John DeSantis

It's a long way from Jackson Heights, NY to the Louisiana bayou country. But that's the path John DeSantis has traveled during a colorful and rewarding career. His book "The Thibodaux Massacre: Racial Violence and the 1887 Sugar Cane Labor Strike," published by The History Press, is available here on Amazon. He regards it as one of his most important tasks to date. This book includes never-before published information on a brutal incident in the nation's labor and racial history. The book, and John's dedication to truth and justice, resulted in an acknowledgement of the massacre by the city of Thibodaux and the parish of Lafourche. Nicholls State University, a component of the Louisiana University System, awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters. John began chasing homicides in New York's meanest streets during the bloody 1970s and 1980s for leading wire services, and then covered Brooklyn courts for United Press International. One of the cases he was most involved with stemmed from the 1989 murder of Yusuf Hawkins in New York City during a period of great turmoil, resulting in his first book, For the Color of His Skin: The Murder of Yusuf Hawkins and the Trial of Bensonhurst. The murder, which divided a city and forced it to come to terms with its racial divisions, is chronicled in the award-winning HBO film "Storm Over Brooklyn." His second book, The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence, was published in 1994. Both are available on Amazon, including a 2013 paperback and Kindle update of "For The Color Of His Skin." John went on to work as a staff reporter at papers in the New York Times regional chain, in Louisiana, Florida and North Carolina, as well as papers in Mississippi and California. His career has heavily centered on social and criminal justice issues, including exposing the Ku Klux Klan on the Mississippi coast. He provided special coverage of Hurricane Katrina for the NY Times in New Orleans, and for the Houma Courier intensely covered the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its effects on Louisiana fishing communities. His personal e-mail address is bayouscribe@hotmail.com