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117-556: At the time, the lives of all newly freed slaves, as well as their political and economic rights, were being threatened. This threat led to the creation of the Enforcement Acts. The main goal in creating these acts was to improve conditions for black people and freed slaves. The main target was the Ku Klux Klan , a white supremacy organization, which was targeting black people, and, later, other groups. Although this act

234-546: A natural gas processing plant. In 1999, the city council of Charleston, South Carolina , passed a resolution declaring the Klan a terrorist organization. The existence of modern Klan groups has been in a state of consistent decline, due to a variety of factors: from the American public's negative distaste of the group's image, platform, and history, infiltration and prosecution by law enforcement, civil lawsuit forfeitures, and

351-556: A 1933 interview, William Sellers, born enslaved in Virginia, recalled the post-war "raids of the Ku Klux, young white men of Rockingham County who would go into the huts of the recently freed negroes or catch some negro who had been working for thirty cents a day on his way home from work...and cruelly whip him, leaving him to live or die." Seemingly random whipping attacks, meant to be suggestive of previous condition of servitude, were

468-434: A First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim arising under section 1983, but that there are some narrow exceptions to this. Because officers can exercise their discretion in making arrests for warrantless misdemeanor crimes, a plaintiff can succeed on a section 1983 claim if they can present objective evidence that other similarly situated individuals who were not engaged in protected speech had not been arrested. Also in 2019,

585-498: A Nation , which mythologized the founding of the first Klan, it employed marketing techniques and a popular fraternal organization structure . Rooted in local Protestant communities, it sought to maintain white supremacy , often took a pro- Prohibition stance, and it opposed Jews , while also stressing its opposition to the alleged political power of the pope and the Catholic Church . This second Klan flourished both in

702-536: A chance to participate in the process. Hundreds of Klan members were fined or imprisoned during the crackdown, "once the national government became set upon a policy of military intervention whole populations which had scouted the authority of the weak 'Radical' government of the State became meek." Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest boasted that the Klan was a nationwide organization of 550,000 men and that he could muster 40,000 Klansmen within five days' notice. However,

819-706: A congressional committee which took testimony from 52 witnesses about Klan atrocities, accumulating 12 volumes. In February, former Union general and congressman Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (Ku Klux Klan Act). This added to the enmity that Southern white Democrats bore toward him. While the bill was being considered, further violence in the South swung support for its passage. The governor of South Carolina appealed for federal troops to assist his efforts in keeping control of

936-690: A detailed recounting of Klansmen's beatings and murders of freedmen and their white allies. Milder encounters, including some against white teachers, also occurred. In Mississippi , according to the Congressional inquiry: One of these teachers (Miss Allen of Illinois), whose school was at Cotton Gin Port in Monroe County , was visited ... between one and two o'clock in the morning in March 1871, by about fifty men mounted and disguised. Each man wore

1053-461: A federal candidate for public office. Section 6 of the Act, now codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1986 and known as "Section 1986", imposes civil liability upon persons who know of a violation of Section 1985 or a planned violation of Section 1985, and who are in a position to prevent it, but who fail to prevent it, fail to attempt to prevent it, or fail to assist in its prevention. While the other sections create

1170-571: A few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own. Indeed, all they had in common, besides being overwhelmingly white, southern, and Democratic , was that they called themselves, or were called, Klansmen. Historian Eric Foner observed: "In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class , and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy. Its purposes were political, but political in

1287-498: A few weeks prior to the Presidential election of November 1868. Although St. Landry Parish had a registered Republican majority of 1,071, after the murders, no Republicans voted in the fall elections. White Democrats cast the full vote of the parish for President Grant's opponent. The KKK killed and wounded more than 200 Black Republicans, hunting and chasing them through the woods. Thirteen captives were taken from jail and shot;

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1404-440: A formal and decisive disbandment". A Georgia-based reporter wrote in 1870: "A true statement of the case is not that the Ku Klux are an organized band of licensed criminals, but that men who commit crimes call themselves Ku Klux". In many states, officials were reluctant to use Black militia against the Klan out of fear that racial tensions would be raised. Republican governor of North Carolina William Woods Holden called out

