Verdia Locklear was 24 years old, married, and four months pregnant when the Ku Klux Klan advertised that they would hold their first gathering in Maxton, N.C. She shares her story with Nancy Fields of the Museum of the Southeast American Indian at UNC Pembroke.
————— Transcript
Well, back then, the Robesonian [newspaper], everybody got a Robesonian and it was put in the paper. When you advertise something like that, our people knows what to do. They know when to go and what to carry. And everybody just, made plans. The first thing they’d say, be– be sure– be sure you got your pistol, and if you don’t have a pistol, carry your rifle.
So I had both. I had my pistol but I– I left the rifle at the house. And so everybody knew that– to carry a rifle or a pistol on them. We didn’t carry a knife or anything.
My husband looked at me, he says, “You’re goin’?”
I said, “If you go, I go.”
He knew. [laughs]
I was not afraid because I felt like that–
We had–
It was put in the paper, how the Klan– the way they had done in South Carolina. It was in the Robesonian.
And, in fact, they put the people out of their house, and we knew that we had built our own house and nobody was gonna’ get it.”
And we had read that, and so, we knew we were going for protection.
We intended to get rid of ‘em, ‘cause we knew if they was going to try to outshoot us, they– they was going to get everything we had. That was their intentions. They was going to run us out of our homes. That was their intention.
So we went and, when we got there, they had the platform for the guy to– “Catfish” [James W. “Catfish” Cole] to do his talking.
We was surround– surround the place. In, on– They had the back part of the platform, and that’s the way that’s how they got gone. But, now, in the front of the platform, that’s where everybody scooted down.
So, when he got up there to talk, that was when Neil Lowery, which he’s passed now, they squatted down into the field like.
When he [James “Catfish” Cole] started talking on the microphone, they started shooting then.
It was dark. [QUIETER] It was dark.
‘cause, Wiley didn’t get– my husband, he didn’t get too far from me, ‘cause all of us was shooting.
They didn’t let him talk, period. He got gone.
They [the KKK] were shocked, ‘cause they had no dreams that we [Lumbee/Indian people] would be there like we were.
And we just– We took the crosses, and went to the railroad, here at the railroad, there, in town, and made a big fire.
And we burned– we burned those crosses ‘till it was four o’clock that morning.
We took our time; nobody was in a hurry except to get what we went for.
[LAUGHING] There’s a crew of us. [LAUGHS] We had a ball.
Well, the conversation was more just laughter, how we did and the way we did it. You know.
If we wouldn’t have gone, they would have come back, and they would have had more than what they did have.
In fact, they put in the paper the next week, that they would be in Saint Pauls [North Carolina], and an Indian better not be there. That was the talk that was in the paper.
So Wiley, my husband, he looked at me, he said, “You wanna let’s go?”
I says, “Yeah. Let’s go.” So we went to Saint Pauls.
But nobody came. If they did, they hid. We didn’t see a one that night.
You don’t know what it’s like for you to go in to a drug store– now, I’m telling you my experience – go into the drug store, you’re sick, and you ask for a fountain coke.
And you got – They gave you the fountain coke, but you couldn’t sit down and drink it in there. There were seats.
And I had– I was there, went to the doc–, doctor Bender, he was my doctor.
And I got the fountain coke and I couldn’t– he wouldn’t– they wouldn’t let me sit down. And I passed out.
And my husband was sitting in the car, there at the railroad, in Red Springs [N.C.], those trees is still there. Wiley was sitting there and someone went to the car and told him, you know, that I had passed out.
And so he drove to the back. He couldn’t get to the front. He went to the back and come in and got me.
I feel like we made a difference. I’ll put it like that, I feel like we made a difference.
Treat people, treat your friends, everybody, the way the Lord would have you to treat them.
That’s the best way.
Because, if you–
If you do damage to a person, you’ll get your payback, and that’s for sure.
And so, “do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.”
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