Warning: This article contains graphic depictions of racial violence.

Nokby County, Mississippi — Travonder Dixon-McCloud grew up in Macon, Mississippi, and heard that local white thugs killed a black principal and other prominent community leaders. Honest citizens also closed single schools for black children in the early 20th century, when they were unable to study with white children. Emma Lou Martin-Brooks, Dixon-McCloud's great-grandmother, went to the eighth grade by herself, which was the highest education she received, but the principal later asked her to teach in this elementary school. 

Martin-Brooks shared this terrible story with descendants like Dixon-McCloud, who is now a local congresswoman.

On June 15, 2021, Dixon-McCloud sat in the library and said: “She told me that she was a black headmistress, she had a school building, and my great-grandmother was the single A teacher at a laboratory school.” She works as a clinical psychologist at Noxubee County High School. "She said they killed (the principal). However, they didn't hang him. It had something to do with water." 

In a county where at least 10 blacks were lynched and executed, local white terrorist groups — many of them well-known citizens with the help of law enforcement agencies, according to records — brought blacks across the Noxubi River to flogging, lynching, and lynching. Drown or threaten these actions if they have ever returned to their homes. If they force the target population to flee the county, the black community may think they are dead, making them worry that this will happen to them too.

News reports and U.S. Congressional records support local mob attacks on black schools and many other terrorist incidents-this incident may be called the Macon riots of 1919, which is the most famous violent white riot in Noxubi County, with its own Wikipedia page. Cameron McWhirter wrote in his 2011 book "Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black Americans" that on June 7, 1919, "a group of white thugs attacked and beat a principal, a businessman and other Several famous blacks."

This type of violence by white thugs is extremely common in the South, especially across the country. During this period, even for educated white Americans far from the South, false science about the danger of “racial mixing” causing white blood contamination (which is not actually a real thing) became popular. "Mixed" schools can lead to terrible hybrids, which white supremacists have long worried about.

McWhirter discovered from historical records that Macon thugs ransacked local shops run by people they believed were trying to organize the progress and political participation of local African Americans, and ordered them to leave Macon and never return. News Scimitar, a black newspaper in Memphis, reported on June 9, 1919 that the mob took three Black Macon residents-including the principal-"crossed the river and gave them good advice." The next night, a white gang kidnapped and took another black local "crossing the river". They allegedly drew a pistol at the plantation owner. Scimitar reported that the man "has not returned yet."

Just like the Red Summer Massacres and lynchings across the country, the Macon thugs tried to teach the local blacks to continue to accept the destiny designated by the whites 8 days before 102 years. After that, Dixon McLeod and the principal Aisha Sitting together in the school library, Brooks told stories of terrorism against Black Noxubee educators who had already planted the seeds in the gossip of her hometown and the reality of her family's life.

This means that as many as five generations of local blacks have heard the warning fact that when growing up, whites will gather to kill the education, salary increase, public office, voting rights, and even not leave for better quality and financial support. The basic dignity of the court square sidewalk to allow white people to pass.

However, this is not like the June 1919 riots that started or ended the intimidation and violence by whites against blacks in Macon or surrounding communities. In fact, since Nathan Bedford Forrest and other white terrorists wreaked havoc in Mississippi, the always-majority black county was originally built around plantations, cotton production, and enslaved labor. It has always been one of the main locations for white terrorism and KKK activities in Mississippi.

As the illiteracy rate of southern blacks began to decline sharply after liberation--from 80% of non-white Americans in 1870 to 30% in 1910--preventing good black education has always been Noxubi and Mississippi white supremacism The primary targets of the violence include the Ku Klux Klan and other die-hards who are determined to maintain their caste system. After all, educated blacks are more likely to vote, organize, demand better jobs and salaries, and ensure that all people receive a high-quality education.

Racial violence and lynching are the most popular ways to stop the spread of black education and political participation-it has promoted the development of education and electoral/political inequality to this day. A 2021 study by the American Economic Association found that southern counties, which had higher lynching rates from 1882 to 1930, now have lower voter registration rates. Research author Jhacova Williams of RAND Corporation writes that blacks with more education or higher incomes are less likely to register to vote in counties with a more pronounced history of racial violence.

In other words, the use of racial violence to prevent education and voting in counties like Noxubee from its establishment to 50 years ago is like a punch or two against local blacks and helps to embed a system model that still has a low impact. Conditions at the political level are involved in higher death rates. Williams found that just being part of a strong black church community seemed to alleviate the problems of high lynching counties.

Due to low political participation, fair access to quality education, school resources and opportunities is inevitably affected. This provides a self-sustaining package of deals for white supremacists who have understood and accepted systemic oppression since the era of slavery. .

Immediately after the defeat of the Southern Civil War, blacks had long been deprived of their rights because of their desire for literacy and education. White terrorists in Noxubee County and other areas began to threaten, whipped and lynched them, and slapped blacks in "free schools." Lynching with white educators. "They burned down schools and churches that held courses to ensure that the inequality and economic immobility of southern blacks would continue to future generations.

