Reconstruction Violence and the Ku Klux Klan Hearings
A Brief History with DocumentsFirst Edition ©2015
This carefully edited selection of testimony from the Ku Klux Klan hearings reveals what is often left out of the discussion of Reconstruction—the central role of violence in shaping its course. The Introduction places the hearings in historical context and draws connections between slavery and p...
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This carefully edited selection of testimony from the Ku Klux Klan hearings reveals what is often left out of the discussion of Reconstruction—the central role of violence in shaping its course. The Introduction places the hearings in historical context and draws connections between slavery and post-Emancipation violence. The documents evidence the varieties of violence leveled at freedmen and Republicans, from attacks hinging on land and the franchise to sexual violence and the targeting of black institutions. Document headnotes, a chronology, questions to consider, and a bibliography enrich students’ understanding of the role of violence in the history of Reconstruction.
Alexander offers an outstanding contribution to the pedagogy in American, African American, and Southern history and studies. The volumes of KKK testimony are massive, and the author has taken on a monumental task to cull through the materials from the hearings. The collection is well organized, thoughtfully considered, and carefully edited, and it will find a central place in the contemporary classroom.
Leslie Brown, Williams CollegeThis book stands as a unique contribution in the highly acclaimed Bedford Series in History and Culture. It challenges readers to rethink the history of Reconstruction after the Civil War and encourages thoughtful historical analysis about a challenging and violent era, one that deserves more study and reflection.
Andrew Kersten, University of Wisconsin—Green BayThose who teach the history of the South will welcome this volume for its focus on the violent demise of one of the most radicalized eras in American history. From the sources presented in this book, students will come to understand how white southern resistance in the 1870s set a precedent for "massive resistance" in the modern civil rights era.
Elizabeth Hayes Turner, University of North Texas
Table of Contents
PART ONE
Introduction: Investigating Violence — White Supremacy and the Rise and Fall of Reconstruction Presidential Reconstruction and the Roots of White Violence Radical Reconstruction, Organized Lawlessness, and Congressional Investigation Testimony of White Violence and Black Resistance The Outcome of the Hearings and the Legacy of Reconstruction PART TWOThe Documents 1. Background and Beginnings 1. Laws of the State of Mississippi, 1865 2. First Enforcement Act, May 31, 1870 3. Third Enforcement (Ku Klux Klan) Act, April 20, 1871 4. Rome (Ga.) Courier, October 24, 1871 2. Ku Klux Klan Violence and the Hearings Gender and Sexual Violence5. Caroline Smith, Atlanta, Georgia, October 21, 1871 6. Sarah Ann Sturtevant, Atlanta, Georgia, October 23, 1871 7. Hannah Tutson, Jacksonville, Florida, November 10, 1871 8. Harriet Simril, Columbia, South Carolina, December 19, 1871 Political Violence: The Franchise9. Abram Colby, Atlanta, Georgia, October 27 and 28, 1871 10. John Childers, Livingston, Alabama, November 1, 1871 11. Betsey Westbrook, Demopolis, Alabama, October 24, 1871 12. James H. Alston, Montgomery, Alabama, October 17, 1871 Landownership, Economic Success, and Displacement13. Eliza Lyon, Demopolis, Alabama, October 24, 1871 14. Warren Jones, Atlanta, Georgia, October 27, 1871 15. Samuel Tutson, Jacksonville, Florida, November 10, 1871 16. Augustus Blair, Huntsville, Alabama, October 9, 1871 Black Autonomous Institutions: Schools and Churches17. Henry Giles, Montgomery, Alabama, October 17, 1871 18. Cornelius McBride, Washington, D.C., July 21, 1871 19. Elias Hill, Yorkville, South Carolina, July 25, 1871 Self-Defense20. Willis Johnson, Columbia, South Carolina, July 3, 1871 21. Benjamin F. Herr, Livingston, Alabama, October 31 and November 1, 1871 22. Edmund W. Pettus, Washington, D.C., July 6, 1871 Ku Klux Klan: Members, Apologists, Makeup, and Character23. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Washington, D.C., June 27, 1871 24. A. S. Lakin, Washington, D.C., June 13, 1871 25. William M. Lowe, Huntsville, Alabama, October 13, 1871 Committee Conclusions26. Minority Report, February 19, 1872 27. Majority Report, February 19, 1872 APPENDIXESA Brief Chronology of Reconstruction and the Ku Klux Klan Hearings (1863–1877) Questions for Consideration Selected Bibliography IndexAuthors
Shawn Alexander
Shawn Leigh Alexander (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts) is associate professor and graduate director of African and African American Studies and director of the Langston Hughes Center at the University of Kansas, where he specializes in African American social and intellectual history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The author of An Army of Lions: The Struggle for Civil Rights before the NAACP, he has also edited an anthology of T. Thomas Fortunes writings, T. Thomas Fortune, the Afro-American Agitator and written the Introduction to a reprint of William Sinclairs classic 1905 study, The Aftermath of Slavery: A Study of the Condition and Environment of the American Negro. He has also authored many scholarly articles and book chapters on early African American civil rights activity and black intellectual history.
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