In Post-Civil War Days or Now
East Texas Had No Need for KKK
Athens Weekly Review
April 28 1966
By Correspondent Elton Miller
Taylor- Rise of the Ku Klux Klan in these days--these the trying
times of the 1960's-- has a precedent in the history of our
people that dates back a century
ago when the boys came home from the battlefields of Shiloh and
Appomattox.
But, like it was a century ago, some of the good East Texas
counties were not good homes for the KKK.
It was good philosophy in Henderson County in the Days of the
Great Depression that one should not give care of the tomorrow if
the table is loaded with turnip greens and black-eyed peas. If
all is well in town square, there is no need of worrying about a
day in which there might be tumult.
So in December of 1867, the Rusk Observer had some salient
comment to make about the little need for KKK activities in
Cherokee County.
The Observer gave some good reasons.
1. Cherokee County Negroes were not interested in voting, even in
those Reconstruction days of Radical Republicans.
2.They were willing to take the "Old Marsters" advice
on affairs of state.
3.The only crisis in the Cherokee reconstruction period was
election outrages of 1870. During a 4 day election, conduct of
folks in the redlands--the so-called "election
outrages"-- was cause for a full scale investigation by the
state police, conducted by Lieut. Thomas Sheriff. Alleged fraud
and intimidation of
freedom came in for the in-depth investigation by the police
state that Gov. E. J. Davis had established for the Lone Star
State from headquarters.
Like other counties of Texas, Henderson suffered in the post-war
period. There was a spirit of lawlessness that came out of the
confusion of demoblization. Ex-soldiers were home without money,
without jobs, and broken hearted because they had lost and
disgruntled because they were hungry. They didn't
think they were appreciated and saw no sin in stealing. They felt
justified in robbing private as well as government stores.
Businessmen were slow to reopen their business when they were
hard hit by many robberies.
Hundreds of barrels and hogs- heads of Louisiana sugar were
stored in a commissary the Confederate government had set up in
Rusk. When the Confederacy collapsed, the people--especially war
widows--laid claim to the coveted sugar. Soldiers at first tried
to guard it, but they gave way to the popular demand.
On a certain day it was rumored that someone would open the
storehouse for scarce sugar--most of them had not had sugar in
their diets since the war began.
A large crowd gathered. Men and wimen rushed in, much like the
looting in Harlem and Los Angeles during race riots.Vast
quantities were wasted in the scramble. Six-inch covering laid on
the ground.
Federal troops stationed in the Cherokee capital later
confiscated the sugar wherever they found it.
Those were the wild days-- but there was no time for the KKK. To
be sure, there were some small organizations around, like there
were in the 1920's, before
Dan Moody as Williamson County's fighting district attorney, took
the hood off the Klan.
It was in the state's 13th election in 1873 when Richard Coke
defeated Davis for the governorship that the good citizens
finally took over the state government and thus began the process
to restore sane government and enforce the criminal code of
Texas.
The day of the outlaw was fast coming to a close in the western
frontier. Soon such giants of the saddle and pistol like Sam
Bass, and James brothers,
the Youngers and John Wesley Hardin were to give their lives as
peace was restored in the land of the Confederacy.
Typed as written. (LGR)
Old Newspaper Articles of Henderson County TX
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