Once, the writer Michael Newton wrote in his book on Mississippi KKK that there are no black schools in the entire county because the local Ku Klux Klan has closed or burned all schools. This will become a selfish racial violence movement. It will span several decades.

On the evening of early 1871, when Ku-Klux galloped to the house to find her, Lydia Anderson and her children lived 3 miles above Musulaville on the edge of Noxubi County, which she called The plantation of "Massa Killes Anderson". The daughter first saw these four masked, eccentrically dressed men, and said to her sister: "I believe their fate is terrible. What about mom?"

When the terrorist knocked on their door, Anderson and her son-in-law Fuller were sleeping. He got up and opened.

"Is Aunt Lydie here?" a man in uniform asked.

"Yes, sir," Fuller replied. Then the man asked her if she was sleeping. "Yes, I think she is already asleep."

"Call her out. We want to see her; we just want to ask her some questions; we won't hurt one of her hair."

But at the moment the black woman who had been enslaved walked out the door, the same person roared, "Go to the woods there, or I will blow your damn brains."

Seven months later, on November 6, 1871, she will testify at the Macon US Congress hearing: "They took me out of bed-out of my house." She joined dozens of black and white KKK in Pulaski, Tennessee, five years after its establishment, and two years after the dissolution of the great wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest, people Will testify in court.

In the woods, "Only one person whipped me, but he whipped all of me," Anderson told Congress.

After licking a few times, the chairman asked?

"I licked it nine times and cut my skin with the scar on my back," she replied. The same Crook stabbed her with a pistol and said, "Now continue, I will see you again in a few days, and I will give you 500 whips when I see you again next time."

"Did they pretend?" the chairman asked Anderson.

"Yes sir; they are all wearing skirts," she replied.

"(They) are all wearing robes, and one person is covered with a sheet," she continued. "[T]hey has horns here and here, in the head corner," the black mother said, pointing.

Witnesses at the Mississippi hearings were mainly concentrated in Mississippi counties along the border of Alabama, where the KKK was infested. They stated that the disguise of the early KKK and related white terrorist organizations often differed from county to county. These include the Noxubee-born White Rose Association (obsessed with preventing "radical" black and white voting) and the local Southern Aboriginal son in and near Noxubee County. They either let their wives arrange the clothes for them, or make them custom-made. Newton wrote in his book "Mississippi Ku Klux Klan: History" that most Noxubi terrorists chose to "make handmade paper masks with fake beards and beards from mule tails."

Lydia Anderson told federal investigators that she recognized the voices of men in skirts; they were "sons of the old master", which means the offspring of "old man Richards," she went to work there last year , Help his wife cook and cows. He caught her alone and told her "The witch rode me last night." She was confused at first, but found out that he wanted her to have sex with him-like 150 years after Lydia Anderson testified Sexual harassment still plagues many Mississippi black women. The Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable used EEOC data to report that in today’s workplace, they experience three times as much sexual harassment as white women.  

"The old lady asked you to take care of me," the old Richards told his staff, referring to his wife. Anderson refused, saying: "This is not my character."

Later, she caught the old man sexually harassing her daughter, and then chased her with a big pecan stick to "make up her mind." Anderson stepped in and told him, "She will not stay, and I will not stay."

After speaking, the four horned cavalry came to look for her. Anderson quickly moved to Macon to go further, but had to leave her children behind. For her own safety, her eldest daughter had to flee Richards's people to another town.

In her testimony, just like witness after witness from seven counties, Anderson listed the black people targeted by nightcrawlers: Jack Triplet’s carriage driver Solomon Triplet shot and killed; The old missionary uncle George Murff, who lives next door to Winston County, was shot down last year on his way back from the field; just one month before the hearing, Pete Gregory was "killed in the sky over Masuraville". ".

When Anderson talked about "Uncle Alec Hughes" being severely whipped at Musharraville two weeks ago, a committee member asked her: "Is he a person of color?"

"Yes sir; a black man," she replied.

Then there was Nathan Campbell, the "missionary of color": "They almost beat him to death," Anderson said. "I think it's because he teaches in school; they said he shouldn't teach school, nor should he be a missionary," Anderson told visitors from Washington, DC.

Alliance of "First Family" and White "Loafers"

Attacks on teachers and school buildings—including churches where black children often attended classes at the time—are an epidemic, deeply rooted in the beliefs of white upper-class business leaders and landlords, as well as impoverished white people often referred to as “loafers” at the time. And in practice. Many (of course not all) white southerners united after the Civil War, believing that free men and their white allies cannot be granted political power and cannot enter polling stations.

Noxubee County plantation owner Jefferson B. Algood (also spelled Allgood at the time) testified to the committee that he believed that Klan-type groups could “correct some of the country’s crimes,” but eventually fell into the hands of “bad guys” and only used KKK. For political purposes. He did not deny his wrongdoing, but blamed it on "a group of people who have never had a black person and now strongly oppose black voting rights and black labor." On November 6, 1871, he said that people like him who had enslaved black people and lived with black people because of this often did not despise them.

