Over 100 armed white men—members of paramilitary “rifle clubs” called the Red Shirts—attack approximately 30 Black National Guard servicemen at the Hamburg, South Carolina armory on July 8, 1876, killing seven men (six of them Black) in what becomes the first of a series of planned civil …
Red ShirtsBenjamin TillmanWade Hampton IIIMatthew ButlerBlack National Guard Militiaracial-terrorismreconstruction-sabotagewhite-supremacydemocratic-erosionelite-impunity
On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, a mob of approximately 300 armed white men—including members of the Ku Klux Klan and Knights of White Camellia—attacks the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana, murdering an estimated 150 Black Americans in what becomes the deadliest single incident of …
White Supremacist MilitiaKu Klux KlanKnights of White CamelliaGrant Parish Black Militiaracial-terrorismreconstruction-sabotagewhite-supremacymass-violencedemocratic-erosion
President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Ku Klux Klan Act (Third Enforcement Act) on April 20, 1871, granting the federal government unprecedented power to combat terrorist organizations denying Americans their constitutional rights. The Act—passed by the 42nd Congress alongside the First Enforcement …
Ulysses S. Grant42nd United States CongressAmos AkermanKu Klux Klanreconstructionfederal-enforcementracial-terrorismcivil-rights-protection
Six Confederate veterans found the Ku Klux Klan on December 24, 1865, in Pulaski, Tennessee—creating what historians characterize as America’s first terrorist organization. The founders—Calvin E. Jones, John B. Kennedy, Frank O. McCord, John C. Lester, Richard P. Reed, and James R. …
Nathan Bedford ForrestConfederate VeteransCalvin E. JonesJohn B. KennedyFrank O. McCord+3 moreracial-terrorismreconstruction-sabotagewhite-supremacypolitical-violenceinstitutional-capture