““These were not idle threats. Suspected labor agents were arrested routinely whenever a trainload of African Americans left or when the fields were empty and there was no one to work the land.40 The Reverend D. W. Johnson, a black labor agent in Mississippi, barely escaped detection, the sting of the whip, or worse for handing out free railroad passes north to African Americans. “About twelve o’ clock,” he recounted: that door swung open and there was two great big, three great big red-faced guys … Now they had a bullwhip on they shoulder and a rope and a gun in each of their hands. And those pistols, them barrels looked like shotguns, you know? They gonna kill every so-and-so Negro that they found had a pass. Well, so they searched us one by one and they searched me … Had they pulled off my shoe, that’d been it for me. Because they swo’ they was gonna kill the one who had it. Yeah, it was in the toe of my shoe.””
