Black men who entered politics were tortured for alleged white-woman liaisons

Evidence

Henry Lowther, a black freedman from central Georgia, told the committee his story. One night about twenty disguised Klansmen came to his home. They accused him of taking “too great a stand against them in the Republican Party.” He managed to get away safely. Lowther was later jailed and charged for conspiring to kill another black man, but denied a trial. This time he could not escape. Klansmen arrived in the middle of the night and took him to a swamp. “The moon was shining bright, and I could see them,” he told the committee. They castrated him. The Klansmen not only condemned his work with the Republican Party, they accused him of “going to see a white lady.” — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 207