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VIDOR, Texas - You've got to wonder why dozens of black refugees from Hurricane Katrina would set down in Vidor - an old lumber town in the pine country of east Texas that has a long record of racial hostility.

Consider:

• In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan drove every last black resident out of town through a campaign of murder and terrorism. Blacks had owned large swaths of timberland here; later, whites took it over.
• In the '50s, hand-painted signs, using a capitalized racial slur to address blacks, read, "READ THIS AND RUN," and "DON'T LET THE SUN SET ON YOU HERE." The signs were a reminder that hooded Klansmen still roamed the night, unbothered.
• In the '70s, black motorists who dared to stop for gas in Vidor were reportedly forced to drink motor oil.
• In the '90s, after four black families moved into a public housing complex, Klansmen in full regalia staged marches, cross-burnings and fund-raisers to "Keep Vidor White." The families moved away shortly thereafter.
• Today, according to the NAACP's Hate Crimes Web site, Vidor remains the home of a Klan faction, the "Knights of the White Kamellia." In a state where blacks make up 12 percent of the population, few of Vidor's 11,293 inhabitants are African-American; just eight blacks were counted here five years ago.

So how have the black refugees from Katrina fared?

Says Trisha Reaux, 30, who will be a mother in two weeks: "We've been completely accepted with open arms."

To that, Jacqueline Jilles, 62, of Harvey, La., adds: "These people have treated us like blood sisters and brothers."

Melvin Bahan, 47, a baker from New Orleans, goes a bit farther: "The people of Vidor have shown us nothing but love - the true love of God."

more.