Algood said: "This is a class of poor people who are truly disappointed with blacks." He pointed to those neighbors who used slavery to build their own wealth for generations. The Mississippi Secession Declaration called it "the world's greatest material benefit." People in the economic class, from slaves to poor whites, have signed up to fight for the continuation of this institution. (The leader of the Growers Confederation later drafted the poor white man who did not sign up.)

Algood was wrong. As the young black post-liberation legislator (and future lieutenant governor) Alexander K. Davis described to the committee, they were the "first families" in Noxubi County and beyond Established the Ku Klux Klan in his adopted hometown and county. He described how they quickly turned to infiltrate and help expose the local KKK's descendant John R. Taliaferro, a white grower, and testified to the committee on July 15, 1871.

Davis said: "The gentlemen of this county-very smart, kind gentlemen, and some of the original families-have condemned (Taliafero) as thieves, villains, and everything else." He added, Before he rejected KKK's strategy, defectors were part of the "gentleman" class.

Many wealthy southern whites provided funds for white terrorists and helped pay for legal defense at the time and at least during the 1960s. When Travonder Dixon-McCloud's great-grandmother lost her boss wife "on the other side of the river," the wealthy white leaders will also help the Ku Klux Klan to revive.

Peter Cooper taught in what was then called the "School of Colored People" when 37 armed white men appeared on horseback to teach the black educator a lesson.

On November 16, 1871, he stated at a congressional hearing in Macon that he had lived in the neighboring white-majority Winston County for at least 26 years when a group of people showed up at his home at around 1 am on Saturday. . He was not there, so they rushed into his room, stole 23 dollars from his suitcase, and burned all his clothes and books, as well as the cobbler tools he used in another show.

Witnesses told Cooper that these people were disguised "with aprons covering their faces with some kind of white cloth and around their knees."

Cooper also described the burning down of a black school 6 to 8 miles from Louisville. Cooper shared that another black teacher, Nathan Cannon (Nathan Cannon), was "almost to death" for teaching at the Liberty School, adding that the Ku Klux Klan made it clear that they wanted to make all "radical" Black people" drive out of the county. In fact, the mob told his roommate that he shouldn't live with a "damn radical rascal".

"[T]hey said there shouldn't be no schools for people of color," Cooper testified. "They said I wouldn't have anything; I shouldn't teach at all." The attackers also stated that they would not pay taxes "to educate children of color," which is no stranger to Mississippi today.

Worried about his life, Cooper gave up teaching and was moved.

Similar stories can be seen everywhere, because the joint special committee investigating state affairs in the late uprising period showed in its 1872 report that witnesses told of blacks and some white educators being whipped or killed, and black school buildings and churches hosting courses were beaten or killed. Burned down in Noxubee County and surrounding areas and throughout the state. 

State legislator OC French of Natchez told the special committee that he knew that by June 3, 1871, 25 black schools across the state had been burned down, but in his Mississippi KKK book, Newton reported that he had found more records . He wrote that because of the Ku Klux Klan and imitation groups, Noxubee, Winston and Lowndes counties once had no schools.

White terrorists also attacked white "radicals" who tried to help black Mississippi obtain opportunities, education, and a little fairness after several generations of slavery, while their education was illegal. After Nat Turner launched the slave uprising in 1831, all slave states banned teaching slaves to read or write except for the three states of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Maryland. In addition, the southern states passed laws that tried to prevent free men from teaching others to read and write, but many free and enslaved blacks secretly taught each other.

The proud former slave trader, Algood, who had testified for Ku-Klux (the organization was usually called at the time), talked about Grand Cyclops sending an anonymous letter to Noxubee County Education Director "Judge Ames"-maybe It is the probate judge David Ames or his son. The letter instructed Ames to give up his educational position and prevent his friend Algood from opposing the KKK, otherwise "they will visit us both."

Newton wrote that in Chixaw County, terrorists burned down the homes of school director AJ Jamison and Winston County teacher Pastor John Avery. He said his own brother helped burn his home to stop him. Pickens County, Alabama, is adjacent to Noxubi through the Tombee River. Witnesses said that many white terrorists moved back and forth across the border and burned down black schools and churches. (Alabama had its own hearing and special committee report in 1871, Volumes 1 and 2.)

The local masked men did not use burning, whipping or murder to follow up every threat, but they did a lot, leaving the fear of "who is next?" Throughout Mississippi, including Noxubi, a KKK sniper killed a white magistrate in his home. Their literal "war on schools" aimed to undermine the North's "radical" strategy for the equality of the newly freed enslaved in the old Confederacy-and used threats and violence to ensure that white people also abide by the rules. The Encyclopedia of Mississippi explained that the Freedman Bureau after the Civil War integrated three schools to educate black children: private schools, founded by free blacks; missionary schools with teachers born in the North; and private schools founded by whites in Mississippi. Called "Freedom School".

"From 1865 to 1870, approximately 10% of former slaves in Mississippi attended schools incorporated by the bureau. These schools peaked in 1868, when 128 institutions enrolled 6,250 students," historian Christopher M. Spann wrote.

