This is a free excerpt of Episode 5. To hear more, join Slate Plus --> slate.com/reconstructionThe collapse of the antebellum Southern legal order left freedpeople exposed to violence from whites desperately trying to re-establish racial hierarchies. Some black people tried to defend themselves, acquiring weapons and forming militias. How common—and how effective—was that strategy?In Episode 5 of Reconstruction: A Slate Academy, Rebecca Onion and Jamelle Bouie are joined by Kidada Williams, author of They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I.