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The collapse of the antebellum Southern legal order left freedpeople exposed to violence from whites desperately trying to re-establish racial hierarchies. Some black people tried to defend themselves, acquiring weapons and forming militias. How common—and how effective—was that strategy?

In Episode 5 of Reconstruction: A Slate Academy, Rebecca Onion and Jamelle Bouie are joined by Kidada Williams, author of They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I.