On June 17, 2015, white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine Black worshippers during a Bible study session at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in a racially motivated terrorist attack that exposed the state’s ongoing institutional embrace of …
In 1974, Richard Girnt Butler, a 55-year-old retired aeronautical engineer and Christian Identity adherent, uses proceeds from a profitable invention to purchase a 20-acre property near Hayden Lake, Idaho, establishing what will become the nerve center of the white supremacist movement in North …
Richard Girnt ButlerAryan NationsChurch of Jesus Christ ChristianChristian Posse ComitatusThe Order+1 morewhite-supremacydomestic-terrorismhate-groupspolitical-extremismchristian-identity
The White Citizens’ Councils reach peak membership of between 250,000 and 300,000 individuals in 1956, establishing a national body known as the Citizens’ Councils of America. The movement, led by Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Tom P. Brady and first formed on July 11, 1954 in response …
White Citizens' CouncilsTom P. BradyRoss BarnettAllen C. ThompsonM. Ney Williamssegregationwhite-supremacybusiness-elitecorporate-resistancecivil-rights-opposition+1 more
D.C. Stephenson, Grand Dragon of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan and the most powerful Klan leader in America, is convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Madge Oberholtzer, a state education official. Oberholtzer died from infection after Stephenson abducted, raped, and brutally bit her during a …
D.C. StephensonMadge OberholtzerIndiana Ku Klux KlanEd Jacksonwhite-supremacypolitical-corruptioninstitutional-capturescandal
Between 25,000 and 40,000 Ku Klux Klan members march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., in a massive demonstration of the organization’s political power at its peak. Marchers wear white robes but not masks, proudly displaying their faces in an assertion of mainstream respectability. …
Ku Klux KlanHiram EvansD.C. KlanState Governmentsracisminstitutional-capturewhite-supremacypolitical-corruption
The Ku Klux Klan under Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson completes its takeover of Indiana state government, controlling the Governor’s office, the state legislature, and numerous local governments. Stephenson, a charismatic organizer who built the Indiana Klan from a few thousand members to an …
William J. Simmons, a preacher and promoter of fraternal orders, led a group up Stone Mountain outside Atlanta and burned a large cross, marking the official rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan and beginning a new era of organized white supremacist terrorism. Simmons carefully coordinated the KKK revival …
William J. SimmonsKu Klux KlanD.W. Griffithracial-politicswhite-supremacykkkdomestic-terrorismcultural-capture
D.W. Griffith’s silent film “The Birth of a Nation” premiered in Los Angeles, becoming the longest and most profitable film produced to that date while securing the future of feature-length films and establishing cinema as a serious artistic medium. With assistance from …
D.W. GriffithWoodrow WilsonWilliam J. SimmonsKu Klux Klanracial-politicswhite-supremacykkkmedia-manipulationcultural-capture
The Alabama Constitutional Convention adopted a new state constitution explicitly designed to eliminate Black voting while maintaining white political supremacy through facially neutral provisions. Convention president John Knox declared in his opening address that the convention’s purpose was …
John KnoxAlabama LegislatureDemocratic PartyBlack Belt Plantersvoting-rightsdisenfranchisementalabamaconstitutional-conventionjim-crow+1 more
Armed white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina launched the only successful coup d’etat in American history, overthrowing the legally elected biracial government, murdering an estimated 60-300 Black citizens, and establishing one-party white Democratic rule that would persist for …
Alfred Moore WaddellFurnifold SimmonsRed ShirtsWilmington Black CommunityDemocratic Partyvoting-rightsracial-violenceelection-violencecoupwhite-supremacy+1 more
The Supreme Court declares the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional in an 8-1 decision, ruling that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments do not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals—thereby legitimizing the Jim Crow system of racial segregation that will …
U.S. Supreme CourtJoseph P. BradleyJohn Marshall Harlanjudicial-capturecivil-rights-destructionreconstruction-sabotageinstitutional-racismwhite-supremacy
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
The Supreme Court unanimously overturns the federal convictions of Colfax Massacre perpetrators in United States v. Cruikshank, ruling that the Bill of Rights does not limit private actors or state governments despite the Fourteenth Amendment—effectively destroying federal power to protect Black …
U.S. Supreme CourtJoseph P. BradleyColfax Massacre Perpetratorsjudicial-capturereconstruction-sabotagecivil-rights-destructionwhite-supremacyinstitutional-capture
An estimated 150-300 Black citizens and two white citizens are killed during the Vicksburg massacre, a coordinated campaign of white supremacist violence that begins on December 7, 1874, and continues until around January 5, 1875, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The massacre follows the forced …
White LeaguePeter CrosbyAndrew J. GilmerUlysses S. Grantwhite-supremacyreconstruction-sabotagepolitical-violenceinstitutional-racismelite-impunity
The White League stages an armed insurrection against Louisiana’s Reconstruction government on September 14, 1874, in New Orleans. Five thousand White League members—Confederate veterans organized as “the military arm of the Democratic Party”—overwhelm 3,500 state police and …
White LeagueJames LongstreetWilliam Pitt KelloggUlysses S. GrantJohn McEnerywhite-supremacyreconstruction-sabotagepolitical-violenceinstitutional-captureelite-impunity
On August 30, 1874, the White League—a paramilitary organization of Confederate veterans described as “the military arm of the Democratic Party”—completes a weeklong campaign of terror in Red River Parish, Louisiana, by assassinating six white Republican officeholders and five to twenty …
White LeagueDick ColemanThomas FloydMarshall TwitchellLouisiana Board of Tradewhite-supremacyreconstruction-sabotagepolitical-violenceinstitutional-captureelite-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
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
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, taking effect January 1, 1863, declares enslaved people in Confederate-held territory to be free, transforming the Civil War from a conflict to preserve the Union into a crusade against slavery. The proclamation faces immediate and violent opposition from …
Abraham LincolnNorthern DemocratsCopperheadsFrederick DouglassGeorge McClellanemancipationracismcopperheadsresistancewhite-supremacy+1 more
Congress passes and President George Washington signs the Naturalization Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 103), the first federal law establishing uniform rules for granting United States citizenship through naturalization. The Act limits naturalization eligibility to “free white person(s)… of good …
First CongressGeorge Washingtonracial-exclusioncitizenshipimmigrationinstitutional-racismlegal-framework+1 more