The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1916-09-14
IN RADICAL DAYS.
Chester Negro Tells of Time When He
Was q Senator.

State in carpetbagging days in South
Carolina formed the topic of rare
interview with Greene Coleman, OF
Charlotte, yesterday, when the aged
negro. once State senator, wearing
a high beaver hat and Prince Albert
coat, was in the seventh zenith Of
negro heaven in the halls of the old
South Carolina State house at Co.
lumbia, says the Charlotte Observer.
"Them was days when de nigger
was in his glory 70 sure,' remarked
Coleman, as he related with a relish,
recollections of 1875 and '76 when
the carpetbaggers and the niggers
held the State of South Carolina at
their mercy; when the corridors of
the State house at Columbia reeked
with drunken statesmen, when thou
sands of dollars worth of liquors and
cordials and choice cigars were kept
constantly on tap at the State house
for the hundred or more Niger SEN
ators and statesmen and their car
petbagging friends, who conducted a
reign of terror second only to the
days Of the Roman upheaval.
The skies were overcast with dark
ominous clouds of social and politi-
cal unrest back there in rs and '76
when Wade Hampton stepped in and
redeemed the fair name of the Pal
metto State, with the cooperation of
native whites and the since-famous
"red-shirts' whose loyalty and devo-
tion to their intrepid leader and in
born courage within their blood-red
shirts turned out every negro from
a statesman's berth, stopped the loot
ing of the State treasury, bridled
graft and bribes and again made
South Carolina righteous and un-
ashamed.
And Greene Coleman, then resi-
dent of Chester, S. c., and typical
negro of his day and time in intelli-
gence and moral stamina, was elect
ed to office by his henchmen and mig
ger voters, to represent Chester in
the State legislature. The old ne
gro tells about it with rare frank
ness.
He described in his own inimitable
way how the niggers and carpetbag-
gers ran rampant with the peoples
money and with their voting power,
appropriations for anything under
the sun being as readily obtained as
a match with which to light twen-
ty-cent cigar purchased at the ex-
pense of the commonwealth. There
were maybe, he says, $50 niggers in
the halls of the State legislature back
there in rs and '76, and every one
of them felt that it was wonderful
time for the black race. And they
made every minute of it count be-
cause deep in their hearts they knew
day of reckoning would come, and
when it did-they realized the negro
would be no more in the exalted
places so rudely usurped by the pow
er of men who stripped the State of
all it held dear and sold themselves
to the highest bidders.
Votes were sold openly and with
out shame, ten, twenty, thirty, at a
time some for as high as a hundred
dollars and others as low as five and
ten dollars, according to the amount
of graft the niggers had been told
we're available. Greene Coleman ad-
mitted without touch of shame or
remorse, that the highest price he
ever obtained for his vote in the
South Carolina State house was 500
in United States currency, and it was
cheap sight of money to niger
brought up on a plantation in those
days.
Then the former Chester negro
kSIu VI I4O O41OAC, LILY oIOA1oo0, 1"S
inspiring activities of the Ku-Klux-
Klan and the terrible way in which
one after another negro senators and
lawmakers of the day before disap-
peared as if the earth had opened
and swallowed them, until the fear
of the wrath of God or some unseen,
unknown force turned craven the mig
ger heart and his little stock of cour-
age oozed through his skin until it
left him weak, hollow eyed and shiv-
ering on the threshold of frantic de-
spair.
1--WE took our meals with the white
carpetbaggers at the hotel near the
State house in Columbia and slept
there too, when we got any sleep
because there was gambling going
on all night and games of chance for
money and such things, but we mixed
with the white folks all the time and