1521-845: A half-buried pile of 25 bodies was found in the woods. The KKK made people vote Democratic and gave them certificates of the fact. In the April 1868 Georgia gubernatorial election, Columbia County cast 1,222 votes for Republican Rufus Bullock . By the November presidential election , Klan intimidation led to suppression of the Republican vote and only one person voted for Ulysses S. Grant . Klansmen killed more than 150 African Americans in Jackson County, Florida , and hundreds more in other counties including Madison, Alachua, Columbia, and Hamilton. Florida Freedmen's Bureau records provided

1638-458: A judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer's judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia. Section 1983 made relief—in

1755-402: A long white robe and his face was covered by a loose mask with scarlet stripes. She was ordered to get up and dress which she did at once and then admitted to her room the captain and lieutenant who in addition to the usual disguise had long horns on their heads and a sort of device in front. The lieutenant had a pistol in his hand and he and the captain sat down while eight or ten men stood inside

1872-458: A modern business system of using full-time, paid recruiters and it appealed to new members as a fraternal organization, of which many examples were flourishing at the time. The national headquarters made its profit through a monopoly on costume sales, while the organizers were paid through initiation fees. It grew rapidly nationwide at a time of prosperity. Reflecting the social tensions pitting urban versus rural America, it spread to every state and

1989-423: A person of equal protection under the law. Section 1985(1) covers conspiracies to violently prevent a public official from taking office or to "molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede" the discharge of official duties, among other acts. Section 1985(2) addresses conspiracies to harm or threaten witnesses and jurors in federal courts, or to otherwise interfere with court proceedings, "with intent to deny to any citizen

2106-552: A proper cause of action. Circumstances changed in 1961 when the Supreme Court of the United States articulated three purposes that underlie the statute: "1) 'to override certain kinds of state laws'; 2) to provide 'a remedy where state law was inadequate'; and 3) to provide 'a federal remedy where the state remedy, though adequate in theory, was not available in practice.' " A §1983 claim requires according to

2223-441: A remedy against conspirators who deprived people of their rights, Section 1986 creates a remedy against persons whose acquiescence make such conspiracies possible. Legislators recognized that the Klan's political violence could not continue without tacit approval from local community leaders, and sought to stop the Klan by making community leaders financially responsible for terrorist acts they knowingly fail to prevent. This section of

2340-520: A result the KKK was completely dismantled (ending the "first Klan" era) and did not resurface in any meaningful way until the beginning of the 20th century. Several of the act's provisions still exist today as codified statutes. The most important of these is section 1979 of the Revised Statutes ( 42 U.S.C.   § 1983 ) entitled as ' Civil action for deprivation of rights' . It

2457-702: A state actor violates a federally guaranteed right. The most common use today is to redress violations of the Fourth Amendment 's protection against unreasonable search and seizure . Such lawsuits concern false arrest and police brutality , most notably in the Rodney King case . The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement along with smart phone video cameras have made Section 1983 lawsuits easier to obtain because of technological advances, including bodycams worn by law enforcement. The Act

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2574-836: A state crime. While the Supreme Court limited the Act, they did not fully repeal it. The resulting case, United States v. Price , would stand because state actors were involved. On August 1, 2023, the Justice Department charged former President Donald Trump under the Enforcement Act of 1870, now 18 U.S.C. 241, in United States v. Donald Trump over his attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election . Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan ( / ˌ k uː k l ʌ k s ˈ k l æ n , ˌ k j uː -/ ), commonly shortened to

2691-483: A success in terms of "restoring order, reinvigorating the morale of Southern Republicans, and enabling Blacks to exercise their rights as citizens". Historian George C. Rable argues that the Klan was a political failure and therefore was discarded by the Democratic Party leaders of the South. He says: The Klan declined in strength in part because of internal weaknesses; its lack of central organization and

2808-569: A widespread aspect of the early Klan; for example in 1870–71 in Limestone Township (now Cherokee County ), South Carolina, of 77 documented attacks, "four were shot, sixty-seven whipped and six had had their ears cropped ." Klan members adopted masks and robes that hid their identities and added to the drama of their night rides, their chosen time for attacks. Many of them operated in small towns and rural areas where people otherwise knew each other's faces, and sometimes still recognized

2925-543: Is also known simply as "Section 1983", authorized monetary and injunctive relief against anyone who, acting under the authority of state law, deprived a person of rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or federal law. Section 1983 is the most prominent and commonly-litigated civil rights statute. Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes now reads: Every person who under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or

