Sons experienced father’s evolution into a segregationist

Earcel Boyd preached at Baptist churches before and after joining the Ku Klux Klan. (Photo courtesy of the Concordia Sentinel)
Though 57 years have passed, Leland Boyd still can’t forget the smell of burnt human flesh.  In December 1964, Leland, then 12, stood in the doorway of a hospital room, where Frank Morris, a 51-year-old Black man from Ferriday, lay in critical condition after two men had torched his shoe shop.  Morris was a friend of the Boyd family. Leland and his father, Earcel Boyd Sr., had spent many…

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