White Terror

This Harper's Weekly cartoon from October 1874, titled "The Union As It Was," depicts White League and Klan opposition to Reconstruction

Post-War Reactionary Response

After the Civil War, a number of white supremacist groups formed as a reaction to the recent freeing African-American former slaves, who now competed for paying jobs and opportunities in the South. 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 political organizing. 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, it was one of the paramilitary groups described as "the military arm of the Democratic Party." Through violence and intimidation, its members reduced Republican voting and contributed to the Democrats' taking over control of the Louisiana Legislature in 1876.

White League

Although sometimes linked to the secret vigilante groups of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as Knights of the White Camelia, the White League and other paramilitary groups of the later 1870s displayed significant differences. They operated openly, solicited coverage from newspapers, and the men's identities were generally known. The Red Shirts were a similar group, which was started in Mississippi in 1875 and active in South Carolina. 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, they 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.

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 using violence as a political weapon, including the Southern Cross, in New Orleans (1865), and the Knights of the White Camelia (1867), in Louisiana. 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. Since 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.

In an 1868 newspaper interview, Forrest stated that the Klan's primary opposition was to the Loyal Leagues, Republican state governments, people like Tennessee governor Brownlow, and other "carpetbaggers and scalawags." He argued that many southerners believed that blacks were voting for the Republican Party because they were being hoodwinked by the Loyal Leagues.