The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1917-02-21
FORMER NEGRO STATE
SENATOR TELLS
ABOUT DAYS OF 1876


State and carpetbagging days in
South Carolina formed the topic of a
rare interview with Greene Coleman
of Charlotte yesterday when the aged
negro, once a State senator, wearing
q 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.
"Them was days when de niger
was in his glory TO sure," remarked
Coleman, as he related with 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
8 reign of terror second only to the
days of the Roman upheaval.
The skies were overcast with dark
ominous clouds of social and political
unrest back there in rs and '76 when
Wade Hampon stepped in and re-
deemed the fair name of the Palmet-
to State, with the cooperation of ma
tive whites and the since-famous red
shirts" whose loyalty and devotion to
their intrepid lader and inborn
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 a resi-
dent of Chester, S. c., and a typical
negro of his day and time in intelli-
gence and moral stamina, was elect
ed to Office by his henchmen and mig
ser votes, 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
2 match with which to light 20 cent
cigar purchased at the expense of
the commonwealth. There were may
be, he says, $50 niggers in the halls
Of the State legislature back there
in '75 and '76, and every one of
them felt that it was q wonderful
time for the black race. And they
made every minute of it count be-
cause deep in their hearts they knew
q day of reckoning would come, and
when it dld-they realized the negro
would be no more in the exalted pla-
ces so rudely usurped by the power
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 piggers had been told
were available. Greene Coleman adj
mitted without a touch of shame or
remorse, that the highest price he
ever obtained for his vote in the
South Carolint State house was 500
in United States currency, and it
was a cheap sight of money" to a
nigger brought up on plantation
in those days.
Then the former Chester negro
told Of the silent, mysterious, awe
inspiring activities Of the Ku-Klux
Klan, and the terrible way in which
one after another negro senator and
lawmakers Of the day before, disap-
peared as If the earth had opened
and swallowed them, until the fear
of the wraht of God or some. unseen,
unknown force turned craven the
niger heart and his little stock of
courage oozed through his skin, un-
til it left him weak, hollow eyed and
shivering on the threshold of frantic
despair.
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 be-
cause there was gambling going on
all night and games Of chance for
money and such things, but we mix
ed with the white folks all the time
and at night we had carriage and
spans of horses to draw US about
town or wherever we wanted to 20
with out beaver hats and our good
clothes. Uh, boss, things come easy
even those days.
"Yas, sir, boss, I done sold my
votes many en- many a time for most
cash in sight but the highest bid
ever ! got was $100, en- tucks it in
my jeans like all de rest. I don't
care no noah TO South Carolina den
what I could get outen it, jes like all
Of de white folks en- niggers in power
dem days. We had good liquor too
In our desks and out in de halls,
where we could ask folks to take
some with US, en- we had pages fer
to wait on US like we all was lords
Of the land"
Coleman described in negro ver-
nacular of the appearance on the po-
itical horizon of Gen. Wade Hamp-
ton, twice governor of South Caro-
lima, and Hampton's mighty power
and stalwart personality cleared the
atmosphere within a few months,
drove the carpetbaggers to cover and
the Ku-Klux Klan made inroads in