Reign of Terror A Brief History of the Ku Klux Klan and the Practice of Lynching.

Reign of Terror

A Brief History of the Ku Klux Klan and the Practice of

Lynching

Rise of the Ku Klux Klan

• At the time of Ulysses S. Grant’s election to the presidency (1868), white supremacists were conducting a reign of terror throughout the South. In outright defiance of the Republican-led federal government, Southern Democrats formed organizations that violently intimidated blacks and Republicans who tried to win political power.

Rise of the Ku Klux Klan (continued)

• The most prominent of these, the Ku Klux Klan, was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. Originally founded as a social club for former Confederate soldiers, the Klan evolved into a terrorist organization. It would be responsible for thousands of deaths, and would help to weaken the political power of Southern blacks and Republicans.

Rise of the Ku Klux Klan (continued)• Racist activity in the South often took

the form of riots that targeted blacks and Republicans. In 1866, a quarrel between whites and black ex-soldiers erupted into a full-fledged riot in Memphis, Tennessee. White policemen assisted the mobs in their violent rampage through the black sections of town. By the time the violence ended, 46 people were dead, 70 more were wounded, and numerous churches and schools had been burned. Just two months later, on July 30, a similar outbreak of violence erupted in New Orleans. This time, a white mob attacked the attendees of a black suffrage convention, killing 37 blacks and 3 whites who allied with them.

Rise of the Ku Klux Klan (continued)

• In this violent atmosphere, the Ku Klux Klan grew in size and strength. By 1868, the Klan had evolved into a hooded terrorist organization that its members called "The Invisible Empire of the South." The reorganized Klan's first leader, or "Grand Wizard," was Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had been a Confederate general during the Civil War.

Rise of the Ku Klux Klan (continued)

• White Southerners from all classes of society joined the Klan's ranks. In the name of preserving law and order in a white-dominated society, Klansmen punished newly freed blacks for a variety of reasons, including behaving in an "impudent" manner toward whites. They whipped the teachers of freedmen's schools and burnt their schoolhouses. But first and foremost, the Klan sought to do away with Republican influence in the South by terrorizing and murdering its party leaders and all those who voted for it.

Rise of the Ku Klux Klan (continued)

• Nevertheless, the Klan's violent actions proved to many Northerners that the South had not learned its lesson in the recent war. In this way, the Klan's activities actually backfired. People realized that harsher laws would have to be passed in order to stop the violence and protect Southern blacks.

In the meantime…• 14th Amendment to the U.S.

Constitution to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. In addition, it forbids states from denying any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law" or to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” By directly mentioning the role of the states, the 14th Amendment greatly expanded the protection of civil rights to all Americans.

Another Issue—Black Suffrage• At the time of Grant’s election to

the presidency in 1868, Americans were struggling to reconstruct a nation torn apart by war. Voting rights for freed blacks proved a big problem. Reconstruction Acts passed after the war called for black suffrage (voting) in the Southern states, but many felt the approach unfair. The Acts did not apply to the North. And in 1868, 11 of the 21 Northern states did not allow blacks to vote in elections. Most of the border states, where one-sixth of the nation's black population resided, also refused to allow blacks to vote.

Black Suffrage (continued)

• Republicans' answer to the problem of the black vote was to add a Constitutional amendment that guaranteed black suffrage in all states, and no matter which party controlled the government.

The Answer: 15th Amendment

• The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

• The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

States’ Acceptance of Change

• Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment on February 26, 1869. But some states resisted ratification. At one point, the ratification count stood at 17 Republican states approving the amendment and four Democratic states rejecting it. Congress still needed 11 more states to ratify the amendment before it could become law.

Manipulation for Ratification

• All eyes turned toward those Southern states which had yet to be readmitted to the Union. Acting quickly, Congress ruled that in order to be let into the Union, these states had to accept both the Fifteenth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to all people born in the United States, including former slaves. Left with no choice, the states ratified the amendments and were restored to statehood.

Back to the Ku Klux Klan• Finally, on March 30, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment

became part of the Constitution. To many, it felt like the last step of reconstruction. But just as some had predicted, Southerners found ways to prevent blacks from voting. Southern politics would turn violent as Democrats and Republicans clashed over the right of former slaves to enter civic life. White supremacist vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan gained strength as many whites refused to accept blacks as their equals.

• America still faced years of struggle.

Rise of Lynching• The lynching era encompasses roughly the five

decades between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the Great Depression. During these years we may estimate that there were 2,018 separate incidents of lynching (documented) in which at least 2,462 African-American men, women and children met their deaths in the grasp of southern mobs, comprised mostly of whites.

• Although lynchings and mob killings occurred before 1880, notably during early Reconstruction when blacks were enfranchised, radical racism and mob violence peaked during the 1890s in a surge of terrorism that did not dissipate until well into the twentieth century.

Lynching (continued)

• In addition to the punishment of specific criminal offenders, lynching in the American South had three entwined functions:– first, to maintain social order over the black

population through terrorism;– second, to suppress of eliminate black competitors

for economic, political, or social rewardsí– third, to stabilize the white class structure and

preserve the privileged status of the white aristocracy

Questions to Consider in Relation to Lynching

• What determined a "criminal offense"?

• What constituted proof?

• How many men were lynched based on false allegations?

• What about due process?

Yes, Women Too!

One Man’s Last Moments

One Man’s Last Moments (continued)

His Demise

James Allen—Collector and Historian

• Studying these photos has engendered in me a caution of whites, of the majority, of the young, of religion, of the accepted. Perhaps a certain circumspection concerning these things was already in me, but surely not as actively as after the first sight of a brittle postcard of Leo Frank dead in an oak tree. It wasn't the corpse that bewildered me as much as the canine-thin faces of the pack, lingering in the woods, circling after the kill. Hundreds of flea markets later a trader pulled me aside and in conspiratorial tones offered me a second card, this one of Laura Nelson, caught so pitiful and tattered and beyond retrieving - like a child's paper kite snagged on a utility wire. The sight of Laura layered a pall of grief over all my fears.

James Allen—Collector and Historian

• I believe the photographer was more than a perceptive spectator at lynchings. The photographic art played as significant a role in the ritual as torture or souvenir grabbing - a sort of two-dimensional biblical swine, a receptacle for a collective sinful self. Lust propelled their commercial reproduction and distribution, facilitating the endless replay of anguish. Even dead, the victims were without sanctuary.

Online Sites Used

• PBS• Without Sanctuary• Library of Congress• University of Massachusetts