The “visit” was not Edward Crosby’s first encounter with hostile white Mississippians. Before the war, enslaved people outnumbered free people in Monroe County by about four thousand. The enslaving class had used extreme levels of violence to control the Black majority. Emancipation and Black male enfranchisement gave men like Edward the chance to create a more just world—a world they were ready to seize—and whites in Monroe County knew it. White landowners in the county collectively found ways to deny Black people’s freedom and power wherever they could, including by imposing the system of
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