655. The Ku Klux Klan: Terror in the South (Part 2)

“The violence is not random; it is strategically targeted at the ballot box. Klansmen would ride out at night to terrorize local leaders of the Union League or Black voters, making it clear that exercising their newly won constitutional rights would come at the cost of their lives or their homes and families.”

“Andrew Johnson’s presidency is a disaster for the freedmen because he essentially signals to the former Confederates that the old order can be restored. By pardoning the planter elite and opposing the Radical Republicans, he gives the green light to the Black Codes and the emerging vigilante groups like the Klan to operate with a sense of impunity.”

“It is a mistake to think of the first Klan as just a social club that got out of hand; it was a guerrilla army. They were the military wing of the Democratic Party in the South, using terror to undo the results of the Civil War and restore white supremacy through systematic intimidation and the physical elimination of political rivals.”

“Ulysses S. Grant eventually realizes that soft power won't work, leading to the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. He suspends habeas corpus in parts of South Carolina and sends in the federal cavalry to actually hunt these people down, which effectively breaks the back of the first iteration of the Klan for a generation.”

“While the Klan was physically defeated in the 1870s, the underlying ideology won out when the North lost its will to occupy the South. The withdrawal of federal troops in 1877 paved the way for Jim Crow, proving that a short-term military victory against a terror group doesn't always translate into a lasting victory for social justice.”