Activism leads to threats
Salter's family connections in the Weldon area insulated him from retaliation against his militant position on racial justice. He remembers threats and shootings but does not describe them in detail here.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Salter and Doris Cochran, April 12, 1997. Interview R-0014. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
I have a
lot of cousins around here.
- KAREN KRUISE THOMAS:
-
Most Southerners do have a lot of cousins!
- DORIS COCHRAN:
-
I think that's the only thing that really saved him, because
when he came back from Korea, he was quite militant. One of the judges
in this area was a cousin of his. I think that he put out the word not
to bother him, not to touch him. I think that was the one thing that
kept him from being hurt, because otherwise, he could have been
physically hurt.
- KAREN KRUISE THOMAS:
-
I can imagine, in the early '50s.
- SALTER COCHRAN:
-
We were victims of a lot of physical threats, and some shootings.
- DORIS COCHRAN:
-
Some mysterious telephone calls.
- SALTER COCHRAN:
-
Of which we believed the FBI was behind.
- DORIS COCHRAN:
-
A lot of threatening things had happened.
