The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials 1871 1872

Download The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials 1871 1872 full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials 1871 1872 ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1872

Author : Lou Falkner Williams
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820326593
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1872 by : Lou Falkner Williams

Download or read book The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1872 written by Lou Falkner Williams and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is remarkable that the most serious intervention by the federal government to protect the rights of its new African American citizens during Reconstruction (and well beyond) has not, until now, received systematic scholarly study. In The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, Lou Falkner Williams presents a comprehensive account of the events following the Klan uprising in the South Carolina piedmont in the Reconstruction era. It is a gripping story--one that helps us better understand the limits of constitutional change in post-Civil War America and the failure of Reconstruction. The South Carolina Klan trials represent the culmination of the federal government's most substantial effort during Reconstruction to stop white violence and provide personal security for African Americans. Federal interventions, suspension of habeas corpus in nine counties, widespread undercover investigations, and highly publicized trials resulting in the conviction of several Klansmen are all detailed in Williams's study. When the trials began, the Supreme Court had yet to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment and the Enforcement Acts. Thus the fourth federal circuit court became a forum for constitutional experimentation as the prosecution and defense squared off to present their opposing views. The fate of the individual Klansmen was almost incidental to the larger constitutional issues in these celebrated trials. It was the federal judge's devotion to state-centered federalism--not a lack of concern for the Klan's victims--that kept them from embracing constitutional doctrine that would have fundamentally altered the nature of the Union. Placing the Klan trials in the context of postemancipation race relations, Williams shows that the Klan's campaign of terror in the upcountry reflected white determination to preserve prewar racial and social standards. Her analysis of Klan violence against women breaks new ground, revealing that white women were attacked to preserve traditional southern sexual mores, while crimes against black women were designed primarily to demonstrate white male supremacy. Well-written, cogently argued, and clearly presented, this comprehensive account of the Klan uprising in the South Carolina piedmont in the late 1860s and early 1870s makes a significant contribution to the history of Reconstruction and race relations in the United States.

The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1872

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 197 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1872 by :

Download or read book The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1872 written by and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan in York County, South Carolina, 1865-1877

Author : Jerry Lee West
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 9780786412587
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (125 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan in York County, South Carolina, 1865-1877 by : Jerry Lee West

Download or read book The Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan in York County, South Carolina, 1865-1877 written by Jerry Lee West and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Reconstruction was meant to be a time of rebuilding and healing for the South following the Civil War. But the Reconstruction, marked by the continued strong hatred and hostility between liberated African Americans and angry Ku Klux Klan members, was hardly a time of reconciliation for the South. This work deals with the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan, a paramilitary group with political aims that used violence and intimidation to achieve its goals. It addresses exclusively the Klans activities in York County, South Carolina, during the years 1865-1877. It clarifies some misconceptions about the Reconstruction Klan and disentangles it from later organizations that used the same name. There are no reports of its burning crosses or persecuting Jews and Catholics and it has no connection to the Klan that appeared in the early part of the twentieth century or todays counterpart that marches under the Confederate flag. Throughout the Reconstruction, blacks and whites tried to out-shout each other in the new era of conversation, and, as shown in this work, made little progress in understanding, or trying to understand, each other.

Carpetbaggers, Cavalry, and the Ku Klux Klan

Author : James Michael Martinez
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 9780742550780
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (57 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Carpetbaggers, Cavalry, and the Ku Klux Klan by : James Michael Martinez

Download or read book Carpetbaggers, Cavalry, and the Ku Klux Klan written by James Michael Martinez and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In some places during Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a social fraternity whose members enjoyed sophomoric high jinks and homemade liquor. In other areas, the KKK was a paramilitary group intent on keeping former slaves away from white women and Republicans away from ballot boxes. South Carolina saw the worst Klan violence and, in 1871, President Grant sent federal troops under the command of Major Lewis Merrill to restore law and order. Merrill did not eradicate the Klan, but he arguably did more than any other person or entity to expose the identity of the Invisible Empire as a group of hooded, brutish, homegrown terrorists. In compiling evidence to prosecute the leading Klansmen and restoring at least a semblance of order to South Carolina, Merrill and his men demonstrated that the portrayal of the KKK as a chivalric organization was at best a myth and at worst a lie. Book jacket.

