State

■•к.к.к. Attention! First hour! In the Mist! At the Flash! Come. Come. Come! Retribution is impatient! The grave yawns! The sceptre bones rattle! Let the doomed quake!” Til К foregoing wus just a little no¬ tice of the Invisible Empire, com¬ monly known as the A'u К fur К Inn, ns it appeared in ISOS. Nor was this the only secret organization which rode the roads during those stirring times. Some of the others were: The Heroes of America, Loyal I'nion League, Hed Sitings, ('onstitulional Union Очаг, I . While Brotherhood. Jay Haulers, and similar organizations. What rattled these organizations to come into existence at a time when it would seem that all the land would be anxious for peace — n time just fol¬ lowing the close of a devastating war! The first secret political society, the one which brought the others into existence, was the I'nion League. This was organized in the North during the Civil War, and when it became ap¬ parent that the right of suffrage would be conferred upon the recently freed Ы neks, it spread rapidly into the South, its membership being eon- fined almost exclusively to the Negro race. That race, in its groping igno¬ rance. had mistaken its new found lib¬ erty for license, and all were eagerly expecting the promised forty acres and a male. Car|>ctbag leaders realizing the |>olitical potentialities of the sit¬ uation «ought to consolidate the Ne¬ gro vote. The Start of Secret Societies How could this be done? The an¬ swer was easy to any in the South who knew the Negro character as then con¬ stituted. Nothing would have such an appeal to the ignorant, the supersti¬ tious and the emotional Negro as would a set ref society. Therefore the I'nion League was speedily organized, with an elaborate ritual, high sounding titles for its ollieers, and colorful re¬ galia. The Negroes wont into the or¬ ganization by the thousands and by 1SG7 practically every Negro voter was a tncnilkcr. The («rand President was no less person than William W. Holden, Military Governor of Caro¬ lina. who also was elected as Governor in ISGS largely hv the votes of the I'nion Lcagucrt. A reign of terror ensiled. I'nder the jiifiuciicc of designing leaders some of The Invisible Empire in Carolina By a. c. lawr i:\ce the loral I'nion- L-cniuc the source of much violence and crime. Larceny, arson, murder, and capital offenses against women stalked through por¬ tions of the State: and when the shades of night fell the whites trembled for their safety. \ll to often the red glare of the llnmes appeared upon the hori¬ zon; no white woman dared leave her home after nightfall. This was the most serious situation which ever con¬ fronted the State, and it was met with a desperate remedy. Throughout the South The situation outlined above was not confined to Carolina but existed to a greater or le*.« degree throughout the Southland. To meet this challenge and to (line it back, the INVISIBLE KM PI RE arose in Tennessee in 1st?.', and soon spread throughout the South, a potent weapon in the hands of the natural leaders of the white race. At its head, as its Imperial Wizard, was Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the most remarkable men the war pro¬ duced, utterly fearless, and such a horn leader that he entered the Confeder¬ ate service as и private, hut emerged as a l.irnl, nont General of Cavalry a record 1 believe unparalleled in any war in any country. Here in Carolina its bend was -aid to have been the brave Col, William L. Saunders, who lost a leg in the Con¬ federate service, thereafter Secretary of State, a man of high character and lofty ideal*. Its other officers an- un¬ known. as its organization was a closely guarded secret ; its meeting* were held at night ; ami when it.« dread riders rode the road* they did so un¬ der disguise, so awe-inspiring that it accomplished quite a* much for the purpose which called the organization into being as did its nets of violence. In short the very appearance of the riders in-tilled terror into the hearts • >f the guilty. Many Deeds of Violence While the A'u Klue loosely extended over the State, it had two foci, both in the Piedmont section. One focti* centered around the counties of Ala malice, Caswell, and Orange; and the other around the western counties of Cleveland and Rutherford. Thomas Dixon tells of the latter in his great novel. "The Clansmen." In Orange and Alamance, a large iniinhi-r of per¬ sons were whipped and several were summarily hanged for capital offense- against women or for barn burning. In Jones County two carpet-bagger* and a Negro were killed. In Caswell, the Governor's detective. John W. Stephens, was killed, and there were many whipping- and much disorder; and the same was true in Alamance and elsewhere. Violence was met with violence; blow with counter blow. The bitter contest took on the aspects of political, social and economic warfare between the native whites on the one side and the native Negroes, led large ly by foreign whites on the other. As is inevitable in such cases, the organization in places got entirely nut of hand and began to he used for pur¬ pose- not intended or authorized by its responsible leaders. Moreover, entirely unauthorized jicrsous began to put into effect purely private schemes of ven¬ geance. under the protection of the dis¬ guise of the Klan, themselves «-raping punishment for their acts because such acts were laid at the door <«f the Klans- men. The ГС t wa* that both the State and Federal government" moved swift¬ ly against the Klan. The legislature in ist*.!t passed an act making it а felony logo upon any highway masked or disguised; and in 1*71 Congress enacted a most drastic act prescrib¬ ing heavy ]icnaltic.-, both civil and criminal, against persons who deprived anyone of any right guaranteed by the Federal Constitution; and authorizing the President to declare a state of in¬ surrection at any place, use the Fed¬ eral army to put it down, and suspend the writ of )uil>cas corpus in hi* di«- erclion. Governor Holden's Action Provisional Governor Holden de¬ clare-! Alamance and other counties ( Continued on page twenty) 5