3042-582: Is the most widely used civil rights enforcement statute, allowing people to sue in civil court over civil rights violations. In response to political violence by the Ku Klux Klan and others during the Reconstruction era following the American Civil War , Congress passed three Enforcement Acts giving the federal government broader powers to guarantee citizens' constitutional rights. The third of these acts, enacted in April 1871, gave

3159-792: The Civil War , during the Reconstruction of the South. The group was known for a short time as the "Kuklux Clan". The Ku Klux Klan was one of a number of secret, oath-bound organizations using violence, which included the Southern Cross in New Orleans (1865) and the Knights of the White Camelia (1867) in Louisiana . Historians generally classify the KKK as part of the post-Civil War insurgent violence related not only to

3276-512: The Confederate army : Frank McCord, Richard Reed, John Lester, John Kennedy, J. Calvin Jones, and James Crowe. It started as a fraternal social club inspired at least in part by the then largely defunct Sons of Malta . It borrowed parts of the initiation ceremony from that group, with the same purpose: "ludicrous initiations, the baffling of public curiosity, and the amusement for members were

3393-534: The Deep South , particularly in South Carolina . He felt that he needed to have his authority broadened before he could effectively intervene. After the act's passage, the president had the power for the first time to both suppress state disorders on his own initiative and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus . Grant did not hesitate to use this authority on numerous occasions during his presidency, and as

3510-522: The District of Columbia , subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws , shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, Suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against

3627-615: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 . Butler's bill was narrowly defeated in the House, whereupon Republican Rep. Samuel Shellabarger , of Ohio, introduced a substitute bill, only slightly less sweeping than Butler's original. This bill brought a few holdout Republicans into line, and the bill narrowly passed the House, sailed through the Senate, and was signed into law on April 20 by President Grant. After

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3744-510: The KKK or the Klan , is the name of an American white supremacist , far-right terrorist organization and hate group . Various historians, including Fergus Bordewich , have characterized the Klan as America's first terrorist group. There have been three distinct iterations with various targets relative to time and place, including African Americans , Jews , and Catholics . Each iteration of

3861-565: The Ku Klux Klan Act , Third Enforcement Act , Third Ku Klux Klan Act , Civil Rights Act of 1871 , or Force Act of 1871 , is an Act of the United States Congress that was intended to combat the paramilitary vigilantism of the Ku Klux Klan . The act made certain acts committed by private persons federal offenses including conspiring to deprive citizens of their rights to hold office, serve on juries, or enjoy

3978-612: The Prescript , which espoused white supremacist belief. For instance, an applicant should be asked if he was in favor of "a white man's government", "the reenfranchisement and emancipation of the white men of the South, and the restitution of the Southern people to all their rights". The latter is a reference to the Ironclad Oath , which stripped the vote from white persons who refused to swear that they had not borne arms against

4095-503: The Reconstruction Era to combat attacks upon the suffrage rights of African Americans . The statute has been subject to only minor changes since then, but has been the subject of voluminous interpretation by courts. This legislation was asked for by President Grant and passed within one month of when he sent the request to Congress. Grant's request was a result of the reports he was receiving of widespread racial threats in

4212-769: The Red Shirts , which started in Mississippi and developed chapters in the Carolinas. For instance, the Red Shirts are credited with helping elect Wade Hampton as governor in South Carolina. They were described as acting as the military arm of the Democratic Party and are attributed with helping white Democrats regain control of state legislatures throughout the South. In 1915, the second Klan

4329-709: The Republican National Committee under the act as well as the Voting Rights Act . According to the lawsuit, President Trump and the Republican Party "coordinated conspiracy to disenfranchise Black voters" through legal actions intended to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Michigan , Georgia and Pennsylvania via "intimidation and coercion of election officials and volunteers". In February 2021,

4446-714: The Texas Trump Train Incident during the 2020 Biden-Harris Presidential Campaign sued the City of San Marcos, Texas, and several individual defendants under the Ku Klux Klan Act in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. In 2023, San Marcos and two individual defendants settled with the plaintiffs. On September 23, 2004, a jury found one of the remaining six defendants liable for $ 30,000 in punitive damages to be split among

4563-473: The writ of habeas corpus to suppress a rebellion. This section expired after one year. Section 5 barred persons violating the Act from sitting as jurors in any proceeding under the Act, and imposed an oath upon jurors not to violate the Act. Section 7 provided, "nothing herein contained shall be construed to supersede or repeal any former act or law except so far as the same may be repugnant thereto", and that prosecutions "shall be continued and completed,