Saving Yellowstone

Author : Megan Kate Nelson
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1982141344
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Saving Yellowstone by : Megan Kate Nelson

Download or read book Saving Yellowstone written by Megan Kate Nelson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From historian and critically acclaimed author of The Three-Cornered War comes the captivating story of how Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in the years after the Civil War, offering “a fresh, provocative study…departing from well-trodden narratives about conservation and public recreation” (Booklist, starred review). Each year nearly four million people visit Yellowstone National Park—one of the most popular of all national parks—but few know the fascinating and complex historical context in which it was established. In late July 1871, the geologist-explorer Ferdinand Hayden led a team of scientists through a narrow canyon into Yellowstone Basin, entering one of the last unmapped places in the country. The survey’s discoveries led to the passage of the Yellowstone Act in 1872, which created the first national park in the world. Now, author Megan Kate Nelson examines the larger context of this American moment, illuminating Hayden’s survey as a national project meant to give Americans a sense of achievement and unity in the wake of a destructive civil war. Saving Yellowstone follows Hayden and two other protagonists in pursuit of their own agendas: Sitting Bull, a Lakota leader who asserted his peoples’ claim to their homelands, and financier Jay Cooke, who wanted to secure his national reputation by building the Northern Pacific Railroad through the Great Northwest. Hayden, Cooke, and Sitting Bull staked their claims to Yellowstone at a critical moment in Reconstruction, when the Ulysses S. Grant Administration and the 42nd Congress were testing the reach and the purpose of federal power across the nation. “A readable and unfailingly interesting look at a slice of Western history from a novel point of view” (Kirkus Reviews), Saving Yellowstone reveals how Yellowstone became both a subject of fascination and a metaphor for the nation during the Reconstruction era. This “land of wonders” was both beautiful and terrible, fragile and powerful. And what lay beneath the surface there was always threatening to explode.

The Trial of Democracy

Author : Xi Wang
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820340847
Total Pages : 454 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Trial of Democracy by : Xi Wang

Download or read book The Trial of Democracy written by Xi Wang and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the Civil War, Republicans teamed with activist African Americans to protect black voting rights through innovative constitutional reforms--a radical transformation of southern and national political structures. The Trial of Democracy is a comprehensive analysis of both the forces and mechanisms that led to the implementation of black suffrage and the ultimate failure to maintain a stable northern constituency to support enforcement on a permanent basis. The reforms stirred fierce debates over the political and constitutional value of black suffrage, the legitimacy of racial equality, and the proper sharing of power between the state and federal governments. Unlike most studies of Reconstruction, this book follows these issues into the early twentieth century to examine the impact of the constitutional principles and the rise of Jim Crow. Tying constitutional history to party politics, The Trial of Democracy is a vital contribution to both fields.

Coming for to Carry Me Home

Author : J. Michael Martinez
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1442215003
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Coming for to Carry Me Home by : J. Michael Martinez

Download or read book Coming for to Carry Me Home written by J. Michael Martinez and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2011-12-22 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coming for to Carry Me Home examines the concept of race in the United States from the 1830s, when the abolitionists rose to prominence, until the 1880s, when the Jim Crow regime commenced. J. Michael Martinez argues that Lincoln and the Radical Republicans were the pivotal actors, albeit not the architects, that influenced this evolution.

