'Some Black Southerners, especially those who survived attacks or witnessed the violence firsthand, decided that they couldn’t bear the extreme risk of simply exercising their franchise. Bordewich includes some heart-rending testimony from freedmen who were too terrified to go to the ballot box. As one Black man put it, “I had to deny voting to save myself.”'

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/books/review/klan-war-fergus-bordewich.html