America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s

In this chapter, Hinton turns her attention to the groups of white vigilantes who formed to harass African Americans in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the years leading up to the Pyramid Courts rebellion, the white citizens of Cairo, Illinois, had already begun organizing vigilante groups to deal with what they saw as the “Negro problem” (72) in their city. Despite the mayor begging them to refrain from violence—less because of his empathy for Black people and more because he feared the economic damage it would do to Cairo—white residents banded together to form a group called the “White Hats,” who served as vigilantes terrorizing the Black community.

These white vigilantes were deputized to make arrests, and would often harass and threaten Black people, including children, as they were going about their business, all under the justification that they were “protecting their property” (76). The White Hats included several prominent religious, political, and business leaders of Cairo. Meanwhile other Christian leaders, led by a white priest named Gerald Montroy, spoke out against the White Hats and lamented the oppression that Black people in Cairo were forced to live under.