After the end of three hundred years of slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln freed Americans from shackles and chains of slavery. However, The Emancipation Proclamation was limited to the Southern States. States outside the South were still legally slaves. The final nail to slavery was realized when the thirteenth amendment was passed that abolished slavery across the territory of the United States.1 Still, the abolishment of slavery was only the first step towards racial cohesion and equality in America.
For many African Americans, the legal abolishment was only a façade of the truth. One effect of emancipation of slavery was the hostility of Southern whites towards freed blacks. Even in the north, there were still indigestion in granting full citizenship to the black population in America. Abraham Lincoln thus established the Reconstruction Laws that were aimed at helping the Southern states back to their feet and engineer racial harmony in the south. The Reconstruction period lasted between 1866- 1877. However, instead of accepting the reconstruction as an opportunity to salvage their economy and their image, the southern states viewed reconciliation with vengeance and disgust. Instead, they increased the tension between whites and blacks to a higher note leading to the formation of Ku Klux Klan.2
The Ku Klux Klan was founded on the premise of quest for personal justice or revenge. Between 1868 and through the decade of 1870s, the Ku Klax Klan was a body of organized disgruntled political and social terrorists. The aim of the group was to defeat the demise of the Republican party in the south and reinforcing of white supremacy as a challenge towards the recently established rights if blacks after the end Civil War. The abolishment of slavery in the south was the main source of the desire for revenge.3 For the white slave masters, this abolishment represented a defeat in the hands of the blacks that was not only harmful to the economic welfare of the southern white but also to their pride. Ku Klax Klan was thus the only way that the Southern whites could dispose of this brewing anger that they had.4
When slave revolts broke out in Virginia towards the end of 1860’s, there evolved a culture of authorized night patrols that comprised of white men who were selected for this purpose. To the white men of the south at this time, this night patrol was a civic duty that they cherished. Their responsibilities included manning roads, arresting runaway slaves and quelling any possible slave revolts. The night patrols established a police system that was efficient in exercising control over the areas under their jurisdictions. It was not uncommon for offenders to be lashed or penalized for committing crimes. Many black people living under the code rules found them to be totalitarian.5
After the war in 1866, during the period of reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan members were mostly ex soldiers who were bitter at losing the war. To console themselves, they became terrorists wearing white gowns to mask themselves and continued to oppress black people. Even though the American Civil War was fought to liberate black people from slavery, the Klan members ensured that black people did not enjoy the freedom that is guaranteed for them by the constitution. Moreover, southern white people were unhappy because the war had destroyed their economic structure and many people had lost their lives. In deed during this time, the south was in ruin, cities had been destroyed, farm burned and lives lost. Furthermore, the reconstruction government under Abraham Lincoln had usurped local powers bestowed on local government and transferred it to the central government.6
After the culmination of the American Civil War, a section of liberal members of Congress attempted to wipe out the southern white power structure that could facilitate the white rule in Southern parts of the United States. With their continued radical rhetoric in Congress, they effectively established Freeman Bureau in March 1865. The role of the Freeman Bureau included helping freed blacks find work, education, home and, own some property. The bureau spent $17 million dollars to establish schools, hospitals, schools, and home for freed black slaves. However, this victory was only short run. White supremacist was to acquire a significant victory that could soon lead to legitimatization of the operations of the Ku Klux Klan. In February 1866, President Andrew Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights bill that was aimed at protecting freed black slaves from persecution in the hands of the whites. The southern whites had established a set of laws called black codes. The black codes were a set of unofficial laws in the south that restricted the freedom of black people. Offending blacks were subject to mob justice or imprisonment in local prisons. These laws mostly upheld the supremacy of white folks over black people.7
In order to enact these laws, a secret society of the Ku Klux Klan was established. The first branch was arguably established in April in 1867. While most of the leaders were members of the confederate army, others were anti radical republicans that were initiating reforms in Congress. The Ku Klux Klan persecuted both blacks and sympathetic whites. As crude as they were, the Ku Klux was able a political clout that reverberated from the southern states to Washington DC. The Ku Klux’s first significant political victory was their ability to restore white rule in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. However, this was not the end of the story.8
The first era of Klan’s activities started to fade way after the Democratic Party’s victory in the southern states in the elections of 1870s.The demise of the first era of Ku Klux Klan activities was because of the federal intervention between 1871-72. The formal organizational structure collapsed but the legacy of the Ku Klux did not end there. The Ku Klux Klan was still romanticized among the middle class southern whites. The group was later to resurface in the 1900s partly to growing influence of Jim Crow laws and the influence of the blockbuster movie Birth of a Nation. For the years to come until 1966, Ku Klan Klan was to become a pain in the butt for African Americans in the South.9
Bibliography
Bullard, Sara. The Ku Klux Klan: A History of Racism & Violence. Montergomery, Alabama : Southern Poverty Law Center, 1997.
Luders, Joseph. “Civil Rights Success and the Politics of Racial Violence .” Northern Political Science Association Vol 37, no. No 1 (January 2005).
Rhomberg, Chris. “White Nativism and Urban Politics: The 1920 Ku Klux Klan in Oakland, California .” University of Illinois Press Vol.17, no. No.2 (1998): pp 33-55.
Spartacus Educational. “Ku Kux Klan .” spartacus educational.co.ke. Accessed January 27, 2012. Last modified 2010. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkkk.htm.
Uknown. “The Klan Rides Again:Making the Invisible Empire Visible The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.” Between the Wars. Accessed January 29, 2012. Last modified 2012. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1CjHtyd90FwJ:chnm.gmu.edu/courses/hist409/klan.html+Ku+Klux+Klan+activities+in+Missouri&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.
Wald, Kenneth. “The Visible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan as an Electorate Movement .” The MIT Press Vol. 11, no. No.2 (1980): 217-234.
