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Old Time Ku Klux Clan Analysis

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Congress tried many attempts to stop racism as reflected by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which gave emancipated African Americans several legal rights. They also passed the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment, which made free slaves U.S. citizens. However, many white supremacists were upset by these changes and started the “Old Time Ku Klux Clan” a group made to terrorize African Americans and scare them “back into their place”. Even white supremacist Congressmen passed black codes which limited the rights of former slaves such as testifying against whites and even loitering in public. The Ku Klux Clan ended up causing so much violence against African Americans that Congress had to pass the Ku Klux Clan Act to give African Americans military protection. …show more content…

On Easter Sunday over 140 white men and teenage boys lined up in Colfax, Louisiana to ready themselves for an attack against the African Americans who lived there. The African Americans of Colfax readied themselves for the fight and in the end a reported number of 165 people died at the Battle of Colfax Courthouse. This number was larger than any other incident of racial violence in American History and it is likely that there were many more dead further out from where they counted. The Whites in Colfax made their victory public by leaving most of the bodies from the Battle unburied encouraging African Americans to go view the dead. I believe that although African Americans were given civil rights and liberties during the Reconstruction Era due to racism many of their rights did not go into effect until many years after they were legalized because of groups like the Ku Klux Plan and even racist Congressmen I believe that Reconstruction failed due to

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