Category: White Terror
New Report Says 2,000 Blacks Lynched During Reconstruction Era
A new report from the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) says that from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until the traditional close of…
Confederate Veteran William Simkins Describes His Role in the Ku Klux Klan
William Simkins was a professor of law at the University of Texas in Austin on Thanksgiving in 1914 when he decided to use his speech…
In 1863 When a Black Man Refused to be Whipped Was He a Murderer if He Killed His Enslaver?
Here is an incident that I read about recently set during the early period of Reconstruction while the Civil War was still raging. I found…
How Did American History Textbooks Remember the Ku Klux Klan?
The recent book Remembering Reconstruction has an essay titled “The Cultural Work of the Ku-Klux Klan in US History Textbooks, 1883–2015” by Elaine Parsons. The…
Smithsonian: Free Resources for Understanding the History of Racism in the U.S.
The Smithsonian has put together a great collection of free resources for understanding the history of racism in the United States. There are links to…
When Grant Literally Decapitated Seymour (at least Cartoon Grant did)! Nov. 1868
By the evening of November 3, 1868 it was pretty clear to most informed observers that Ulysses S. Grant had been elected president. If you…
December 1868 Grant Investigates Political Violence in Arkansas
After the Civil War Ulysses S. Grant continued to command the United States Army. As president elect in 1868 Grant sent his trusted aide Horace…
Courageous Journalist Ida B. Wells Honored by Pulitzer Prize Committee for Struggle Against Lynching
Ida B. Wells was one of the strongest voices for Black freedom during the Jim Crow Era. An outstanding journalist, she campaigned against lynching alongside…
When Black and White Refugees Fled to Atlanta to Escape the Klan May 1869
Political and racial violence in the Reconstruction Era South was a factor in setting Southerners, Black and white, into motion as refugees. Ku Klux attacks…
“…our friend is dead. He was foully murdered by the Ku-Klux ” A Klan Killing of a Carolina State Senator
This letter was sent from Albion Tourgee to Gen. Joseph Abott reporting a killing of a Republican legislator in North Carolina in the Spring of…