Then in 1870, the black/white Republican-administered legislature activated the first tax-supported public school system in Mississippi, igniting white terrorism statewide that was determined to stop it.

Newton wrote that as the fear of the educated black majority was fully developed, the post-Civil War Southern Democrats focused on destroying and canceling public schools that funded the education of black children for three reasons. They are obsessed with white taxpayers who don’t want to pay for black education; "pre-war phobias about the [B] lack of education"; and stop racial mixing and intermarriage in schools, which will promote white people throughout the 20th century. The racist myth of supremacy. The political journey around race and racism became complicated as the Southern White Democrats became openly segregationists in the 1940s, then as the National Democrats rejected their party’s racism and passed by and supported federal civil rights legislation in the 1960s , Steadily transformed into today’s Republican Party.

The rich, educated men who ran the post-war newspapers of Mississippi also incited fear of blood. Jackson Clarion (later to become Clarion-Ledger) warned that “funds will be raised by taxing people’s property to create a huge'public education' system controlled by important mergers.” Mergers are a popular phrase. , Expressing the fear of racial mixing, it is said that it will eliminate excellent white ancestry.

In the 1860s, the Jackson Daily News was more outspoken in support of the so-called "natural brutality" of blacks. "We must put the former slave in a position of inferiority. We must pass such a law to make him feel inferior," as Newton reported in his book, it demanded.

US Rep. Samuel S. Cox of Ohio, nicknamed "Sunset", made reprehensible remarks to Congress in 1964 and opposed the Freedmen’s Bureau established in 1865. Circumstances perish. "No Government farming system, no charitable black scheme, can wash out the color of the negro, change his inferior nature, or save him from his inevitable fate," the elected bigot declared. "Uncontrollable conflict is not between slavery and freedom It’s a conflict between blacks and whites. Just as Tocqueville predicted, the blacks will perish."

Newton discovered that Southern Democrats particularly hate white educators who teach in black schools, and warned that any teacher in a black school "is a radical tool and messenger that inspires black racial hatred"-this argument is contrary to the so-called "opposition" The arguments promoted by the “zhe” are no different. Critical racial theory in schools today. As with past censorship work, today’s CRT legislation attempts to prohibit the teaching of hidden racial history and systemic racism, which assumes that Republican governor candidates are also promoting in Mississippi. (See the list of "CRT" terms banned in Wisconsin.)

Coincidentally, Mississippi’s most successful proponent of reviewing civil war and rebuilding racial history from textbooks and classrooms was Stephen D. Lee, heir to the Noxubi County Plantation, who was the first president of Mississippi State University.

The 1871 Special Committee report showed that in the early 1870s, teachers in black schools and some new white "free schools" supported by local taxes received threatening letters telling them to leave the state or otherwise. Just as Governor Haley Barbour attacked "government schools" in his 1996 book "American Agenda" 125 years later, most of the wealthy white people in Mississippi did not want their taxes to go to public schools. They are particularly opposed to funding black public schools, and many people still oppose it.

"We can tell you that we are the law itself, and the orders from these headquarters are above all else," said an anonymous letter sent to different teachers, the Newton report said. The terrorists burned down at least one tax-supported white school near Musharraville and another school in Suqalak.

Cornelius McBride is a 24-year-old Irish immigrant teacher originally from Belfast, Ireland. He moved from Ohio to Mississippi and taught in black schools in Oktibiha and Chickso County. As a result, the white terrorist flogged and beat him with a pistol until he escaped, he told the special committee.

After McBride wrote a column detailing the terrorist incident in Mississippi for a northern newspaper, Henry C. Ferris, the original Macon (Miss) Beacon editor and publisher, commented on the " The Washington (DC) Chronicle responded rashly and reprinted it in his Macon (Miss) Beacon. Ferris was an Irish Catholic immigrant who moved to Macon in 1849 and took over his brother Edward's Noxubee Rifle newspaper there, first renamed it Union Beacon. It initially opposed secession, but Ferris later joined the local sentiment and changed its name to Macon Lighthouse.

HC Ferris completely denied McBride's experience and accused his fellow Irishman. The newspaper was run by his sons Philip Thomas Ferris and William Ward at the time, and also tried to discredit the well-known Winston County William Coleman (William Coleman) for flogging, charges It violated the local white rule that blacks were not allowed to accumulate land and wealth to purchase land.

"Without knowing the facts, we declared this to be a malicious lie," Beacon's editor said on the first page. HC Ferris also denied McBride's statement that most Black Noxubee schools have been closed or burned down. On August 12, 1871, he wrote: “[T] There are no less than 12 freedmen’s schools in Noxubee alone, and we know that one of them was taught by a disabled Confederate soldier.”

Ferris criticized several white "radical" men, including a "ordered Ku-Klux hunter"-Captain Reid, and traitor John Taliafellow-and said McBride tried to "poison "The idea of ​​a "reliable free man". He also criticized the U.S. government for "giving an ignorant race that has just escaped slavery with higher privileges, so that they can stand against their true friends."

