REVIEW CIVIL HISTORY

“For many white Southerners of the time, the Klan were not viewed as terrorists but as defenders of their civilization. This historical perspective is crucial to understanding why the violence was able to escalate so rapidly in the 1860s and 70s.”

“The Reconstruction era was a period where the Southern states, having been brought back into the Union, were struggling with the new reality of multiracial democracy. The political context for the Klan's rising popularity was a direct reaction to the enfranchisement of Black Americans.”

“The Ku Klux Klan's activities weren't just random acts of violence or midnight pranks. It was an increasingly barbaric treatment of freedmen that served a very clear political purpose, which was the destruction of the Republican Party's influence in the former Confederacy.”

“When we look at the barbaric treatment of freedmen, we see that the primary objective was to ensure they did not exercise their right to vote. The Klan was effectively the paramilitary wing of the Democratic Party in the South at that time.”

“Ulysses S. Grant realized that the states were unable or unwilling to protect their own citizens from this terror. He made the decision that federal intervention was the only way to safeguard the rights that had been won during the Civil War.”

“The destruction of the first iteration of the Klan came through the Enforcement Acts, which allowed the federal government to suspend habeas corpus. It was a massive exercise of federal power that eventually brought the organization to its knees.”