This Titanic story, I never knew.
Whatever happened to the only black family aboard the Titanic?
There was only one black passenger on board the Titanic and his name was Joseph Philippe Lemercier Laroche.
Born into a prosperous and powerful family in Cap-Haitien, Haiti on May 26, 1886, Joseph was the nephew of Haitian president Dessalines M. Cincinnatus Leconte.
At the age of 15, he went to study engineering in Beauvais, France. Joseph spoke French, Creole and English fluently. Shortly after receiving his degree in engineering, Joseph was visiting a small village in France when he met a white French woman named Juliette Lafargue, his future wife. They later married and had two daughters, Simone and Louise. With mounting medical bills for Louise and the inability to find a job due to the racial discrimination that prevailed at the time, Joseph decided it would be a good idea to move his family back to Haiti within a year. However, it was soon discovered that Juliette was pregnant with their third child, so they decided to leave early before she was too far along to travel. Originally, Joseph had first-class tickets to board LaFrance, but due to a strict policy separating children and parents, Joseph later transferred to second-class tickets on the RMS Titanic, so that they could stay with their daughters, one of whom often fell ill.
From New York, Titanic’s destination, they planned to take another ship to Haiti where Joseph had accepted a professorship of mathematics.
Neither Joseph nor Juliette could have anticipated the tragic complications of their decision.
On April 10, 1912, the Laroches boarded the RMS Titanic at Cherbourg. Over the next three days, they enjoyed several of the amenities afforded to the second-class passengers. Juliette even took the time to write a letter to her father and sent from Titanic’s final stop of Queenstown, Juliette Laroche wrote about the luxurious ship and the friendly travelers they had met.
On the night of April 14, 1912, their journey across the North Atlantic would come to an abrupt end. According to Juliette’s account, a steward woke the family and rushed them above decks to the lifeboats. Juliette spoke no English and was generally confused about what was happening. She followed her husband to the boat deck. Sometime after midnight, crew members were given the order to load women and children first. Juliette and one of her daughters, Simone, managed to get into a lifeboat. Joseph Laroche’s last known actions are rushing to make sure his second daughter Louise, was placed safely in the same lifeboat 14-as her mother and sister. Joseph stuffed the pockets of his coat with money and jewels before heading up on deck. He wrapped the coat around his wife and his last words to her were: “Here, take this. You are going to need it. I’ll get another boat. God be with you. I’ll see you in New York.” Sadly, on the night of April 15, 1912, Joseph was one of the many passengers who did not survive the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
Joseph Laroche’s body was never recovered; he was only 25 years old when he died.
Juliette was now a widow, pregnant, and with her two young daughters at her side, felt all alone in New York after the RMS Carpathia picked up the Titanic survivors and transported them there. The next three weeks were extremely difficult for Juliette. However, she was finally able to board another ship and make it back home safely to her native France. A few months later on December 17, 1912, she gave birth to a son, who she named Joseph.
She never healed from the trauma and even disliked talking about her story of survival and even instructed her children to never speak about the event.
Many survivors never mentioned the presence of a black man and his family. His story has been overlooked for decades, and only through a complete historical search has it become more known.
Sources: Court Theater; TheGrio
Marie~
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