Teacher McBride is an active Republican. Because of the electoral mathematics of the majority black Mississippi at the time, the new black voting base and their white allies like him were the worst nightmare of the power structure of the old Mississippi. Ferris sprayed a lot of ink on the white gangsters who were previously considered to be upright citizens of the local area.

Numerous white vigilantes, such as the White Rose Association, the Southern Native Sons, and the most famous and powerful Ku-Klux chapter, are executors of suppressing any progress or systematic progress enjoyed by black Republicans.

The white terrorist base, many of whom were wealthy people born outside of Mississippi (including the north), especially wanted to stop the then governor. James Lusk Alcorn planned to extend free education to all children in Mississippi after the war, including the successful establishment of America’s first black gifted education on 225 acres in Lorman, Mississippi. Alcorn State University (Alcorn State University). Illinois came to Mississippi to run a plantation, and a large number of enslaved people were doing this work. 

For the first generation of the Ku Klux Klan, black education, political organization, and voting are intertwined and destroy their "lifestyle." Therefore, they went to great lengths to ensure that this would never happen in Mississippi. As Newton reported, state leaders like Alcorn did too little to prevent verbal violence and intimidation. Therefore, the Select Committee’s report lists 13 deaths, two whippings, two shootings, and countless home/church/school burning incidents in seven counties controlled by KKK and related groups. Hearing in 1871. They know.

This is just the beginning of white terrorism after the Mississippi war.

Today’s view of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States is inevitably incomplete, whether it is the story told by its defenders or enemies. No matter by any standard, the origins and behavior of KKK are more barbarous than most people on both sides know or admit. Over the decades, it has had the same effect on dozens of violent white security regiments in the cottage—from the White Caps in Mississippi to the 76ers in northern Mississippi to the powerful White Camellia Knights in the southern states. Then came the cyclical re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan itself, including the wealthy, educated paranoia who moved away from the South around the Red Summer of 1919.

Created in 1866 by six Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, Ku-Klux is naive, mean and vindictive. It was not as organized and deadly as it was later under the leadership of Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was a failed businessman and slave trader who later became a violent and cruel rogue military leader and ordered the massacre of 193 blacks and 101 whites. Federal prisoner. Pillow Fort in Tennessee, 1865. Newton wrote that the original young and wealthy veterans established KKK as a "lively social club" to "prank the public." Their name is taken from the Kuklos Adelphon Brotherhood of the University of North Carolina, and is often referred to as "Old Kappa Alpha."

Newton wrote that the original club had targeted southern blacks from the very beginning, borrowing cruel capers (and possibly members) from the ancient "patterrollers," who had long treated enslaved blacks and released slaves. People are very scary, even breaking into their homes to commit atrocities.

When Forrest later became the great wizard of the new school Kuklos Adelphon, he turned KKK into a straightforward terrorist organization-"Let n--rs stay in their place", as he wrote in Newton's book As said.

Pursued by debtors, Forrest moved in and out of Mississippi (including Coahoma, Tepa, and DeSoto counties) and knew the state very well. He recruited members of his new "Southern Invisible Empire", and when he traveled the state as a railroad stock salesman, he urged separatist groups and the Ku Klux Klan to cover the names of Hegi Scouts, Pale Face, Jack Robinson and many others. . Newton reported in his book that powerful lawyers such as James Z George, LQC Lamar and Edward Walther helped the Ku Klux Klan defeated the KKK in the Lafayette County Court, one of the KKK’s most rampant counties at the time. The accusation is also one of Forrest's earliest chapters.

In the late 1860s, organized white terrorism spread rapidly in Noxubee County. White landlords licked their wounds due to the loss of free labor and tried every means to keep white supremacy. Newton cited the promise of the locals to "put the wrongful retaliation of the colored people against whites in the hands of the people and stay away from the law"-establishing a routine model of extrajudicial violence and "punishment". Until the 20th century, white juries supported them.

When they disguised themselves with fake horns and skirts, as Lydia Anderson described her night visitors, they thought black people were flexible enough to think they were ghosts, but the Ku-Klux crowd wanted more than just revenge. . They want to prevent the transfer of political power from their realm to the majority of blacks, even when black Mississippi and white Republicans are uniting to win political office. This will not work.

Four years after Congress investigated the Ku Klux Klan and imitated terrorists in 1871, this desire to "take back" political office and power culminated in the local elections of 1875. The fear of loss of power (and outright racism) has led many groups to change their names and form new alliances to prevent elections of black or white Republicans by any means necessary—and rebuild the goal of racial progress. -Passed the crucial 1875 congressional election.

Historians call it the first Mississippi project to end reconstruction and Black’s gains—a bloody success.

At first, the Mississippi newspapers regarded the incidents on Sunday and Monday August 22 and 23, 1875 as a quarrel between white men and some rude black men at the Fox Trap Plantation, which is located near May, Alabama. The border is 14 miles east of Ken. The news report first said that the blacks caused a commotion, and then they opened fire; some of them were injured; "Everything is quiet now", there is no death, there is nothing to see here.

