"A gang of white caps met a few nights ago and whipped a gang of lude women, known as the 'Tates,' who have lived about two miles north of Yanceyville. It is said that they have left the county.
"They were on trial at the last term of the Superior court and the judgment of the court was that they should leave the county in ten days. They failed to go, but the white cap remedy proved more effective, and the community was rid of a great annoyance." -- News and Commercial
Reprinted in The Reidsville Review (Reidsville, North Carolina), 26 November 1897.
_______________
Whitecapping was a movement among farmers that occurred specifically in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was originally a ritualized form of extralegal actions to enforce community standards, appropriate behavior, and traditional rights. However, as it spread throughout the poorest areas of the rural South after the Civil War, white members operated from economically driven and anti-black biases. States passed laws against it, but whitecapping continued into the early 20th century.
Whitecapping was associated historically with such insurgent groups as The Night Riders, Bald Knobbers and the Ku Klux Klan. They were known for committing "extralegal acts of violence targeting select groups, carried out by vigilantes under cover of night or disguise."
Source: Wikipedia
No comments:
Post a Comment