The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1880-09-30

the fire, and said they would dare any
other niger to have a book in his
house. We allowed last fall that we
would have a house in every district,
and the colored men started them.
But the Ku-Klux said they would
whip every man who sent a scholar
there. The school-house is there, but
no scholars. The colored people dare
not dress themselves and fix up, like
they thought anything of themselves,
for fear they would whip u.s.
The negroes had begun to build a
school-house on the plantation of
Wesley Shropshire in Chattooga Coun-
ty, Georgia. White citizens whipped
the teacher and left this note for the
planter:
"Mr. Shropshire: Stop this shool-
house; if you don't we will be along
in few nights and give you hund-
red licks and burn the house."
The school-house was not finished.
Perry Jeffers was a Georgia negro
who had seven sons. One was Grip
pie His wife was an invalid. But
his other sons were strong, intelligent
men. They could read, write and
keep accounts. They were all indus
trious, and were laying up money.
This enraged the white gentlemen of
Warren County, Georgia, where the
Jeferses lived. They determined to
make the niggers know their place" -"
For this purpose an armed body of
Ku-Klux attacked the house at mid
,,irb4 To4forc o,,J I;c eo,,e IoJ loo,,
warned Of the intended outrage, and
prepared for thcra These black men
dared to defend their home and help
less mother. Anybody who would
have done otherwise would have been
unworthy the name of man. They
fired upon the raiders, and one was
killed For this act of pure self-de-
fense Jeffers and his sons were hunted
like wild beasts through the enlight-
ened State of Georgia. They fed,
leaving the crippled boy and the in
valid mother alone in the house. The
Ku-Klux once more surrounded the
cabin, dragged the sick boy into the
yard and shot him dead Next these
fiends of perdition pulled the infrm
mother from her couch and hung her
by BEDFORD to tree in the yard
Then they piled the furniture of the
house upon the body Of the dead boy
and set fire to it. Perry Jeffers and
his six sons went like law-abiding
citizens and surrendered themselves to
the Sheriff Of Warren County. He
would have protected them if he could,
but the mob dragged them out of
railway car on the Georgia Railroad,
twenty-nine miles from Augusta, and
shot the father and five sons to death,
in cold blood and in broad daylight.
The men who did this were not dis
guised. One son escaped, the sole
survivor of this good, industrious
family.
The above is by no means an excep-
tionally cruel incident of the treat
ment Of negroes by white Georgians.
Entirely authentic stories are on rec
ord Of fiendish atrocities to black men
and women which turn the spirit
faint with horror. Every once in
while dispatches come stating that
this or that negro in the South has
been lynched for outrage upon a white
woman. The chapter of the treat
ment of negro women in the South
by Ku-Klux and red-shirted riders is
only matched by the tales of Indian
barbarities in the far West. Not one
of them was ever lynched for it.
And now comes the Hon. Mr.. Ken
non with his eloquence about
Georgians educating the negro, and
holding out the olive branch Of peace
to him."