May 31, 1870- The First Reinforcement Act

A cartoon threatening that the KKK will lynch scalawags (left) and carpetbaggers (right) on March 4, 1869. Tuscaloosa, Alabama Independent Monitor, Sept. 1, 1868. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kkk-carpetbagger-cartoon.jpg

In the South after the Civil War, the Union’s victory was followed by terrorism.

The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865 in Tennessee by Confederate Veterans. It was only one of many secret terrorist groups that formed immediately after the end of the war. While many groups had chapters in different states, none of them exercised much central control. The groups formed and were directed by local members resisting Republican political domination and suppressing the political, social, and economic freedom of newly freed Black people in their towns and cities. The Klan became infamous as “midnight riders,” raiding homes, burning property, and often murdering Black and White people who challenged the old White Supremacist Democratic Party order.

The original klansmen wore hoods and disguises while conducting attacks, but they were not very uniform. The white hoods and burning crosses associated with the KKK were part of the revival movement in the 1910s and 20s.

Mississippi Ku-Klux members in the disguises in which they were captured. Artist Unknown. Harper's Weekly January 27, 1872. Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mississippi_ku_klux.jpg

This political violence surged throughout the 1860s, leading to the First and Second Enforcement Acts (1870, 1871), and the Ku Klux Klan Act (1871). These acts authorized the President and Congress to use military powers to enforce the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (The Reconstruction Amendments) passed between 1865-70. These amendments codified the citizenship and political rights of Black Americans. In reality, US troops were needed to ensure Black voters could participate in elections or hold offices they’d been elected to. Where there was no military presence, vigilantes like the Klan were largely successful in suppressing the rights of Blacks and the authority of Republican politicians and their allies.

Even after the Klan was effectively suppressed in the 1870s, political violence against Black voters, office holders, and jurors was endemic to the Southern United States and much of the North. Groups such as the White League, the Red Shirts, and others used terrorism to intimidate voters and oust Black and Republican politicians and sheriffs.

Ultimately, most United States’ leaders were uncomfortable using their political and military power to defend Black people from White southerners and eventually withdrew from enforcing the Constitution in the South by the end of the 1870s. It would not be until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the US government, goaded by hundreds of thousand of activists risking their lives, would again attempt to use its power to secure Americans’ constitutional rights in the South, and to dismantle the systems of segregation throughout the North and the West.

Sources:

The Enforcement Act of 1870- Blackpast

The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871- US Senate

Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871- National Constitution Center

Documenting Reconstruction Violence- Equal Justice Initiative

January 5, 1875- Peter Crosby and the Vicksburg Massacre

Chicago Inter Ocean

After the election of a Black sheriff, Peter Crosby, along with several other Black officials in Warren County, Mississippi, violence erupted.

In December of 1874 the Taxpayer’s League (a White political organization) demanded Crosby’s resignation. When he refused, they returned with an armed mob and forced him to sign a resignation document in the county courthouse.

On December 7, when a group of Black citizens marched on the county courthouse to demand Crosby’s reinstatement, they were fired upon by White mobs. Not satisfied with vanquishing the organized marchers, the mobs continued seeking Black victims around the city. It is estimated that up to 300 Black people were killed in what became known as the Vicksburg massacre.

On January 5, 1875, President Ulysses Grant ordered federal troops to restore order to the city and reinstate the Sheriff. Though successful in the short term, racialized political violence would continue to plague Vicksburg as it did many cities across the country in the Reconstruction era.

Sources:

Peter Crosby (1844-1884)- Black Past

Ulysses S. Grant, Key Events- The Miller Center, UVA

November 10, 1898- North Carolina's Wilmington Massacre

The remains of the office of the Black-owned newspaper the Daily Record after it was burned in the Wilmington coup and massacre, November 10, 1898. (McCool/Alamy)

The Wilmington Massacre of 1898 was long referred to as a riot, but was in fact, a bloody coup executed by a White mob organized by local Democrats. The mob burned down the offices of the local Black Newspaper, killed over 50 Black people, and banished numerous citizens of both races from Wilmington.

Such incidents were common during Reconstruction, the decades after the Civil War. In towns and cities throughout the country, White vigilantes ran smear campaigns in the press that often culminated in the violent overthrow of elected Blacks and Republicans, as well as mass displacement of Black communities.

Sources:

North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources

Cape Fear Museum

Southern Coalition for Social Justicetary-underway-on-the-wilmington-massacre-of-1898/

Equal Justice Initiative