But in 1906, Helena’s prosecuting attorney expressed the new attitude of public authorities when he announced, “It is time that the respectable white people of this community rise in their might and assert their rights.” Helena’s newspaper called the prosecutor’s statement masterful and eloquent. Three years later Montana banned marriages between blacks and whites. During this era many towns across the country adopted policies forbidding African Americans from residing or even from being within town borders after dark. Although the policies were rarely formalized in ordinances, police and
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