DOCUMENT 16–5: Klan Violence against Blacks

Reading the American Past: Printed Page 324

DOCUMENT 16–5

Klan Violence against Blacks

White vigilantes often terrorized African Americans after emancipation. The campaign of terror intensified with congressional Reconstruction and the mobilization of black voters in the Republican Party. The violence attracted the attention of Congress, which held committee hearings throughout the South in 1871 to investigate the Ku Klux Klan. The following testimony of Elias Hill — a black preacher and teacher who lived in York County, South Carolina — illustrates the tactics and purposes of white vigilantes.

Elias Hill

Testimony before Congressional Committee Investigating the Ku Klux Klan, 1871

[The committee included a brief description of Hill.] Elias Hill is a remarkable character. He is crippled in both legs and arms, which are shriveled by rheumatism; he cannot walk, cannot help himself, has to be fed and cared for personally by others; was in early life a slave, whose freedom was purchased, his father buying his mother and getting Elias along with her, as a burden of which his master was glad to be rid. Stricken at seven years old with disease, he never was afterward able to walk, and he presents the appearance of a dwarf with the limbs of a child, the body of a man, and a finely developed intellectual head. He learned his letters and to read by calling the school children into the cabin as they passed, and also learned to write. He became a Baptist preacher, and after the war engaged in teaching colored children, and conducted the business correspondence of many of his colored neighbors. He is a man of blameless character, of unusual intelligence, speaks good English, and we put the story of his wrongs in his own language:

