Deacons

Threats, bombings marked resistance to civil rights

David Whatley, the first black student to integrate Ferriday High in 1966, returned from tortuous days at school only to face just as many threats outside his home.

The Deacons rose to counter KKK

On a July night in Jonesboro in 1964, the rumble of engines encroached on a quiet, black neighborhood then known as “The Quarters.” As residents stepped out onto their porches, they observed a line of cars—maybe 50 in all—with two to four men in each vehicle, their faces covered by white hoods.