Category: Ku Klux Klan
Negro School Burned by White Men-Outrages of the KuKlux Klans Tennessee Feb. 1868
A particular target of white terror groups were black schoolhouses. The schoolhouse and the church were often the most visible outward signs of the free…
The First Time the Ku Klux Klan Was Covered in a National Newspaper Was for a Murder Jan. 18, 1868
While the Ku Klux Klan would later claim that it had begun life on Christmas Eve, 1865, historians now believe it started six months later….
Ku Klux Klan Appeared at 1867 Version of a Renaissance Faire in Tennessee
One of the odder events one encounters in reading Southern newspapers of the Reconstruction Era is the propensity of elite whites to organize Medieval–style tournaments…
KKK Raiders Defeated by “Negroes” in Livingston, Tenn. Dec. 30, 1868
The Ku Klux Klan rampaged through Tennessee in 1868, but as this article demonstrates, the local African American communities were ready to risk everything to…
John B. Gordon to Black Voters “We opposed your freedom…because we had bought you” Sept. 1868
Former Confederate General John B. Gordon “reached out” to Black voters during the 1868 campaign to assure them that he and other whites had opposed…
Ku Klux Soda Fountain in Pulaski Tenn. August, 1868
Pulaski, Tn. is usually considered the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. In the hottest days of 1868, as a campaign of White Terror was…
Civil Rights Group Uses 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act to Go After Modern White Nationalist Terrorists
The 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act was passed to counter a growing wave of white supremacist terrorism during the Reconstruction Era. The law made individuals…
Nathan Bedford Forrest Day in Tennessee Honors Founder of Ku Klux Klan
On July 13, 2019 the governor of Tennessee issued a proclamation observing Nathan Bedford Forrest Day. Forrest was reputedly the first Grand Dragon and commander…
Carl Schurz Warned That a “System of Terrorism” Was Taking Hold in the Post-War South in 1865
Carl Schurz arrived in South Carolina in the middle of July, 1865. He had been sent by new president Andrew Johnson to investigate the condition…
Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture by Karen Cox
Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture by Karen Cox published by Florida University Press (2003). Hardcover $55.00,…