[The following takes place during the Reconstruction Era of the Antebellum South following the American Civil War.]
Ames shuddered at what had happened during one year of Alcorn’s tenure alone: by his count, thirty Negro schoolhouses and churches were burned down and sixty-three men killed. One of the very worst outbreaks of Klan violence occurred in 1871 in Meridian, where a large population of ex-slaves had formed a strong Loyal League. The Klan used the trial of three blacks for arson as an excuse for a rampage, opening fire in the courtroom and killing the Republican judge as well as several spectators, throwing one defendant from a roof and slashing the throat of another. Over three days they cut down “all the leading colored men of the town with one or two exceptions.” They left twenty-five black corpses in the street.
Source:
Jenkins, Sally, and John Stauffer. “Reconstruction and Redemption.” The State of Jones: The Small Southern County That Seceded from the Confederacy. Anchor Books, 2010. 260-61. Print.
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