The next day, after "a private quarrel between a white and a black man about drumming" turned into a standoff at the Black New Hope Church, the Vicksburg Herald announced that "eight blacks were killed, several were injured, and two Ten prisoners" are near Prairie Point, 6 miles east of Macon. But soon, a more comprehensive and biased report appeared in The Field Herald.

Facts have proved that the massacre was one of countless violent attacks by the white Democrats on the black-white Republican coalition in the crucial election year in 1875. These include the infamous Clinton massacre, which began at a political rally in Hinds County on September 4 and killed as many as 50 blacks.

On the Saturday before the New Hope Massacre, August 21, the black Republicans of Noxubi County voted to reject the re-nomination of the current Sheriff William Connor, instead nominating Jefferson B. Algood (Jefferson B. Algood). Algood), he is a doctor, probably the former slave trader's congress who testified before the Klan violence when he defended other landowners and former slave owners in 1871. Connor was angry and immediately announced that he would compete with Algood as an independent.

On Sunday, August 22, a group of black Algoode supporters brought drums — allegedly provided by the nominee — to a demonstration at Conner’s plantation. The Herald reported that his son Ed Connor confronted them, and "there was talk of talk", perhaps a blow. The black revelers left, returned with guns and beat the drums again until they ran away, at least according to the white paper. News reports said that on Monday, black revellers regrouped at the New Hope Church, 8 miles west of town.

The Herald reported that “a group of fifty white people left the town and went to the church, and people from the country joined”, and then “paraded” to the black church New Hope. All white news reports said that the blacks shot first, and the Herald said that “whites rushed towards them like sheep and disperse them.” The report repeated the standard post-white terrorism line of the historic Mississippi newspaper: “Everything is now It's quiet now."

The final death toll was a unilateral massacre. "Six to eight" blacks died in the church. There were more wounded and no whites were killed.

At a meeting of citizens, Algood was "asked to bring drums to town and let the black people express themselves." The Vicksburg Herald concluded: "If he refuses, it may be his last one, because People are very angry. We won't have trouble anymore. The slight display has already produced very beneficial effects."

The follow-up report of Meridian Mercury tells a more complete story, if it is also biased-the Holocaust is a "private radical dispute" under the heading of political reports, and the headline is "Seven or Eight Nigga's Blood Doesn't'Benefit'" Party. '"

The Mercury News quoted former circuit judge and Macon plantation owner HW Foote as saying that he was a witness for New Hope. "The blacks started fighting, fighting first. Our people were under the command of Deputy Sheriff Lucas," Foote claimed. The paper also lashed out at the nominee, referring to "JB Algood, one of the most despicable in the Traitor Tribe, and the general guarantor of all official thieves in Mississippi." (The news report then spelled "Algood" alternately. And "Allgood".)

Judge Foote, the great-great-grandfather of writer Shelby Foote, romanticized the "causes of failure" of the Confederacy and compared Nathan Bedford Forest to Abraham Lincoln.

The Mercury report accused the blacks and whites of a "radical" alliance. Together they won the nomination and then celebrated the victory: "This led to the turmoil of the radical factions, which, as far as we know, eventually led to a bloody battle between blacks and whites. Fox Trap Prairie Monday night."

"We know this doctor and we know that he has been dealing with black people in Noxubi County for a long time," Mercury continued of Algood. "He has downgraded himself to the lowest possible level. (sic) it brought him fruit instead of being rich and juicy, and the result could be very bitter fruit."

This widespread violence against potentially “radical” black voters and white “rascals” was successful in the 1875 election, driving many people to stay at home to avoid encountering voluntary police officers on the way to the polling station or possible afterwards Things that happened. The complete failure of the Republican coalition that supported public education and fair reform in November 1875 by the blacks and whites of the South, and the subsequent presidential election of 1876, was a turning point for the goal of rebuilding justice, which was completely destroyed in 1877 in a compromise.

The diversity of the Mississippi legislature from 1874 to 1875 is impressive, with many members focusing on incremental reforms aimed at strengthening black equality and free public education for those who have been rejected for a long time. The violent First Mississippi Project destroyed this ideal of reconstruction. E. Von Seutter, The revival of the White Democrats in the Library of Congress meant that the impressive diversity of the Mississippi legislature from 1874 to 1875 was quickly destroyed, including fabricated accusations, impeachment, and removal, just as Governor Alexander As happened to Alexander K. Davis, the black man in Noxubi County who testified to Congress on white terrorism in 1871.

This was also the beginning of the end of black freedom in Mississippi, which eventually led to the Jim Crow clause inserted in the Mississippi Constitution in 1890—the Second Mississippi Plan. The two Mississippi plans to roll back and prevent black political and educational gains were successful.

In 1866, former Confederate leader and slave owner, James Z. George, voluntarily defended in Lafayette County Court for possible violent members of the Ku-Klux cover organization Heggie's Scouts; they are believed to be involved Atrocities such as the killing of 116 blacks and the throwing of bodies in the Tallahatche River were committed. But in 1890, George became a U.S. Senator and was called up to draft the Jim Crow Act. His statue is still in the U.S. Capitol today representing Mississippi.

