Page 27 - lake-city-florida-a-sesquicentennial-tribute-(h-morris-williams-kevin-mccarthy)-2009

Lake City, Florida: A Sesquicentennial Tribute (2009) H. Morris Williams, Dr. Kevin M. McCarthy

Chapter Six: 1860 - 1869
According to Ralph Peek in his article entitled “Lawlessness
in Florida, 1868 – 1871,” the six years after the Civil War were full of
incidents showing a rise in violence in north Florida. For example,
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Judge William Bryson of the Third Judicial Circuit, which included
Columbia, Hamilton, Lafayette, Madison, Suwannee, and Taylor
counties, testified that many criminals had not been brought to justice
.
in those counties because of two factors: (1) the Ku Klux Klan
obstructed justice and (2) widespread sympathy for the Klan made it
impossible for law officers to find help from white people in arresting
guilty parties. At least a dozen African-American Republicans were
murdered in Columbia County around 1868 – 1869.

The Klan was active in north Florida after the Civil War.

According to historian Jerrell H. Shofner in Nor Is It Over
Yet, Florida in the Era of Reconstruction, 1863 - 1877, the resent-
ment in places like Lake City to northern teachers in African-Ameri-
can schools was so great that the teachers could not find affordable
housing and soon left. 17

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