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and offenders were sure of expulsion from church unless, as happened sometimes, the bolters were strong enough to turn the Republicans out. Nearly every church had its political club to which the men belonged and sometimes the women. Robert Bennett of Lee County related his experience to the Coburn Committee. He wanted to vote the Democratic ticket, he said, and for that offence was put on trial in his church. The
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told him that he must not do so, saying,
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We had rather you wouldn't vote at all; if you won't go with us to vote with us, you are against us; the Bible says so.... We can have you arrested. We have got you; if you won't say you won't vote or will vote with us, we will have you arrested.... All who won't vote with us we will kick out of the society--and turn them out of church;
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Honestly, I love my race, but the way the colored people have taken a stand against the white people ... will not do. Of the white Radicals he said,
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They know that we are a parcel of poor ignorant people, and I think it is a bad thing for them to take advantage of a poor ignorant person, and I do not think they are honest men; they cannot be. He said that the Radicals promised much and gave little; that they never helped him. The Democrats gave him credit and paid his doctor's bills; so that it was to his interest to vote for the Democrats--
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I done it because it was to my interest. I wanted a change. Another negro explained his change of politics by saying that bad government kept up the price of pork, and allowed sorry negroes to steal what industrious negroes made and saved--eggs, chickens, and cotton. When Adam Kirk, of Chambers County, was asked why be belonged to the
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he answered:
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I was raised in the house of old man Billy Kirk. He raised me as a body servant. The class that he belongs to feels nearer to me than the northern white man, and actually, since the war, everything that I have got is by their aid and assistance. They have helped me raise up my family and have stood by me, and whenever I want a doctor, no matter what hour of the day or night, he is called in whether I have got a cent or not. I think they have got better principles and better character than the Republicans. [2132] There is no doubt that these represented the sentiments of several thousand negroes who had mustered up courage to remain away from the polls or perhaps to vote for the Democrats. And while in white counties the campaign was made on the race issue, in the Black Belt the whites, as Strobach said,
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to negro bolters. They encouraged and paid the expenses of negro Democratic speakers, and gave barbecues to the blacks who would promise to vote for the