Thibodeauxville - The Story of the Thibodaux Massacre: Race, Riot, and Resilience

"Thibodeauxville – The Story of the Thibodaux Massacre: Race, Riot, and Resilience" is a character-driven, archival-rich feature documentary that follows director and native daughter Christina Hill as she returns to her hometown of Thibodaux, Louisiana, to confront the long-buried legacy of the 1887 Thibodaux Massacre. Through the voices of descendants, historians, activists, and community members, the film reopens one of the darkest and most misunderstood chapters in American labor history, while asking what it means to remember, to resist, and to heal.

For many Americans, Black history education skips nearly a century between Emancipation in 1865 and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. "Thibodeauxville" confronts that historical amnesia by revisiting one of the deadliest, yet most silenced, labor uprisings in U.S. history - the 1887 Sugar Cane Labor Strike - that resulted in the Thibodaux Massacre, where Black sugarcane workers striking for fair wages and equitable work conditions were slaughtered by white vigilantes. Set against the backdrop of the failed promise of Reconstruction, the film excavates a layered history of race, labor, and power in postbellum America. This documentary doesn’t just tell a story of racial violence; it interrogates what happens to a town, a people, and a nation when the truth is buried for generations. Through interviews with descendants of both victims and perpetrators, historians, and authors, "Thibodeauxville" explores the science of memory and silence, intergenerational trauma, and collective resilience. With nods to epigenetics, neuropsychology, and trauma studies, "Thibodeauxville" considers how systemic racial violence imprints itself not only on historical narratives but on the bodies and minds of its survivors and their descendants. Why do some communities forget while others remember? How do people maintain hope in the face of inherited fear? And what role does storytelling play in the neurological process of healing? By tracing the ripple effects of the 1887 massacre - from generational wealth gaps to persistent racial inequity - "Thibodeauxville" becomes more than a historical reckoning. It is a study of how communities metabolize trauma, how power manipulates collective memory, and how Black Americans have long used resistance as a biological, cultural, and political strategy for survival. This is not just a regional story: it’s a microcosm of America. One where the political legacy of white supremacy intersects with the science of generational trauma, the social psychology of silence, and the cultural endurance of Black resistance.

Website : www.thibodeauxvillefilm.com

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Director | Christina Hill

Producer/ AD | Jessica Kennedy Vickers

Producer | Kimberly K. Wilson

Producer | Chelsea “CC” Charles-McClure

Producer | DaVida Chanel (Smith) Baker

Producer/Editor | Ron Grubbs