Sheriff Stuckey was the most awesome character

I mean, pretty much all of the white townsfolk were evil, or, at the very least, deplorable, but I always find the 'TV Trope', "Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness", to be an interesting one (I think there's another TV Trope term that I can't remember right now, about characters who are bad but seem less so *relative* to other *even worse* villains in the same story), but you're right, Mayor Tilman knew what was going on, hence the scene with Djola's character as you note (and yeah, Djola was great in this). But I found that line regarding his suicide interesting. I wonder if he felt any remorse for what happened. I mean, he was clearly a bigot, but the other bigots (the ones directly involved in the murders) didn't take their lives, and seemed comparatively defiant in their evil, when they were being arrested at the end. I wonder if he condoned the murders, or 'simply' turned a blind eye. He might have been personally against murder, but also implicitly gave consent to others, especially the law enforcement officials, to do what they 'had to do', to get rid of those 'pesky Yankee do-gooders/activists who'd been stirring up trouble'.