KLAN WAR

An award-winning historian digs into the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan.

Drawing on abundant archival sources, renowned American historian Bordewich offers a penetrating examination of the rise of the KKK, “the first organized terrorist movement in American history,” a paramilitary unit that arose in the vengeful South during Reconstruction. Engaging in murder, kidnapping, raping, castration, flogging, and burning, the Klan of the 1860s and 1870s bequeathed its sadistic tactics to later generations of white supremacists, such as the movement’s second wave in the early 20th century, incited in part by the release, in 1915, of the incendiary movie, The Birth of a Nation. With former Confederate officers at its helm and angry racists in its ranks, the Klan attacked not only Blacks, but also white sympathizers, including political officials. Until Ulysses Grant won the presidency in 1869, with Republicans taking both houses of Congress, there was no federal response to the atrocities. When Grant took office, “in nearly every southern state, the Klan was thriving,” targeting local office holders and community leaders, teachers, craftsmen, and former Union soldiers. Because the Klan aimed to put Democrats back in power, that political party did nothing to oppose the terrorist group whose shocking atrocities intensified with the passage of the 14th Amendment, which gave Blacks citizenship. Grant knew that ratification of the 15th Amendment, providing for the enfranchisement of freedman, would exacerbate the violence further. Although he had considered giving amnesty to former Confederates, intense opposition to that move came from southern states where Republican office holders testified to the Klan’s sadism. Instead, in 1871, Grant ordered the Army to take on the Klan. Aided by judges, prosecutors, and ordinary citizens, his war succeeded. By 1872, the Klan was in retreat. For Bordewich, Grant’s decisive move proved that “forceful political action can prevail over violent extremism.” Yet, as he makes clear in this significant work of scholarship, it did not stop the future systematic stripping away of Blacks’ civil rights.

A critically important revisionist history.