Gilder Lehman has a threat notice from the KKK issued against a Black officeholder in 1868. In addition to trying to suppress the Black vote in the Election of 1868, the Klan tried to keep Blacks from running for office. If an African American succeeded in winning, the Klan used threats and violence to try to force him to resign. Here is the transcript followed by the manuscript. You will note that the Klansmen refers to himself as a dead Confederate soldier. Most Klansmen were Confederate veterans and they tried to use mysticism to sow fear among African Americans by deceiving them into thinking they were risen from the dead. In court testimony by Blacks, one never hears a witness who believed the Klansmen were ghosts.
Notice
To Jeems, Davie. you. must. be, a good boy. and. Quit. hunting on Sunday and shooting your gun in the night. you keep people from sleeping. I live in a big rock above the Ford of the Creek. I went from Lincoln County County [sic] during the War I was Killed at Manassus in 1861. I am here now as a Locust in the day Time and. at night I am a Ku Klux sent here to look after you and all the rest of the radicals and make you know your place. I have got my eye on you every day, I am at the Ford of the creek every evening From Sundown till dark I want to meet you there next Saturday tell platt Madison we have, a Box. For him and you. We nail all, radicals up in Boxes and send them away to KKK – there is. 200 000 ded men retured to this country to make you and all the rest of the radicals good Democrats and vote right with the white people
