded
- Black men injured
- 4
- White casualties
- None
- Investigating body
- Freedmen's Bureau, Nashville
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
A trade dispute from the previous summer between Calvin Lamberth, a white man, and Calvin Carter, a Black man, created underlying tensions. The immediate trigger was Lamberth shooting Carter's friend Whitlock Fields over rumors that Fields had made comments about Lamberth's Black mistress.
After Lamberth shot Fields, roughly eighteen armed white men emerged from nearby houses and attacked Carter and seven other Black men sheltering in a Black-owned grocery store. Though a constable arranged a ceasefire, the white attackers then rushed the store and fired at close range into the group of freedmen gathered at the doorway.
One Black man was murdered and another mortally wounded, while four others sustained injuries. No white participants were injured or prosecuted for the attack. The Freedmen's Bureau office in Nashville subsequently investigated the incident, though no legal accountability followed.
Political Outcome
No whites were prosecuted; one Black man killed, one mortally wounded, four injured. Freedmen's Bureau investigated but no legal consequences resulted.
Freedmen nominally protected under Reconstruction-era law
White impunity reinforced; Black community left unprotected by local legal system