Liam Flynn 5/18/15 U.S History DBQ Essay After the civil war, the Federal government went to many lengths to try and help freedmen in former slave states. But these expansions were quickly terminated after Rutherford B. Hayes was elected in 1876. The South had started to limit the rights of blacks within the boundaries that the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments allowed. And the North started to turn a blind eye to all of the problems that existed in the South. (C)In the end, both states contributed to the end of reconstitution, but the South made more efforts to persecute blacks than the North did. Although both the North and the South were responsible for ending reconstruction, the South was mainly responsible for the end of reconstruction in the South. In the South, reconstruction efforts by Northerners and Southerners alike were challenging because of attacks by racially biased groups. A group called the Ku Klux Klan led these efforts. The Ku Klux Klan attacked both blacks who were trying to gain political power, or whites who were helping them or were helping with the general reconstruction effort. Many soldiers and Northerners who were helping the efforts (dubbed carpetbaggers), were wary of helping the efforts if it was going to be that risky. (A) This political cartoon illustrates this, because it shows a …show more content…
Abram Colby, a freedman running for Georgia representative described this. He said he was taken to the woods by Klan members and beaten, but refused to stop voting radical. (B) The radical party was the radical republican party that felt the South should be punished for their actions. He was also offered $2,500 to have someone to take his legislative seat, but refused. (B) Colby was one of the men targeted by the KKK because he attempted to gain power. The KKK’s attacks in the South was a major tribute to the death or the Reconstruction in the
Carpetbaggers were so named because “they seemingly carried all of their possessions in luggage known as "carpetbags," their mission was to conquer the South politically, much as the North did with its military. At one point half of all the southern governors were northern Republicans. There was a great deal of disdain among many in the South for those that cast their votes for these Republicans, and Democratic opponents derogatorily called them scalawags” (Bowles, 2011).
On November 17, 1951, the Norfolk Journal and Guide published “South Carolina Sheriff Calls On Klansmen To Disband: Fight On Hooded Order Continues Officer Vows KKK In Horry County Will Not Survive,” which is about Sheriff C. E. Sasser’s fight against the Ku Klux Klan in Horry County, South Carolina. Sasser appeared on the radio and called for the KKK to disband; according to Sasser, the Klan brought “unfavorable publicity” to the county. During the radio appearance, he recounted a recent incident with the organization and what he, his police force, and government were doing to stop the KKK.
Carpetbaggers were targeted during Reconstruction creating more tension. Carpetbaggers were people from the North who came down to the South for political and financial gain.(Document
Following the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865, Nathan B. Forrest was held in high regards in the south as a “War Hero”. It was reported that he had twenty-nine horse shot out from under him, killed or wounded thirty soldiers in hand-to-hand combat, and being wounded four separate times himself.1 The Ku Klux Klan was already in existence when they offered him a position of command in the fight against reconstruction and corruption that came with it. Forrest held the title of “Grand Wizard”, but would eventually disbanded the Klan due to excessive violence that countered efforts to secure southern rights within the Union.
The post-Civil War Reconstruction Era was a period of change. The government worked to fix the social, economic, and political issues that had evolved around the country. From analysing the Reconstruction Era, how successful was equality for former slaves? It was mostly a failure in terms of equality for African Americans. Politically, it was the most successful because of the amendments, economic wasn’t a success because of the fact that the freed slaves only could farm, and social failed the most because of the never ending racism.
Forever. 170). The Klan were white southerners who were organized and committed to the breaking down of Reconstruction. By methods of brutality, “the Klan during Reconstruction offers the most extensive example of homegrown terrorism in American history” (Foner. Forever. 171). The Ku Klux Klan as well as other groups killed or tormented black politicians or threatened the blacks who voted in elections. The Klan strongly disagreed with the northern idea that slaves should become part of the government. The Historian Kenneth M. Stampp states, “for their [the North] supreme offense was not corruption but attempting to organize the Negroes for political action” (Stampp. Era. 159). This corresponds with Foner’s idea that the South was not open to the idea of change but more so consumed with the idea of recreating a society similar to one of the past. However, the goal of white power groups was not just politics. The Klan wanted to restore the hierarchy once controlling the South. Foner observes that, “the organization took on the function of the antebellum slave patrols: making sure that blacks did not violate the rules and etiquette of white supremacy” (Foner. Forever. 172). Like the power the southern whites formerly held over the slave population, the Ku Klux Klan wanted to control the African American population still living in the South. They did not want the freedmen to become integrated into their society because they saw them as lesser people. By suppressing and
“HE was stabbed five or six times, and then hanged on a hook in the Grand Jury room. ”(Tourgee 511) This quote shows that the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was killing Northerners who were trying to keep Reconstruction efforts going. “The picture in Document A depicts a donkey, labelled the KKK, walking away after hanging a carpetbaggers and a scalawag. ”(Independent
During Reconstruction, the KKK tried to throw out the reconstruction government and both intimidated and abused African Americans.
