Miller Williams Discusses a Violent Response to the Union from White Southerners (1993)

Take five. Marker. To my knowledge, my father didn't get involved much in organizing in the field except one time I know about when field becomes literal and not metaphorical. He was out in the cotton field talking to tenant farmers when a shot was fired and clearly and obviously in his direction. The family was shaken over that. He was dissuaded from working in the fields for a little while. It did frighten him, frighten us all to the extent that we had dinner with our shades drawn for a while because we were frankly afraid of night riders. They weren't a myth. Night riders, we can say we didn't know who night riders were and specifically, usually we didn't but we knew that they were very likely to be goons hired for the purpose, by

plantation owners, sometimes or sometimes regular staff of the plantation owners, sometimes sheriff men. Sometimes there was no difference. There may have been actual Klan involvement in it but again there wasn't a clean line between who, which was which. You could work for the sheriff and still be a member of the Klan and still work for a plantation owner.