sheriff disagreed vigorously. There was no need for what “those women” did. African Americans had it good in Pickens County. “We have a policy of not beating ’em,” he bragged, “We treat ’em right. We don’t run over ’em just because they are black.” But the message was also clear: If they’re black and, as one African American woman pointed out, “promote better living for colored” people, the full force of the state’s legal machinery would hound, harass, and imprison them for helping the disfranchised vote.