On the night of the 5th of last May, after I had heard a great deal of what they had done in that neighborhood, they came. It was between 12 and 1 o'clock at night when I was awakened and heard the dogs barking, and something walking, very much like horses. As I had often laid awake listening for such persons, for they had been all through the neighborhood, and disturbed all men and many women, I supposed that it was them. They came in a very rapid manner, and I could hardly tell whether it was the sound of horses or men. At last they came to my brother's door, which is in the same yard, and broke open the door and attacked his wife, and I heard her screaming and mourning. I could not understand what they said, for they were talking in an outlandish and unnatural tone, which I had heard they generally used at a negro's house. I heard them knocking around in her house. I was lying in my little cabin in the yard. At last I heard them have her in the yard. She was crying and the Ku-Klux were whipping her to make her tell where I lived. I heard her say, “Yon is his house.” She has told me since that they first asked who had taken me out of her house. They said, “Where's Elias?” She said, “He doesn't stay here; yon is his house.” They were then in the yard, and I had heard them strike her five or six licks when I heard her say this. Some one then hit my door. It flew open. One ran in the house, and stopping about the middle of the house, which is a small cabin, he turned around, as it seemed to me as I lay there awake, and said, “Who's here?” Then I knew they would take me, and I answered, “I am here.” He shouted for joy, as it seemed, “Here he is! Here he is! We have found him!” and he threw the bedclothes off of me and caught me by one arm, while another man took me by the other and they carried me into the yard between the houses, my brother's and mine, and put me on the ground beside a boy. The first thing they asked me was, “Who did that burning? Who burned our houses?” — gin-houses, dwelling houses and such. Some had been burned in the neighborhood. I told them it was not me; I could not burn houses; it was unreasonable to ask me. Then they hit me with their fists, and said I did it, I ordered it. They went on asking me didn't I tell the black men to ravish all the white women. No, I answered them. They struck me again with their fists on my breast, and then they went on, “When did you hold a night-meeting of the Union League, and who were the officers? Who was the president?” I told them I had been the president, but that there had been no Union League meeting held at that place where they were formerly held since away in the fall. This was the 5th of May. They said that Jim Raney, that was hung, had been at my house since the time I had said the League was last held, and that he had made a speech. I told them that he had not, because I did not know the man. I said, “Upon honor.” They said I had no honor, and hit me again. They went on asking me hadn't I been writing to Mr. A. S. Wallace, in Congress, to get letters from him. I told them I had. They asked what I had been writing about? I told them, “Only tidings.” They said, with an oath, “I know the tidings were d —— d good, and you were writing something about the Ku-Klux, and haven't you been preaching and praying about the Ku-Klux?” One asked, “Haven't you been preaching political sermons?” Generally, one asked me all the questions, but the rest were squatting over me — some six men I counted as I lay there, Said one, “Didn't you preach against the Ku-Klux,” and wasn't that what Mr. Wallace was writing to me about? “Not at all,” I said. “Let me see the letter,” said he; “what was it about?” I said it was on the times. They wanted the letter. I told them if they would take me back into the house, and lay me in the bed, which was close adjoining my books and papers, I would try and get it. They said I would never go back to that bed, for they were going to kill me. “Never expect to go back; tell us where the letters are.” I told them they were on the shelf somewhere, and I hoped they would not kill me. Two of them went into the house. ... They staid in there a good while hunting about and then came out and asked me for a lamp. I told them there was a lamp somewhere. They said “Where?” I was so confused I said I could not tell exactly. They caught my leg — you see what it is — and pulled me over the yard, and then left me there, knowing I could not walk nor crawl, and all six went into the house. I was chilled with the cold lying in the yard at that time of night, for it was near 1 o'clock, and they had talked and beat me and so on until half an hour had passed since they first approached. After they had staid in the house for a considerable time, they came back to where I lay and asked if I wasn't afraid at all. They pointed pistols at me all around my head once or twice, as if they were going to shoot me, telling me they were going to kill me; wasn't I ready to die, and willing to die? Didn't I preach? That they came to kill me — all the time pointing pistols at me. This second time they came out of the house, after plundering the house, searching for letters, they came at me with these pistols, and asked if I was ready to die. I told them that I was not exactly ready; that I would rather live; that I hoped they would not kill me that time. They said they would; I had better prepare. One caught me by the leg and hurt me, for my leg for forty years has been drawn each year, more and more year by year, and I made moan when it hurt so. One said “G —— d d —— n it, hush!” He had a horsewhip, and he told me to pull up my shirt, and he hit me. He told me at every lick, “Hold up your shirt.” I made a moan every time he cut with the horsewhip. I reckon he struck me eight cuts right on the hip bone; it was almost the only place he could hit my body, my legs are so short — all my limbs drawn up and withered away with pain. I saw one of them standing over me or by me motion to them to quit. They all had disguises on. I then thought they would not kill me. One of them then took a strap, and buckled it around my neck and said, “Let's take him to the river and drown him.” ... After pulling the strap around my neck, he took it off and gave me a lick on my hip where he had struck me with the horsewhip. One of them said, “Now, you see, I've burned up the d —— d letter of Wallace's and all,” and he brought out a little book and says, “What's this for?” I told him I did not know; to let me see with a light and I could read it. They brought a lamp and I read it. It was a book in which I had keep an account of the school. I had been licensed to keep a school. I read them some of the names. He said that would do, and asked if I had been paid for those scholars I had put down. I said no. He said I would now have to die. I was somewhat afraid, but one said not to kill me. They said “Look here! Will you put a card in the paper next week like June Moore and Sol Hill?” They had been prevailed on to put a card in the paper to renounce all republicanism and never vote. I said, “If I had the money to pay the expense, I could.” They said I could borrow, and gave me another lick. They asked me, “Will you quit preaching?” I told them I did not know. I said that to save my life. They said I must stop that republican paper that was coming to Clay Hill. It has been only a few weeks since it stopped. The republican weekly paper was then coming to me from Charleston. It came to my name. They said I must stop it, quit preaching, and put a card in the newspaper renouncing republicanism, and they would not kill me; but if I did not they would come back the next week and kill me. With that one of them went into the house where my brother and my sister-in-law lived, and brought her to pick me up. As she stooped down to pick me up one of them struck her, and as she was carrying me into the house another struck her with a strap. She carried me into the house and laid me on the bed. Then they gathered around and told me to pray for them. I tried to pray. They said, “Don't you pray against Ku-Klux, but pray that God may forgive Ku-Klux. Don't pray against us. Pray that God may bless and save us.” I was so chilled with cold lying out of doors so long and in such pain I could not speak to pray, but I tried to, and they said that would do very well, and all went out of the house.

From U.S. Congress, Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States (Washington, DC, 1872), 1:44–46.

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