After the Civil War, a number of white-supremacist groups formed as a reaction to the liberation of African-American former slaves, who were free to compete for paying jobs and opportunities in the South.
White League and Klan opposition to Reconstruction
A Harper's Weekly cartoon from October 1874 depicting White League and Klan opposition to Reconstruction. It shows a black family cowering, surrounded by a burning schoolhouse and a man hanged in a tree. Above them appear the words, "Worse than Slavery." A man from the White League and the KKK shake hands as they loom over the family. Written at the top: "The Union as it was. This is a white man's government. The lost cause."
White League
The White League was a white paramilitary group started in 1874 that worked to turn Republicans out of office and intimidate freedmen from voting and organizing politically. Its first chapter, established in Grant Parish, Louisiana, was made up of many of the same local Confederate veterans who had participated in the earlier Colfax Massacre, in April 1873. Chapters were soon founded in other areas of the state and in New Orleans. During the later years of Reconstruction, the White League was one of the paramilitary groups described as, "the military arm of the Democratic Party."
Although sometimes linked to the secret vigilante groups of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as to the Knights of the White Camelia, the White League and other paramilitary groups of the later 1870s displayed significant differences. They operated openly and solicited coverage from newspapers, and the members' identities were generally known. They had a specific political goal: to overthrow the Reconstruction government. They directed their activities toward intimidation and removal of Northern and black Republican candidates and officeholders. Made up of well-armed Confederate veterans, the group worked to turn Republicans out of office, disrupt their political organizations, and use force to intimidate and terrorize freedmen to keep them from the polls. Backers helped finance purchases of up-to-date arms, including Winchester rifles, Colt revolvers, and Prussian needle guns.
In 1874, White League members murdered Julia Hayden, a 17-year-old black woman from Tennessee who was working as a schoolteacher in Hartsville, Louisiana. The Coushatta Massacre occurred in another Red River parish: The local White League forced six Republican officeholders to resign and promise to leave the state. The League assassinated the men before they left the parish, together with between five and twenty freedmen (sources differ) who were witnesses. Generally in remote areas, the White League's show of force and outright murders always overcame opposition. They were Confederate veterans, experienced and well armed. The White League was effective; voting by Republicans decreased and Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1876.
Ku Klux Klan
Six well-educated Confederate veterans from Pulaski, Tennessee, created the original Ku Klux Klan on December 24, 1865, during Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War. The Ku Klux Klan was one among a number of secret, oath-bound organizations—including the Southern Cross, in New Orleans (1865), and the Knights of the White Camelia (1867), in Louisiana—using violence as a political weapon. Historians generally see the KKK as part of the post-Civil War insurgent violence related not only to the high number of veterans in the population, but also to their effort to control the dramatically changed social situation by using extrajudicial means to restore white supremacy. In 1866, Mississippi Governor William L. Sharkey reported that disorder, lack of control, and lawlessness were widespread; in some states, armed bands of Confederate soldiers roamed at will. The Klan used public violence against blacks as a method of intimidation. They burned houses and attacked and killed blacks, leaving their bodies on the roads.
In an 1867 meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, Klan members gathered to try to create an hierarchical organization with local chapters reporting up the line of command to a national headquarters. Because most of the Klan's members were veterans, they were used to the hierarchical structure of the organization; however, the Klan never operated under this centralized structure. Local chapters and bands were highly independent.
Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest became Grand Wizard of the KKK, claiming to be the Klan's national leader. Forrest became involved sometime in late 1866 or early 1867. A common report is that Forrest arrived in Nashville in April 1867 while the Klan was meeting at the Maxwell House Hotel, probably at the encouragement of a state Klan leader, former Confederate general George Gordon. The organization had grown to the point where it needed an experienced commander, and Forrest fit the bill. In Room 10 of the Maxwell, Forrest was sworn in as a member.
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the KKK.
Klan members adopted masks and robes that hid their identities and added to the drama of their rides at night, their chosen time for attacks. The Klan attacked black members of the Loyal Leagues and intimidated Southern Republicans and Freedmen's Bureau workers. When they killed black political leaders, they also took heads of families, along with the leaders of churches and community groups, because these people had many roles in society. Agents of the Freedmen's Bureau reported weekly assaults and murders of blacks. Klan violence worked to suppress black voting, and campaign seasons were deadly. More than 2,000 persons were killed, wounded and otherwise injured in Louisiana within a few weeks prior to the presidential election of November 1868. The KKK killed and wounded more than 200 black Republicans, hunting and chasing them through the woods. Thirteen captives were taken from jail and shot; a half-buried pile of 25 bodies was found in the woods. The KKK made people vote Democratic and gave them certificates of the fact.