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Pop had been testing the nightriders' patience for a long time. He was doing things that only white folks did. He bought land and settled too close. He lived in a big white house. He drove a nice new Pontiac and made many trips along stretches of lonely roads traveling to his churches. He was one of those black preachers who wore white shirts and black pants every day. He talked “proper” and tipped his hat as he passed their houses even though he did not know them.
His wife, Granny was a tall, thin, proud and stern schoolteacher who didn't work in their houses and knew everybody. She also had friendly exchanges with the community white women because of her great pound cakes and her herbal knowledge. Pop was my grandfather and we lived at the very edge of the “ridge” where white farms began.
In Southeastern Mississippi, there is an area called “Nigger Ridge.” The older people say the name came about because a group of black men came to this part of Mississippi from North Carolina and bought land no one else wanted and settled on it. Whites often joked that if you threw a rock on the houses in this part of the county, niggers would run out all day; hence “Nigger Ridge” became the name for the community where a large group of black landowners and their families lived. Pop was wellknown and respected on the “ridge.” The “ridge” was our home.
One summer night on the “ridge,” long after sundown, there was an eeriness in the air, a sense of foreboding. People spoke in whispers about what they had heard. As they stood talking in their shabby farm work clothes, men sweated. Women glistened and their clothes stuck to their bodies whether they were ample or thin. A frightened little girl, I could not and would not sleep because I had overheard the grown-ups
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talk in whispers about the nightriders. Nightriders was the name for the Ku Klux Klan that was most used by the blacks on the “ridge.” The nightriders who lived about three miles away were coming to talk to Pop, who was known throughout the “ridge,” as “Duck.” His name was actually Frederick Douglass Boothe....