In 1876, a black state senator in South Carolina was hauled off by a train by a mob. Simon Coker was given the chance to pray before he was murdered. While kneeling, he was shot in the head. The assassination was part of a systematic paramilitary campaign by white supremacists in the post-Civil War South to intimidate and suppress black voters. One of the leaders present at Coker’s murder became South Carolina’s governor and a longtime U.S. senator.

February 13, 2015 ・ From Inside Higher Ed