Complex sentence: His grandmother, a former slave, gave Williams the rifle with which his grandfather, a Republican campaigner and publisher of the newspaper "The People's Voice", had defended himself in the hard years after Reconstruction in North Carolina.
Split into simpler sentences: His grandmother, a former slave, gave Williams his grandfather's rifle. His grandfather had been a Republican campaigner and publisher of the newspaper "The People's Voice" during the hard years after Reconstruction in North Carolina.