No Surrender

Author : Keith D. Dickson
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1440848947
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (48 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis No Surrender by : Keith D. Dickson

Download or read book No Surrender written by Keith D. Dickson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-05-18 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern and current examination of Reconstruction that explains how the South in the aftermath of defeat in a total war, was still able to exhaust the will of the powerful North using asymmetric warfare. The end of the Civil War may have marked the end of the official fighting, but the Congressional strategy to remake the South during Reconstruction led to a new period of warfare—asymmetric warfare in which the defeated Confederacy became the Southern resistance. Despite all the power at its disposal, the North failed to change the South after nearly 11 years of effort and instead accepted a political-social equilibrium dictated by the South. This book presents Reconstruction through an unconventional lens to explain the process of transition from war to warfare, and finally to equilibrium represented by the emergence of the New South. Author Keith D. Dickson explains how Reconstruction created a false equilibrium in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War and was reversed by Congressional action that imposed a new social and political order. By resistance of these actions through asymmetric warfare, the white South was able to establish a new equilibrium—one dictated by the South that opened the path to the New South. Providing insights from an author who is both a respected academic military historian as well as a former practitioner of unconventional warfare as a Special Forces officer, the book covers the historical period 1865–1877, casting the Reconstruction period as an example of protracted asymmetric warfare. This asymmetric warfare was conducted in phases against the Republican state governments. As both the U.S. Congress and the Grant administration abandoned the lofty goals for Reconstruction, a bitterly contested presidential election provided the opportunity to establish conditions favorable to the white South that would in turn lead to a political-social equilibrium that allowed reconciliation to begin.

Patriots and Cosmopolitans

Author : John Fabian Witt
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674045289
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Patriots and Cosmopolitans by : John Fabian Witt

Download or read book Patriots and Cosmopolitans written by John Fabian Witt and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ranging from the founding era to Reconstruction, from the making of the modern state to its post-New Deal limits, John Fabian Witt illuminates the legal and constitutional foundations of American nationhood through the stories of five patriots and critics. In their own way, each of these individuals came up against the power of American national institutions to shape the directions of legal change.

Klan War

Author : Fergus M. Bordewich
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0593317823
Total Pages : 489 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (933 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Klan War by : Fergus M. Bordewich

Download or read book Klan War written by Fergus M. Bordewich and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2023-10-10 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning history of the first national anti-terrorist campaign waged on American soil—when Ulysses S. Grant wielded the power of the federal government to dismantle the KKK The Ku Klux Klan, which celebrated historian Fergus Bordewich defines as “the first organized terrorist movement in American history,” rose from the ashes of the Civil War. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan boasted many tens of thousands of members, no small number of them landowners, lawmen, doctors, journalists, and churchmen, as well as future governors and congressmen. And their mission was to obliterate the muscular democratic power of newly emancipated Black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrifying means imaginable. To repel the virulent tidal wave of violence, President Ulysses S. Grant waged a two-term battle against both armed Southern enemies of Reconstruction and Northern politicians seduced by visions of postwar conciliation, testing the limits of the federal government in determining the extent of states’ rights. In this book, Bordewich transports us to the front lines, in the hamlets of the former Confederate States and in the marble corridors of Congress, reviving an unsung generation of grassroots Black leaders and key figures such as crusading Missouri senator Carl Schurz, who sacrificed the rights of Black Americans in the name of political “reform,” and the ruthless former slave trader and Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest. Klan War is a bold and bracing record of America’s past that reveals the bloody, Reconstruction-era roots of present-day battles to protect the ballot box and stamp out resurgent white supremacist ideologies.

Shrill Hurrahs

Author : Kate Côté Gillin
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 1611172926
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (111 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Shrill Hurrahs by : Kate Côté Gillin

Download or read book Shrill Hurrahs written by Kate Côté Gillin and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2013-12-15 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Shrill Hurrahs, Kate Gillin presents a new perspective on gender roles and racial violence in South Carolina during Reconstruction and the decades after the 1876 election of Wade Hampton as governor. In the aftermath of the Civil War, southerners struggled to either adapt or resist changes to their way of life. Gillin accurately perceives racial violence as an attempt by white southern men to reassert their masculinity, weakened by the war and emancipation, and as an attempt by white southern women to preserve their antebellum privileges. As she reevaluates relationships between genders, Gillin also explores relations within the female gender. She has demonstrated that white women often exacerbated racial and gender violence alongside men, even when other white women were victims of that violence. Through the nineteenth century, few bridges of sisterhood were built between black and white women. Black women asserted their rights as mothers, wives, and independent free women in the postwar years, while white women often opposed these assertions of black female autonomy. Ironically even black women participated in acts of intimidation and racial violence in an attempt to safeguard their rights. In the turmoil of an era that extinguished slavery and redefined black citizenship, race, not gender, often determined the relationships that black and white women displayed in the defeated South. By canvassing and documenting numerous incidents of racial violence, from lynching of black men to assaults on white women, Gillin proposes a new view of postwar South Carolina. Tensions grew over controversies including the struggle for land and labor, black politicization, the creation of the Ku Klux Klan, the election of 1876, and the rise of lynching. Gillin addresses these issues and more as she focusses on black women’s asserted independence and white women’s role in racial violence. Despite the white women’s reactionary activism, the powerful presence of black women and their bravery in the face of white violence reshaped southern gender roles forever.

State of Rebellion

Author : Richard Zuczek
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 1643362364
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (433 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis State of Rebellion by : Richard Zuczek

Download or read book State of Rebellion written by Richard Zuczek and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chronicle of postwar resistance in the Palmetto State State of Rebellion recounts the volatile course of Reconstruction in the state that experienced the longest, largest, and most dynamic federal presence in the years immediately following the Civil War. Richard Zuczek examines the opposition of conservative white South Carolinians to the Republican-led program and the federal and state governments' attempts to quell such resistance. Contending that the issues that had driven secession—the relationship of the states to the federal government and the status of African Americans—remained unresolved even after Northern victory, Zuczek describes the period from 1865 to 1877 as a continuation of the struggle that began in 1861. He argues that Republican efforts failed primarily because of an organized, coherent effort by white Southerners committed to white supremacy. Zuczek details the tactics—from judicial and political fraud to economic coercion, terrorism, and guerrilla activity—employed by conservatives to nullify the African American vote, control African American labor, and oust northern Republicans from the state. He documents the federal government's attempt to quash the conservative challenge but shows that, by 1876, white opposition was so unified, widespread, and well armed that it passed beyond government control.

The A to Z of the Civil War and Reconstruction

Author : William L. Richter
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
ISBN 13 : 9780810863361
Total Pages : 968 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (633 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The A to Z of the Civil War and Reconstruction by : William L. Richter

Download or read book The A to Z of the Civil War and Reconstruction written by William L. Richter and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2009-07-24 with total page 968 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The importance of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the history of the United States cannot be overstated. There was a very real possibility that the union could have been sundered, resulting in a very different American history, and probably world history. But the union was held together by tough and determined leaders and by the economic muscle of the North. Following the end of the war, the period of American history known as Reconstruction followed. This was a period construed in many different ways. While the states were once again 'united,' many of the postwar efforts divided different segments of the population and failed to achieve their goals in an era too often remembered for carpetbaggers and scalawags, and Congressional imbroglios and incompetent government. This one-volume dictionary, with more than 800 entries covering the significant events, persons, politics, and economic and social themes in the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, is a research tool for all levels of readers from high school and up. The extensive chronology, introductory essay, dictionary entries, and comprehensive bibliography introduce and lead the reader through the military and non-military actions of one of the most pivotal events in American history.

Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction

Author : William L. Richter
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
ISBN 13 : 9780810865631
Total Pages : 968 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (656 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction by : William L. Richter

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction written by William L. Richter and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2004-05-17 with total page 968 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The importance of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the history of the United States cannot be overstated. There was a very real possibility that the union could have been sundered, resulting in a very different American history, and probably, world history. But the union was held together by tough and determined leaders and by the economic muscle of the North. While not always a period to be proud of, it did have higher goals and compelling ends. This one-volume dictionary, with more than 800 entries covering the significant events, persons, politics, and economic and social themes in the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, is a research tool for all levels of readers from high school and up. The extensive chronology, introductory essay, dictionary entries, and comprehensive bibliography introduce and lead the reader through the military and non-military actions of one of the most pivotal events in American history. Substantial coverage is given to the time that followed the Civil War: Reconstruction. This was a period construed in many different ways by the individuals involved, many of whom had little concern for the impact of their acts on others, and even fewer who were interested in the plight of the newly enfranchised blacks, for whom the war had supposedly been fought. While the states were once again 'united,' many of the postwar efforts divided different segments of the population and failed to achieve their goals in an era too often remembered for carpetbaggers and scalawags, and Congressional imbroglios and incompetent government. No matter how one looks at it, the Civil War continues to affect the politics, constitutionalism, and societal norms of the United States in an irrevocable way, and it probably always will. It was a very personal war, not fought by machines, but by men, affecting countless Americans who have one or more Civil War veterans hidden in their family trees. It's a war modern enough to be relevant to today's military interests, yet gentlemanly enough to be the last of the great romantic wars.

Freedom on Trial

Author : Scott Farris
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1493046365
Total Pages : 391 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (93 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Freedom on Trial by : Scott Farris

Download or read book Freedom on Trial written by Scott Farris and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Confederacy lost the Civil War but quickly began to win the peace when a mysterious organization arose called the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux, as it was then called, sought to restore white supremacy by terrorizing the formerly enslaved to prevent them from voting or owning firearms. To support Black resistance to the KKK’s campaign of murder and mayhem, President Ulysses S. Grant suspended the writ of habeas corpus in large portions of South Carolina and sent the famed 7th Cavalry to make mass arrests. Grant’s new attorney general, the first former Confederate to serve in a presidential Cabinet and an ardent advocate for Black equality, Amos T. Akerman, aggressively prosecuted the Ku Klux in a series of sensational trials that shocked the nation and forced a reckoning regarding just how much the Civil War and the recently enacted Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution had changed America and its notions of citizenship. Highlighting forgotten Black and white civil rights pioneers and weaving in the story of the author’s own great-grandfather’s crimes as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, Freedom on Trial tells a gripping story of a moment pregnant with promise when race relations in the United States might have taken a dramatically different turn. It is a story that also offers a sober lesson for those engaged in the ongoing work of fulfilling the American promise of equality for all.

From Slave Abuse to Hate Crime

Author : Ely Aaronson
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316147967
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (161 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis From Slave Abuse to Hate Crime by : Ely Aaronson

Download or read book From Slave Abuse to Hate Crime written by Ely Aaronson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-06 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the complex ways in which political debates and legal reforms regarding the criminalization of racial violence have shaped the development of American racial history. Spanning previous campaigns for criminalizing slave abuse, lynching, and Klan violence and contemporary debates about the legal response to hate crimes, this book reveals both continuity and change in terms of the political forces underpinning the enactment of new laws regarding racial violence in different periods and of the social and institutional problems that hinder the effective enforcement of these laws. A thought-provoking analysis of how criminal law reflects and constructs social norms, this book offers a new historical and theoretical perspective for analyzing the limits of current attempts to use criminal legislation as a weapon against racism.

Ku-Klux

Author : Elaine Frantz Parsons
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469625431
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Ku-Klux by : Elaine Frantz Parsons

Download or read book Ku-Klux written by Elaine Frantz Parsons and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2015-11-09 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive examination of the nineteenth-century Ku Klux Klan since the 1970s, Ku-Klux pinpoints the group's rise with startling acuity. Historians have traced the origins of the Klan to Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866, but the details behind the group's emergence have long remained shadowy. By parsing the earliest descriptions of the Klan, Elaine Frantz Parsons reveals that it was only as reports of the Tennessee Klan's mysterious and menacing activities began circulating in northern newspapers that whites enthusiastically formed their own Klan groups throughout the South. The spread of the Klan was thus intimately connected with the politics and mass media of the North. Shedding new light on the ideas that motivated the Klan, Parsons explores Klansmen's appropriation of images and language from northern urban forms such as minstrelsy, burlesque, and business culture. While the Klan sought to retain the prewar racial order, the figure of the Ku-Klux became a joint creation of northern popular cultural entrepreneurs and southern whites seeking, perversely and violently, to modernize the South. Innovative and packed with fresh insight, Parsons' book offers the definitive account of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction.