York County was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan attacks on African Americans. The Klan had an estimated 2,000 members in the county in 1871. Among their activities was the lynching of Jim Williams on March 6, 1871, led by Dr. J. Rufus Bratton. K Troop of the 7th Cavalry Regiment was charged with suppressing them. To escape the violence, a large group of local blacks, led by Elias Hill, a crippled anti-Klan activist beaten by Klansmen, emigrated to Liberia. York is believed by some to be the setting for Thomas F. Dixon, Jr.'s novel "", later made into the motion picture "The Birth of a Nation", and Bratton is said to have been the inspiration for one of its characters.