re: Coon = Raccoon
The quotation marks were deliberate, and I assumed people knew the difference and what I was referring to. Obviously, there were thousands of legitimate coon hunts in the Deep South, but it was also common for those up to no good in white sheets to tell others they were going "coon hunting" before a night's work of frightening local blacks at best, and hurting or killing them at worst. That's where the derogatory term for blacks originated.