A great American

The original text from an excellent article:

Although in practice they operated independently, dens generally shared a similar “prescript,” or constitution, that demanded absolute secrecy and obedience. For five years [starting fall of 1866, rjw] , with virtual impunity, the Klan’s night-riding gangs flogged, tortured, and lynched politically active Black men, raped their wives, shot their children, burned Black schools, and threatened Republican voters. In many areas, the Klan served as the clandestine military arm of the Democratic party, which stridently opposed all aspects of Reconstruction. In some counties more than half the white male population joined the Klan, including local elites and public officers. Wherever the Klan rode, courts were compromised, juries intimidated, and witnesses too frightened to testify against the Klan’s crimes. Federal troops were spread far too thinly to offer much protection—there were only about 12,000 posted in the South by 1870—and they were mostly barred from taking action against the Klan wherever civil law was theoretically in effect.​

This came after the introduction in the article:

In the fall of 1866, in the war-weary town of Pulaski, Tennessee, a group of bored young Confederate veterans came up with a new way to amuse themselves by creating a ghostly costumed fraternity. They called it the Ku Klux Klan, an invented name that they thought would sound mysterious and intriguing. While most of their activities were harmless at first, they also “entertained” themselves by scaring local freed people with menacing antics. hers soon saw the Klan’s sinister potential, turning it into a weapon of war to terrify newly-empowered Blacks and their white allies, destroy the embryonic two-party system in the South, and subvert the recently launched Reconstruction. They were inventing America’s first terrorist movement.​

Pulaski Tennessee is 50 miles away from my Huntsville AL home and there have been reports of Klansmen handing out recruitment flyers since 1985. BTW, the Alabama KKK was run out of business for killing: The 1981 Lynching that Bankrupted an Alabama KKK | HISTORY

Donald’s civil lawsuit worked. In 1987, the Donald family was awarded a $7 million judgment against the United Klans of America and several of its members. The all-white jury deliberated just four hours. “I’m glad justice was done,” Donald told an Associated Press reporter after the verdict was handed down. “Money don’t mean a thing to me. It won’t bring my child back. But I’m glad they caught the guilty and brought them to court.”

It was a historic blow against the Klan—and a fatal one to the United Klans of America, which could not afford to pay Donald and her family. Instead, the organization gave the Donalds the deed to its headquarters in Tuscaloosa, Alabama—worth only $225,000.

Individual Klan members had to pay, too: As the New York Times Magazine’s Jesse Kornbluth reported at the time of the verdict, some members’ wages were garnished and their property seized, and evidence from the civil trial was then used to indict Bennie Hays and his son-in-law. (Bennie Hays’ first criminal trial ended in a mistrial after he collapsed in the courtroom; he died during his second trial.)​

Dang shame the KKK appears to hold office in the White House.

Bob Wilson

 

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1979/05/27/archives/2-klansmen-and-a-black-woman-are-shot-in-a-street-clash-in-alabama.html

DECATUR, Ala., May 26 [1979 rjw] — More than 100 heavily armed, club‐swinging Ku Klux Klansmen clashed with a score of riot police and some 75 black demonstrators in this strife‐torn northern Alabama town today, leaving two Klansmen and black woman wounded in a fusillade of gunfire that erupted when a black man opened fire on the Klansmen.

Another black demonstrator suffered head lacerations in the clash that pitted Klansmen, the police and demonstrators in a street battle. At least a half dozen other Klansmen and demonstrators left the scene of pitched battle in downtown Decatur bleeding from head wounds and other injuries.

The clash erupted when the robed Klansmen, armed with clubs, baseball bats and ax handles, and chanting “white power” blocked Bank Street, the major downtown artery, and shouted at advancing black marchers: “N[igros rjw], that's as far as you go.”
. . . ​

You don't have to wear a robe:

to know which way the wind blows.

Bob Wilson

 

About 2/3d of my life was 20th century, only 1/3d in the 21st century. It has gotten "less bad' but we still have "shot while being black" such as Steve Perkins of Decatur Alabama.

I'm more worried by: What the data says about dangerous driving and road rage in the US | Pew Research Center



I wasn't concerned until the punk kid last year stopped his Corvette to yell a Trump chant, "USA! USA! USA!" at me while I was trying to charge my BMW i3-REx at a Tesla SuperCharger. At the time, confused but driving home, I realized that if he'd had his Dad's pistol, he could have shot off something besides his mouth.

The national goal to make sure we are well armed and mortally scared of each other has succeeded.

Bob Wilson