Stephen D. Lee was the first president of Mississippi State University. His wealth mainly came from the slave farms of his Blewett-Harrison in-laws in Noxubee County. He participated in the creation of Jim Crow and successfully led the review of federal veterans’ committee textbooks. Slavery, reconstruction, and the brutality of the Southern Uprising.

The true radicals have won, deliberately hindering the progress of black people in future generations, but the violence continues, ensuring that these systemic obstacles will exist for a long time.

On November 12, 1906, when the black doctor and pharmacist Daniel Webster Sherrod (Daniel Webster Sherrod) participated in the white paper in the Scott Farmer area of ​​Macon, Mississippi When it was the "Black Tent Show", he didn't know that this was his last thing. d Used to do it in his hometown, but ran for his life.

Sherrod was born on March 10, 1867, four years after the blacks were liberated, and received sufficient education there, studied at Fisk University in Nashville, and then received a doctorate in medicine from Mehari College of Medicine in 1896. Then he returned home to practice medicine and opened a Macon pharmacy the same year to serve the quarantined black community. Many local white people respect Sherrod, and the lighthouse will later report in an article titled "Macon's First Riot", which ignores all previous white terrorist mobs in Noxubi County in the past few decades.

According to the Beacon report, after the opening performance, as the music began in the tent performance, "some blacks crowded in front of the seats reserved for whites." Cass asked the blacks to move. "Everyone obeyed except for the black doctor Sherrod." After Lucas repeated his order, the 39-year-old remained motionless, and the deputy sheriff hit him on the head with a baton.

The newspaper stated that the doctor knelt to the ground and then "gets up to fight and beat the police officer with a stick." Then the deputy fired at Sherrod's right arm, and when a group of white men began to gather, he wounded him.

According to Beacon reports, law enforcement officers pulled Sherrod away, sent him to a local jail, and called a white doctor. Knowing that the mob was on their way to the prison, the police officer brought Sherrod back and told him to leave before bandaging the wound. 

When the angry mob came to kidnap Sherrod, one of them pretended to be drunk, and the others asked the black jailer to open the door and lock him, then drew a pistol and held his key to search Sherrod in the prison. 

The doctor was not found, and the mob went to Sherrod's house; he was not there, but they set fire. The wood structure burned quickly, threatening the mills and lumber yards of Noah Scales; the cotton mills and gin of WF and Harry Patty; and the entire black community where Sherrod lived. Beacon at least pretended to be angry at attempting to lynch Sherrod and burn his home, adding that the fire ultimately “be beneficial to the owners because Sherrod bought $1,500 in insurance for his house, furniture, and library.”

The Beacon reported that Sherrod was hiding "somewhere in the county seat" and asked to return, promising that he would "behave well." The newspaper was run by the grandson of Henry C. Ferris, who denied and belittled the claim of Ku-Klux terrorism in 1871—reporting rumors that Sherrod would sell his pharmacy. Publisher Douglas C. Ferris seemed unhappy with the attention that the mob attack would bring to Macon, saying that they "spurned and defied the law...this should be the special concern and pride of white men."

"The best citizens spoke highly of (Sherrod) and his behavior," the slightly sober 1906 Beacon reported, adding that "he had never had any trouble with any white man." Then both sides attacked the victim. , Indicating that Sherrod is involved in the labor organization. "Others, with deep racial prejudice, think that he is a dangerous person, especially when it comes to servants in this neighborhood. Their attitude is even more dangerous now. Whenever the chef or maid does not show up, he will be Keep it somewhere. The way is responsible."

In an adjacent editorial, the younger Ferris was pessimistic about the mob’s intentions: “Lying is illegal. Participating in illegal executions of criminals (sic) is as much as any other (sic) murder that takes lives. ." Nevertheless, he understood instinct. "However, in some cases, immediate punishment-even revenge-is part of human nature, so that its caster is weakened," he wrote, adding that lynching "may sometimes be seen as some sort of pity."

But it’s disgusting to enjoy it like many Noxubi County people have and will still enjoy,” Ferris’ grandson wrote, lamenting that “enjoying the elements makes the spirit of lynching one of the greatest dangers to the community or society. . nation…. In addition, he added that the "death of bad guys" made "all further revenges futile." "

In the same edition, Beacon admitted under the title "Macon's First Riot" that when it reported "a regrettable killing a few weeks ago," it "failed to'touch the wood'" and a victim was removed from prison. . Prison (Report not yet found by the Mississippi Free Press). The Beacon pointed out at the time, “Macon has never had any trouble between the two races, and our prison has never been attacked or broken into by mobs.” However, the admission did not follow up on any long-term issues in Noxubi County. Details of the bloody history of white terrorism.

Of course, the nearly murder of a famous black doctor is far from the last attempted or actual lynching in Macon and Noxubi County, because black murders are at least double-digit, and the number of assaults and threats in the past is unknowable. And the future, and Macon Riot in 1919 is still far ahead.

