Editing Columbus County, North Carolina (section)

===Ku Klux Klan===
In 1950 Thomas Hamilton, a South Carolina leader of a white supremacist [[Ku Klux Klan]] chapter, began a recruiting campaign to expand his organization's reach into Columbus County, focusing on the towns of Chadbourn, Fair Bluff, Tabor City, and Whiteville.<ref name=carterklan>{{cite web| url = http://www.carter-klan.org/Hamilton.html| title = Thomas Lemuel Hamilton and the Ku Klux Klan| website = The Carter-Klan Documentary Project| publisher = [[Center for the Study of the American South]]| access-date = January 25, 2023}}</ref> In late July they paraded through Tabor City, passing out handbills which exhorted white men to join them in resisting "Jews, nigger, and integrationist quacks".{{sfn|Cunningham|2013|p=28}} [[W. Horace Carter]], the publisher of the ''[[Tabor City Tribune]]'', issued an editorial the following day denouncing the Klan as a violent group and urging local residents to ignore them, leading to a threatening note being placed on his car the following day.{{sfn|Cunningham|2013|p=29}} The county hosted many Klan sympathizers and a Klavern was organized later that year in Whiteville.<ref name=carterklan/> ''[[The News Reporter]]'' of Whiteville, led by editor Willard Cole, joined the ''Tabor City Tribune'' in reporting on Klan activities and denouncing the organization, leading to threats against Cole.{{sfn|Harris|2015|pp=220–221}}

The following January the Klansmen began night raids on homes, abducting and flogging residents who they felt had violated traditional [[mores]].<ref name=carterklan/>{{sfn|Cunningham|2013|p=29}} Over the following months the Klan continued to conduct raids, heightening local tensions.{{sfn|Cunningham|2013|pp=29–30}} In early October 1951 Klansmen from Fair Bluff abducted a couple and transported them into South Carolina.<ref name=carterklan/> Abduction crossing state lines was [[Federal Kidnapping Act|a federal crime]], and as a result the U.S. [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI) became involved.{{sfn|Cunningham|2013|p=30}} In February 1952 the FBI, state agents, and county sheriff's deputies initiated a crackdown and arrested 11 Klansmen responsible for the October abduction.<ref name=carterklan/> Law enforcement made additional arrests over subsequent months. Of the near 100 Klansmen arrested, 63 including Hamilton were convicted of various crimes.{{sfn|Cunningham|2013|p=30}} For their efforts against the Klan, in 1953 the ''Tabor City Tribune'' and ''The News Reporter'' won the [[Pulitzer Prize for Public Service]].{{sfn|Harris|2015|p=220}}