4680-779: The 1940s. Klan organizers also operated in Canada , especially in Saskatchewan in 1926–1928, where Klansmen denounced immigrants from Eastern Europe as a threat to Canada's "Anglo-Saxon" heritage. The "Ku Klux Klan" name was used by numerous independent local groups opposing the civil rights movement and desegregation , especially in the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, they often forged alliances with Southern police departments, as in Birmingham, Alabama ; or with governor's offices, as with George Wallace of Alabama . Several members of Klan groups were convicted of murder in

4797-402: The Act has been rarely invoked since its enactment, but is used to combat terrorism in modern times by providing a "disincentive to those who would protect or foster conspiratorial terrorist acts". Section 3 authorized the president to use the military to suppress domestic violence and conspiracies to deprive people of their constitutional rights. Section 4 authorized the president to suspend

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4914-563: The Act was asserted in an action in the District Court, D.C. , by Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D, MS2) , chair of the House Homeland Security Committee (in his personal capacity) against former President Donald Trump (in his personal capacity), Trump's attorney Rudolph Giuliani and ( far-right "militia" groups ) Proud Boys and Oath Keepers . The Thompson v. Trump., et al. case was followed by

5031-740: The Civil Rights of newly freed African Americans. After the end of the Grant Administration, and the dismantling of Reconstruction under Rutherford B. Hayes , enforcement of the Act fell into disuse and few cases were brought under the statute for almost a hundred years. In December 2020, the NAACP along with the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and a group of Detroit voters sued U.S. President Donald Trump along with his presidential campaign and

5148-678: The Civil War, President Ulysses S. Grant conducted an aggressive—and ultimately successful—campaign against the Ku Klux Klan and its offshoots (such as the Knights of the White Camellia) from the 1860s to the 1870s. Grant deployed federal soldiers to arrest Klan members, enlisted U.S. attorneys to try their cases, supported Congressional legislation like the Ku Klux Klan Act , and organized federal judges to oversee Klan trials. Under

5265-734: The Court allowed individuals who were not state actors to be prosecuted because Article I Section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate federal elections. In Hodges v. United States (1906) the Court addressed a possible Thirteenth Amendment rationale for the Enforcement Acts, and found that the federal government did not have the authority to punish a group of men for interfering with black workers through whitecapping . Hodges v. United States would be overruled in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. some 50 years later, stating for

5382-740: The Court held that the 3-year statute of limitations for a fabrication of evidence civil lawsuit under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act begins to run when the criminal case ends in the plaintiff's favor. In June 2020 the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected qualified immunity for five Police officers in West Virginia who had kicked, beaten, tased, and finally killed Wayne A. Jones , by shooting him 22 times. On February 16, 2021,

5499-748: The Enforcement Acts. After the Colfax massacre in Louisiana, the federal government brought a civil rights case against nine men (out of 97 indicted) who were accused of paramilitary activity intended to stop black people from voting. In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Court ruled that the federal government did not have the authority to prosecute the men because the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments provide only for redress against state actors . However, in Ex Parte Yarbrough (1884)

5616-430: The Klan Act during Reconstruction, federal troops, rather than state militias, were used to enforce the law, and Klansmen were prosecuted in federal court, where juries were sometimes predominantly black. Hundreds of Klan members were fined or imprisoned, and habeas corpus was suspended in nine counties in South Carolina. These efforts were so successful that the Klan was destroyed in South Carolina and decimated throughout

5733-576: The Klan had no membership rosters, no chapters, and no local officers, so it was difficult for observers to judge its membership. It had created a sensation by the dramatic nature of its masked forays and because of its many murders. In 1870, a federal grand jury determined that the Klan was a " terrorist organization" and issued hundreds of indictments for crimes of violence and terrorism. Klan members were prosecuted, and many fled from areas that were under federal government jurisdiction, particularly in South Carolina. Many people not formally inducted into

5850-454: The Klan had used the Klan's costume to hide their identities when carrying out independent acts of violence. Forrest called for the Klan to disband in 1869, arguing that it was "being perverted from its original honorable and patriotic purposes, becoming injurious instead of subservient to the public peace". Historian Stanley Horn argues that "generally speaking, the Klan's end was more in the form of spotty, slow, and gradual disintegration than

