Subject: Brawley Gilmore, Union, SC From: Steven J. Coker Date: July 25, 1998 "We lived in a log house during the Ku Klux days. They would watch you just like a chicken rooster watching for a worm. At night, we was scared to have a light. They would come around with the dough faces on and peer in the windows and open the door. Iffen you didn't look out, they would scare you half to death. John Good, a darky blacksmith, used to shoe the horses for the Ku Klux. He would mark the horseshoes with a bent nail or something like that; then after a raid, he could go out in the road and see if a certain horse had been rode; so he began to tell on the Klu Klux. As soon as the Ku Klux found out they was being give away, they suspicioned John. They went to him and made him tell how he knew who they was. They kept him in hiding, and when he told his tricks, they killed him. When I was a boy on the Gilmore place, the Klu Klux would come along at night a-riding the niggers like they was goats. Yes sir, they had 'em down on all fours a-crawling, and they would be on their backs. They would carry the niggers to Turk Creek bridge and make them set up on the banisters of the bridge, then they would shoot 'em offen the banisters into the water. I 'clare them was the awfulest days I ever is seed. A darky named Sam Scaife drifted a hundred yards in the water downstream. His folks took and got him outen that bloody water and buried him on the bank of the creek. The Klu Klux would not let them take him to no graveyard. Fact is, they would not let many of the niggers take the dead bodies of the folks anywheres. They just throwed them in a big hole right there and pulled some dirt over them. For weeks after that, you could not go near that place, 'cause it stink so far and bad. Sam's folks, they throwed a lot of Indian-head rocks all over his grave, 'cause it was so shallow, and them rocks kept the wild animals from a-bothering Sam. You can still see them rocks, I could carry you there right now. Another darky, Eli McCollum, floated about three and a half miles down the creek. His folks went there and took him out and buried him on the banks of the stream right by the side of a Indian mound. You can see that Indian mound to this very day. It is big as my house is, over there on the Chester side." These are the words of Brawley Gilmore of Union, South Carolina, as reported by Caldwell Sims. Interview taken as part of the Federal Writer's Project, 1936-1938. ==== SCROOTS Mailing List ==== Go To: #, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Main |