'Lord God, here comes the devil.' Volume 2: American Slave encounters with the the Ku Klux Klan

True Stories of American Slave Encounters with the Ku Klux Klan. All the narratives within this publication have been taken from the Federal Writers Project and are now held in the US Library of Congress and are available for further research. In total 2300 former slave narratives where collected for this project during the 1930's. ‘The Patrollers, Ku Kluxers or night riders come by sometimes at night to scare the niggers and make 'em behave. Sometimes the slaves would run off and the Patroller would catch 'em and have 'em whipped. I've seen that done lots of times. They was some wooden stocks (a sort of trough) and they'd put the darky in this and strap him down, take off his clothers and give him 25 to 50 licks, 'cording to what he had done.’ "Den dey was de Ku Klux Klan. Dey war frightful lookin' critters. My pappy say dey go out in de country an' tie pore niggahs to de tree and beat 'em to death. Dey dress all kin's of fashions. Most of dem look like ghosts. Dey nebber go lik' de paddyrollers, dey jes sneak 'round at night when de poor niggahs in bed. Den 'bout twelve 'clock dey tie up all de niggahs dey ketch and atter dey through beatin' dem dey leaves dem wif dey han's tied in de air and de blood astreamin' outten dey backs.”