5967-415: The Klan has an "unknown number of associates and supporters". The name was probably formed by combining the Greek kyklos ( κύκλος , which means circle) with clan . The word had previously been used for other fraternal organizations in the South such as Kuklos Adelphon . Six Confederate veterans from Pulaski, Tennessee , created the original Ku Klux Klan on December 24, 1865, shortly after

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6084-432: The Klan is defined by non-overlapping time periods, comprising local chapters with little or no central direction. Each has advocated reactionary positions such as white nationalism , anti-immigration and—especially in later iterations— Nordicism , antisemitism , anti-Catholicism , right-wing populism , anti-communism , homophobia , anti-atheism , and Islamophobia . The first Klan, founded by Confederate veterans in

6201-400: The Ku Klux Klan , on which the film was based. When the film was shown in Atlanta in December of that year, Simmons and his new klansmen paraded to the theater in robes and pointed hoods – many on robed horses – just like in the film. These mass parades became another hallmark of the new Klan that had not existed in the original Reconstruction-era organization. Beginning in 1921, it adopted

6318-408: The NAACP and law firm Cohen Milstein filed another lawsuit invoking the act on behalf of U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson . Other congresspersons were to join the litigation as plaintiffs. The February suit was filed against former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani , the Proud Boys , and the Oath Keepers . It alleges violations of the act pertaining to attempts to reject certification of

6435-399: The Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other Purposes"), made state officials liable in federal court for depriving anyone of their civil rights or the equal protection of the laws. It further made a number of the KKK's intimidation tactics into federal offenses, authorized the president to call out the militia to suppress conspiracies against

6552-488: The Republican Party because they were being hoodwinked by the Loyal Leagues. One Alabama newspaper editor declared "The League is nothing more than a nigger Ku Klux Klan." Despite Gordon's and Forrest's work, local Klan units never accepted the Prescript and continued to operate autonomously. There were never hierarchical levels or state headquarters. Klan members used violence to settle old personal feuds and local grudges, as they worked to restore general white dominance in

6669-528: The South that adopted similar goals. Klan chapters promoted white supremacy and spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement in resistance to Reconstruction. Confederate veteran John W. Morton founded a KKK chapter in Nashville, Tennessee . As a secret vigilante group, the Klan targeted freedmen and their allies; it sought to restore white supremacy by threats and violence, including murder. "They targeted white Northern leaders, Southern sympathizers and politically active Blacks." In 1870 and 1871,

6786-480: The Southern Poverty Law Center puts it at 6,000 members total. The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent references to a false mythologized perception of America's " Anglo-Saxon " blood, hearkening back to 19th-century nativism . Although members of the KKK swear to uphold Christian morality , Christian denominations widely denounce them. The first Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee , on December 24, 1865, by six former officers of

6903-559: The Steal, Oath Keepers and other persons who conspired to attack the Capitol under the same act and the D.C. Bias-Related Crimes Act. On February 2, 2022, Vindman sued several Trump allies, alleging that they intimidated and retaliated against him while he testified in Congress, and thereby violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. The defendants in the lawsuit are Donald Trump Jr. , Rudy Giuliani, former White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino , and former White House deputy communications director Julia Hahn. In 2021, plaintiffs involved in

7020-471: The Union. Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was elected the first grand wizard , and claimed to be the Klan's national leader. In an 1868 newspaper interview, Forrest stated that the Klan's primary opposition was to the Loyal Leagues , Republican state governments, people such as Tennessee governor William Gannaway Brownlow , and other " carpetbaggers " and " scalawags ". He argued that many Southerners believed that Black people were voting for

7137-452: The United States Supreme Court in Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. (1970) two elements for recovery: (1) the plaintiff must prove that the defendant has deprived him of a right secured by the, "constitution and laws," of the US, and (2) the plaintiff must show that the defendant deprived him of this constitutional right 'under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory' (under color of law). Now

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7254-601: The United States, steal federal property, and a number of other acts. Section 2 originally provided for both criminal and civil liability, but the criminal component was later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the 1883 case United States v. Harris , and ultimately repealed by Congress. The civil liability portion of Section 2 survived with amendments later codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1985, known as "Section 1985". Section 1985 authorizes lawsuits against people who conspire to commit certain prohibited acts, such as interfering with government, obstructing justice, or depriving

