YOUR SAY: A response to Richardson's 'Can't make this stuff up' column

On Sunday, Feb. 7, I read the column, "Can't make this stuff up," by Charles E. Richardson on the editorial page. I hesitate to respond to this because it propagates what I hate most and that is the effort to keep the albatross of slavery hanging on the necks of our young people of both races. I would like them to move into adulthood with the same love and harmony they enjoy during the early years of their lives before they are given this yoke to wear for whatever reason.

I will quote Richardson as he quoted Rep. Tommy Benton, "Benton said the KKK was 'not so much a racist thing but a vigilante thing to keep law and order. It made a lot of people straighten up. I'm not saying it was right. It's just the way it was.'" Richardson called Benton's words "insanely stupid" and scoffed at the fact that he used to be a history teacher.

It is this reference that bothers me because history is an account of what happened during a time in the past. It is written as the historian knows it. It is a real gem when the historian is someone who lived and tells it to the best of his knowledge.

I refer you to a book, "Early Settlers of Alabama," written by Col. James Edmonds Saunders, who was born in Virginia in 1806 and died in Alabama in 1896. He was member of the Democratic-Republican Party in Alabama. His book is devoted to the settlers, the beauty of the land, the Indians who lived there at the time, and the politics of the state. The book is beautifully written, almost poetic. The original book is located in the Cornell University Library.

Buried among the many pages of this book, after he gave great detail quoting actual correspondence of the Civil War, is a reference to the period after the war. His book is not copyrighted so I will quote:

"Those dark days of the Reconstruction period rapidly followed the horrors of civil war, and the reign of the carpet-bagger began, goading the people to desperation! For their protection the younger and more reckless men of the community now formed a secret society, which masqueraded at night in grotesque and gruesome character, called the Ku-Klux-Klan. Always silent and mysterious, mounted on horses they swept noiselessly by in the darkness with gleaming death's heads, skeletons and chains. It struck terror into the heart of the evil-doer, while the peaceful citizen knew a faithful patrol had guarded his premises while he slept."

Obviously, after the emancipation, the slaves stayed with their master, because Col. Saunders writes that he established a patriarchal protectorate over his own, giving them a church on the place and organized a plantation monthly court, where the gray beards among them assembled to try the derelicts.

Whether or not Col. Saunders was in the minority in his beliefs, Rep. Benton "didn't make this stuff up."

Patricia Weiss is a resident of Macon.

This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 9:31 PM with the headline "YOUR SAY: A response to Richardson's 'Can't make this stuff up' column ."