Hooded Americanism: The First Century of the Ku Klux Klan: 1865 to the Present by David Chalmers records the history of the Ku Klux Klan quite bluntly, all the way from its creation following the civil war, to the early 1960’s. The author starts the book quite strongly by discussing in detail many acts of violence and displays of hatred throughout the United States. He makes a point to show that the Klan rode robustly throughout all of the country, not just in the southern states. The first several chapters of the book focus on the Klan’s creation in 1865. He goes on to discuss the attitude of many Americans following the United State’s Civil War and how the war shaped a new nation. The bulk of the book is used to go through many of
During the Reconstruction Era, Congress passed many laws to provide equal rights to people of color. But at the local level, specifically in the South, many Democrats took the law into their own hands. They supported the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) hoping to restore the pre-Civil War social hierarchy. The texts in Going to the Source illustrate two groups of individuals who opposed the KKK. In testimonies given by white witnesses, Republicans from the North felt the KKK posed a political and social danger in the South, but did not feel intimidated. The testimonies given by black witnesses were people who had experience of the Klan’s violence, and felt their lives were threatened. The Klan’s attacks on whites were more inclined towards social harassment, while their attacks on blacks, which consisted of voting intimidation and night rides, were violent and abusive because the KKK’s main goal was white supremacy.
In the South Reconstruction was challenged when a group named the Ku-Klux Klan (KKK), started attacking African American citizens. This unethical group, was full of racist white men, and they targeted any “negro” no matter what social class. John W Stephens, State Senator from Caswell and an African American citizen was killed by these radical racists. (3) For what reason did
Due to the gradual elimination of African-American rights and the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South to enforce such rights, the end of Reconstruction surfaced in 1877. In the eyes of blacks, Reconstruction was a point in history where they could see their civil rights expanding before their very own eyes. On the contrary, whites were deeply disturbed at the way their once “white supremacy” government was dwindling in the rear-view mirror behind them. This fourteen year period known as Reconstruction houses the memories of temporary freedom, scandal, backdoor deals, and the unresolved social, political, and economical issues of our country.
Members of both parties, in the Ku Klux Klan and the anti-war protests of the 1960s rebelled because they felt that they were the victims of social change and political oppression. The KKK first emerged after the South’s defeat in the Civil War and emerged rejuvenated for the third time following the civil rights
Topic: In 1866, the Ku Klux Klan was founded by many former confederate veterans in retaliation to their current Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. The Reconstruction era sparked by President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation clearly defined that the days of white superiority were in dissolution. Through a willful ignorance and an insecurity of what might postlude the civil rights movement, the KKK rose, using terror in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Lieutenant general in the Civil war, became the KKK's first Grand Wizard. Now with a steady leader the klan became a persistent political party aimed at dismantling the increasingly
North Carolina should have been the state where the KKK thrived most during the mid-1960s — Cunningham reports that in mid-1966 it had 192 Klaverns, (branches of the Ku Klux Klan), and 52.2 percent of the total Klan membership in the 10 states of the South — was a mystery to many and a source of considerable dismay to the state’s leadership, which prided itself on its nonviolent response to the challenges posed by the civil rights movement. The state had been described by V.O. Key, in his immensely influential (if now somewhat dated) “Southern Politics in State and Nation” (1949), as “energetic and ambitious” with “a reputation for progressive outlook and action in many phases of life, especially industrial development, education, and race relations,” a judgment that had been confirmed by the election in 1960 of a notably capable and progressive governor, Terry Sanford.