As a white woman whose brother had been compelled to serve as a sentinel, Cronly understood, to her horror, the murderous motives of the white supremacists who directed the killings. And she had clearly observed the effect on her black neighbors. “The whole thing was with the object of striking terror to the man’s heart, so that he would never vote again,” she wrote. “For this was the object of the whole persecution; to make Nov. 10th a day to be remembered by the whole race for all time.”
