Black on the RMS Titanic

The Forgotten Black French Family Aboard the “Unsinkable” Ship

The Laroche family and the “unsinkable” Titanic.

Though lost to history for decades, a black family’s experience aboard the Titanic surfaced in 1995. In April 1912, A 25-year-old Haitian native, Joseph Laroche, traveled aboard the RMS Titanic in second-class accommodations. Accompanying him were his pregnant wife, Juliette Marie Louise Lafargue—daughter of a Paris wine merchant—and their two daughters, Simonne and Louise. While the tragedy that unfolded is now among the most infamous disasters in history, news outlets, films, plays, and other accounts failed to mention the black passengers of the ill-fated ship. The Laroche family’s travel aboard the Titanic during its maiden voyage is well-documented, but it remained hidden from the public for nearly 100 years.

Joseph’s wife, Juliette, survived the sinking but was traumatized following the tragic event. She said nothing to the press for the rest of her life, but her daughter Louise broke her silence for an interview in 1995 with a French representative of the Titanic Historical Society. Five years later, Ebony magazine ran an article by Zondra Hughes that shed more light on the subject.

Joseph Philippe Lemercier Laroche was born in a northern part of Haiti called Cap-Haitien on May 26, 1886. He hailed from a prominent family, his uncle being the sitting Haitian president Michel Cincinnatus Leconte. And unlike many black families who lost their histories to the slave trade, Joseph could trace his lineage back to the 1800s, linking him to a Haitian named Henri Laroche, a cobbler for Haiti’s first emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. The emperor was the great-grandfather of Leconte, the 19th Haitian president.

Joseph grew up surrounded by affluence and received private tutoring early in life, becoming fluent in French and English. He dedicated himself to his studies and realized he wanted to become an engineer. Since no schools in Haiti catered to that field, the family made arrangements for Joseph to travel to France at age 15. Joseph’s teacher, Monsignor Kersuzan, the Lord Bishop of Haiti, accompanied him. Joseph studied engineering in two French cities, Beauvais and Lille, and graduated in 1907 with an engineering degree.

Haitian President Michel Cincinnatus Leconte.

Joseph later visited Villejuif, a small French village near Paris, and met Juliette Lafargue, who he married in 1908. The couple welcomed a daughter, Simonne Marie Anne Andrée Laroche, on February 19, 1909. A second daughter, Louise Laroche, joined the family on July 2, 1910. When Joseph attempted to enter the Paris workforce as an engineer, he experienced racial discrimination and was initially denied employment, despite his affluent background and French education. When he did secure work, it paid poorly, and Juliet’s father, a widower, supported the couple using funds from his wine business, but Joseph wanted to provide for his growing family on his own. The couple learned they were pregnant with a third child in March 1912, and Joseph wanted him to be born in Haiti. His uncle—Haitian president Leconte—secured a teaching position for Joseph in math. 

Joseph’s mother, exhilarated by the prospect of her son returning to Haiti with his new family, bought them first-class tickets on a French ocean liner, the SS France. But the ship’s policy called for children to reside in a nursery and barred them from dining with their parents. Joseph wanted to keep his family together during the voyage, so he traded the tickets for second-class passage on the RMS Titanic, a new British ocean liner and the largest ship afloat at the time. Second-class accommodations on the Titanic equaled first-class accommodations on any other liner considering their spaciousness and intricacy.

On April 10, 1912, Joseph and his family boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg, France, while a crowd gazed at the impressive ship, and a band played the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise.” Juliet wrote to her father and posted the letter from their next stop, Queenstown, Ireland. In part, it read:

We boarded the Titanic last evening at 7:00. If you could see this monster, our tender looked like a fly compared to her. The arrangements could not be more comfortable. We have two bunks in our cabin, and the two babies sleep on a sofa that converts into a bed. One is at the head, the other at the bottom. A board put before them prevents them from falling. They’re as well, if not better, than in their beds.”

The Café Parisien, located starboard on Titanic’s B Deck near the Aft Grand Staircase.

The ship was a luxurious affair, offering world-class amenities that included a Turkish bath, a library, a pool filled with heated saltwater, a Parisian-style cafe, and oak-paneled smoking rooms where men could gather and converse freely. The Titanic was due to arrive in New York at Pier 59 on the morning of April 17, 1912, but she would never make it there.

Before the tragic event, the wireless operators received six reports about drifting ice encountered by other steamers. Officials ignored those warnings and decided to travel at full speed. The Titanic’s North Atlantic journey abruptly ended around 11:40 p.m. on the night of April 14 when it struck an iceberg that tore into the starboard hull. The coast of Newfoundland was 370 miles off when the ship began to sink. The terrible irony was that a liner deemed unsinkable was ill-prepared for the disaster since only 20 lifeboats served more than 2,200 passengers and crew members. There were fourteen standard wooden lifeboats, two wooden cutters, and four collapsible canvas lifeboats in all. But the law at the time made this entirely legal as the number of required lifeboats centered on a ship’s gross tonnage and not on the passenger capacity.

Before the tragic event, the wireless operators received six reports about drifting ice encountered by other steamers. Officials ignored those warnings and decided to travel at full speed.

Joseph and his family were asleep in their cabin when a steward came with orders to put on lifejackets. There was an accident. Joseph moved quickly, stuffing money and jewels in his pockets and ushering his family—who spoke no English—toward the lifeboats. Joseph helped his pregnant wife and daughters onto a lifeboat and remained on the deck since men were not allowed. They sailed away and never saw him again, and there is no record of what he endured. As with the other survivors, Juliette and her daughters were stranded and forced to view the sinking ship from a distance while braving cold temperates. While less than half the passengers made it to the lifeboats, everyone received lifejackets. But even those who kept their heads above water as they floated succumbed to immersion hypothermia since the water was below freezing.

The Carpathia, the nearest rescue ship, was 58 miles away. It arrived nearly two hours after the Titanic sank. All those who did not make it into the lifeboats and were kept afloat by lifejackets died. Juliette and her daughters boarded the Carpathia with more than 700 other survivors and sailed to New York, where onlookers waited in masses. The Carpathia traveled through night fog and arrived in New York at 9:30 p.m. on April 18, 1912. It was cold and raining. The ship bypassed its home pier and sailed upriver to drop off the Titanic’s empty lifeboats at Pier 59, the White Star Line pier. Then the ship sailed back to Pier 54, the Cunard Line pier, to drop off its passengers and survivors of the tragic sinking. Photographers snapped flash photos from a trailing tugboat. 

Since they had lost everything during the maritime disaster, Juliette and her daughters decided against continuing to Haiti and returned to France the following month, sailing aboard a French ship, the SS Chicago. Juliette lived with her father for a time, but his business could not support the entire family, so he urged her to file suit against the White Star Line. Juliette sued the company and waited several years before she received a settlement of 150,000 francs in 1918. She used the money to start a craft business which proved successful.

Her eldest daughter, Simone, never married and died on August 8, 1973, at age 64. Juliette died at age 91, on January 10, 1980. Joseph Laroche Jr, the son she gave birth to in December of 1912, died in 1987. Louise, the middle child, was the last French survivor of the Titanic. She lived to tell the tale of the only black family who sailed aboard her. She died in Paris, France, on January 28, 1998.

You may also be interested in: