Transcription
HARLAN RICHARDS
February 5, 2018
The Klu Klux Klan
Before reading about the Jim Crow south, I had a misconception about the Klu Klux Klan (KKK). I believed that they acted primarily to inflict vigilante justice on unruly blacks—those who caused problems that the police couldn't effectively address. As wrong as this is, it is not as destructive as what really occurred.
The KKK went after good, law-abiding blacks who became too successful. They didn't focus their attacks on renegade blacks. They went after any black man or woman who was able to start a business, run a prosperous farm, or do anything else that showed that black people were as good as (and often better than) their white neighbors.
Instead of being a misguided attempt to prevent anarchy and lawlessness in the post-Reconstruction South, the KKK was a pernicious evil. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.
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Replies (2)
You could really plug that sort of thinking into anything that the KKK considered a threat, really. Claims that a right or an achievement "weren't really deserved by ____". Roman Catholics, Jews, organized labor in any form, and any foreigner of any sort—all targets of the KKK by the 1910s.
Makes me gloomy, but knowing that you know more about them lightens me up a little.