History Lesson: What Happened To The Only Black Family On The TITANIC

[Alynetta Beck]

by Zondra Hughes

IN the blockbuster film Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio's role could have easily been played by a Black man--and it would have been historically accurate. In fact, the life story of Haitian native Joseph Phillippe Lemercier Laroche is far more intriguing than the movie's lead character, but no one knew of his existence until recently. The silence about the stranger-than-fiction life story of the Titanic's only Black passenger astonishes noted Titanic historian Judith Geller, author of Titanic: Women and Children First, who said, "It is strange that nowhere in the copious 1912 press descriptions of the ship and the interviews with the survivors was the presence of a Black family among the passengers ever mentioned." Read more...

[Beverly]

SHOCKING!