night riders
After-dark lynch mobs
Night riders are groups who commit violence or intimidation under cover of darkness, historically associated with the Ku Klux Klan and similar vigilante organizations in the American South.
They typically rode on horseback to terrorize Black citizens, civil rights workers, or others they opposed: Night riders burned crosses on the lawn.
The term sometimes extends to any nocturnal vigilantes or harassers.
Having a fabric headpiece
- white supremacyDoctrine of racial superiority
- Jim CrowRacial separation laws
- ReconstructionPost-1865 national reunification period
- terrorismIntimidation through targeted violence
white robes · lynching · segregation · supremacist · nativism · racial purity · intimidation · freedmen
hooded
Having a fabric headpiece
- white supremacyDoctrine of racial superiority
- Jim CrowRacial separation laws
- ReconstructionPost-1865 national reunification period
terrorism · white robes · lynching · segregation · supremacist · nativism · racial purity · intimidation · freedmen · postbellum
moonlight
Reflected solar radiance, nocturnal
shadow · furtive · hidden · disguise · secrecy · conspiracy · masked · hooded · torches · darkness
justice
Fair treatment under law
- avengerRetribution dealer
- retributionPunishment for wrongdoing
- outlawFugitive from justice
patrol · enforcer · posse · manhunt · mob · lawless · extrajudicial · lynching · pursuit · horseback
- raidersraiders, marauders, pillagers, plunderers, looters
- folklorefairy tales, fairytales, folktales, folk tales, folk tale
- Reconstructionfreedmen, Freedmen's Bureau, Fourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment, carpetbaggers
- armed groupsmilitia, guerrillas, insurgents, paramilitary, militias
- Jim CrowJim Crow laws, separate but equal, segregation laws, Plessy v. Ferguson, whites only
- apparitionsghosts, phantoms, specters, wraiths, shades
night riderslaw enforcement
Upholding legal codes
peacekeepers · police · marshals · constables · due process
night ridersabolitionists
Those opposing human bondage
civil rights activists · human rights defenders · NAACP · liberators · emancipators
night, rider, nights, nightly, nighttime, overnight, midnight, fortnight, ride