But, like the protected great-grandparents and great-grandparents of ancestors of inequality and racism in many places today, DC Ferris may not understand all the terrorism his own grandfather defended as the owner of Beacon. Perhaps he has not read the archived newspapers, which helped to embed viral systemic racism in the white culture, belief system and climate of Noxubi County, replacing it with a naive romanticism, this romanticism In the future, it will last longer than the understanding of atrocities and challenges. The daily life and progress of black citizens.

Like many blacks who were intimidated before, Dan Sherrod did not return to his hometown after he was beaten, shot, chased, and his house and books were burned down. He brought his talents to Lauderdale County, where, before the end of 1906, he was heavily in debt and opened Sherrod Drug Co.. His "Who's Who of Colored People" list shows that he has accumulated assets worth more than $30,000-nearly $500,000 today-and served as secretary of the American Board of Examinations of Surgeons for four years. He is the president of the Mississippi Anti-TB Alliance of Colored People and the Mississippi Medical, Dental, and Pharmaceutical Association.

Dr. Sherrod was a representative of the Republican National Conventions in 1912, 1916, and 1920. He married Bessie Lena Williamson of Meridian in 1913. He was the deacon of his Missionary Baptist Church and was buried in Odd Fellows Cemetery in the city. The grounds of a historic black Masonic cemetery and part of three historic African-American cemeteries on 10th Avenue have been neglected for decades.

On the night of 1906, after Lucas’ deputy slammed Dr. Sherrod for disobeying the white man’s orders, residents of all races and ethnicities in Noxubi County would no longer benefit from his leadership, promotion, and focus on losing a population. The counties have made progress, business and opportunities from the next century to today. However, racial violence and policing created by social prejudice and segregation will continue to pose unfair and unforgivable challenges to America’s most resilient citizen communities.

The early white terrorists, as well as their supporters and defenders, hope that their own offspring long after their deaths will enjoy the same racist spoils and power. This meant that the lynchings and threats of the civil rights movement in the 20th century were one after another; attempts to keep schools segregated and the majority of black public schools were underfunded; the citizen committees of the 1960s and later used and taught "innate animality", even in primitive apartheid schools in the 1960s "Innate animality" was also taught and used as a legitimate excuse to try to prevent the integration of schools in Mississippi.

This means that racist policing and prosecution have sent so many innocent blacks to Mississippi prison or death row, such as Kennedy Brewer and Levin Brooks, who were wrongly convicted in North Carolina in the early 1990s. Kesubi County molested and killed two toddler children.

The actions of the Reconstruction Era also contributed to racism, causing previously prosperous towns like Sukorak and Macon to fall into poverty, rampant building declines, de facto segregation in schools and communities, and many whites in Mississippi still accuse the black neighbors of disobedience. Equality and systemic roadblocks and traps. Their own ancestors were established and activated years ago. Like DC Ferris, many offspring may not even know when they used the same accusations and excuses that they created years ago to create white terrorists, or, perhaps, the role played by their own people.

James Reeves, a white lawyer from Noxubi County and a former Confederate soldier, summed up the forward-looking views of the local white supremacists to the select committee in 1871: giving blacks the right to vote, equality before the law, and free With all the privileged rights of the school, over time, these two races will gather together in the classroom like children, and in that case, the principles of their children and the next generation will eventually be more or less affected. "

Nevertheless, every county in Mississippi, including Noxubi, has inherited the persistence of blacks. For the family of Dixon-McCloud, terrorism has a counterproductive effect on systemic bigots: despite the threats, this history helps to instill a pious focus on education and political participation. They stayed to build communities and businesses, and they still invested time and energy to reverse the inequalities of white supremacy, fear, and terrorism among generations of black families in Noxubi County and other areas.

But it is difficult to change systemic and historical racism and inequality, which will eventually have a negative impact on all races, because many people deny its existence. Nowadays, black and white children in Mississippi are mainly on different educational tracks, and continue to work hard to teach children only "positive" history, and exclude taxes from public schools in 1871, so they don’t know the community and school When can we really get the opportunity or find the will to bring the races together in a meaningful and solution-oriented way.

This certainly does not happen in independent and usually unequal schools, which will make the KKK OGs snicker and cheer in their graves. The old white terrorists must not continue to win the war they initiated.

Torsheta Jackson contributed to this report. The above historical report is part of the Mississippi Racial Violence Project and the Noxubi County Educational Priority "(In) Fairness and Resilience: Black Women, Systemic Disorders, COVID-19" project. With the initial support of the Solutions News Network, the Mississippi Free Press and Jackson Advocates are collaborating on a systematic reporting project.

Visit the BWC project microsite to learn all the stories so far. Read Torsheta Jackson's overview of the situation in her hometown of Noxubee County and its inherent systemic inequality, and Donna Ladd's article on the history of Noxubee County white segregation colleges and schools.

Write to solutions@mississippifreepress.org to participate in the project, participate in the solution circle, or sponsor the ongoing work in the project, initially focusing on Noxubee, Hinds, and Holmes counties.

Correction: Donna Ladd originally referred to the author Michael Newton as Michael Newman in the above story. This article also refers to Travonder Dixon-McCloud as a school psychologist, when in fact she is a clinical psychologist. We apologize for the mistake.

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