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 financially liable for violating the rights of racial minorities. Now modern civil rights activists are trying to use the same law to go after groups that promote terrorist acts like last week’s slaughter in El Paso, Tx.
You can read about it here.
From the article:
In the aftermath of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the country was grappling with a wave of violent attacks by the KKK and other racist vigilantes against recently freed slaves seeking to exercise their new rights. The Reconstruction-era Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant acted to protect these former slaves from extralegal violence by passing the KKK Act.
Among other provision, it specifically took on conspiracies between people that intend to deprive a person or class of persons of equal protection under the laws — providing a civil remedy to individualswho are the victim of private acts motivated by discrimination and racial bias. Following its passage, the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan organization was effectively dismantled and did not resurface until decades later.
Follow Reconstruction Blog on Social Media:
