"The Ku Klux got after Uncle Will once. He was a brave man. He had a
little mare that was a race horse. Will rode right through the bunch
before they ever realized that it was him. He got on the other side of
them. She was gone! They kept on after him. They went down to his house
one night. He wouldn't run for nothing. He shot two of them and they
went away. Then he was out of ammunition. People urged him to leave, for
they knew he didn't have no more bullets; but he wouldn't and they came
back and killed him.
"They came down to Hancock County one night and the boys hid on both
sides of the bridge. When they got in the middle of the bridge, the boys
commenced to fire on them from both sides, and they jumped into the
river. The darkies went on home when they got through shooting at them;
but there wasn't no more Ku Klux in Hancock County. The better thinking
white folks got together and stopped it.
"The Ku Klux kept the niggers scared. They cowed them down so that they
wouldn't go to the polls. I stood there one night when they were
counting ballots. I belonged to the County Central Committee. I went in
and stood and looked. Our ballot was long; theirs was short. I stood and
seen Clait Turner calling their names from our ballots. I went out and
got Rube Turner and then we both went back. They couldn't call the votes
that they had put down they had. Rube saw it.
"Then they said, 'Are you going to test this?'
"Rube said, 'Yes.' But he didn't because it would have cost too much
money. Rube was chairman of the committee.
"The Ku Klux did a whole lot to keep the niggers away from the polls in
Washington and Baldwin counties. They killed a many a nigger down there.
"They hanged a Ku Klux for killing his wife and he said he didn't mind
being hung but he didn't want a damn nigger to see him die.
"But they couldn't keep the niggers in Hancock County away from the
polls. There was too many of them.