7371-555: The attackers by voice and mannerisms. "The kind of thing that men are afraid or ashamed to do openly, and by day, they accomplish secretly, masked, and at night." The KKK night riders "sometimes claimed to be ghosts of Confederate soldiers so, as they claimed, to frighten superstitious Blacks. Few freedmen took such nonsense seriously." The Klan attacked Black members of the Loyal Leagues and intimidated Southern Republicans and Freedmen's Bureau workers. When they killed Black political leaders, they also took heads of families, along with

7488-499: The basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It established penalties for interfering with a person's right to vote and gave federal courts the power to enforce the act. The act also authorized the President to employ the use of the army to uphold the act and the use of federal marshals to bring charges against offenders for election fraud, the bribery or intimidation of voters, and conspiracies to prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional rights. The act banned

7605-438: The broadest sense, for it sought to affect power relations, both public and private, throughout Southern society. It aimed to reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South during Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican party's infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the Black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life. To that end they worked to curb

7722-681: The civil rights provisions for individuals under the constitution. The Klan refused to voluntarily dissolve after the 1871 Klan Act, so President Grant issued a suspension of habeas corpus and stationed federal troops in nine South Carolina counties by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 . The Klansmen were apprehended and prosecuted in federal court. Judges Hugh Lennox Bond and George S. Bryan presided over South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials in Columbia, S.C., during December 1871. The defendants were given from three months to five years of incarceration with fines. More Black people served on juries in federal court than on local or state juries, so they had

7839-427: The court ruled that "The first clause of 1985(3) does not provide a federal cause of action against persons obstructing access to abortion clinics." It was also used in the 1969 case of Tinker v. Des Moines . By the time Beth Tinker was in school, the law had expanded to make school boards liable if they stood in the way of people's federally protected rights. Today, the 1871 Civil Rights Act can be invoked whenever

7956-415: The deaths of civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964 and of children in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. The United States government still considers the Klan to be a "subversive terrorist organization". In April 1997, FBI agents arrested four members of the True Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Dallas for conspiracy to commit robbery and for conspiring to blow up

8073-493: The disrupted postwar society. The historian Elaine Frantz Parsons describes the membership: Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of anti-Black vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers, coercive moral reformers, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of Black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline, common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even

8190-531: The door and the porch was full. They treated her "gentlemanly and quietly" but complained of the heavy school-tax, said she must stop teaching and go away and warned her that they never gave a second notice. She heeded the warning and left the county. By 1868, two years after the Klan's creation, its activity was beginning to decrease. Members were hiding behind Klan masks and robes as a way to avoid prosecution for freelance violence. Many influential Southern Democrats feared that Klan lawlessness provided an excuse for

8307-456: The education, economic advancement, voting rights , and right to keep and bear arms of Black people. The Klan soon spread into nearly every Southern state, launching a reign of terror against Republican leaders both Black and white. Those political leaders assassinated during the campaign included Arkansas Congressman James M. Hinds , three members of the South Carolina legislature, and several men who served in constitutional conventions." In

8424-483: The election results during the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count , as well as alleging conspiracy to incite violence leading to the 2021 United States Capitol attack . Following lawsuits filed by Thompson and Swalwell, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed its complaint on behalf of seven officers working with United States Capitol Police accusing Trump, Roger Stone , Proud Boys, Stop

8541-465: The equal protection of law. The Act authorized the President to deploy federal troops to counter the Klan and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to make arrests without charge. The act was passed by the 42nd United States Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on April 20, 1871. The act was the last of three Enforcement Acts passed by Congress from 1870 to 1871 during

8658-453: The equal protection of the laws". In a reference to the Klan's practice of wearing face-covering hoods, Section 1985(3) prohibits two or more people from traveling in disguise or otherwise conspiring to deprive a person or class of people of equal protection of the law or other legal rights. In addition, Section 1985(3) contains the "support-or-advocacy clauses", which cover conspiracies to harm citizens because of their support or advocacy for

8775-514: The failure of its leaders to control criminal elements and sadists. More fundamentally, it declined because it failed to achieve its central objective – the overthrow of Republican state governments in the South. After the Klan was suppressed, similar insurgent paramilitary groups arose that were explicitly directed at suppressing Republican voting and turning Republicans out of office: the White League , which started in Louisiana in 1874; and

8892-418: The federal Constitution and federal statutes, such as the prohibition of public sector employment discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, and religion. Targeted directly at the Klan and containing some two dozen clauses, Section 2 was longer than Section 1 and received more attention from Congress during debates. It prohibited conspiracies to overthrow the federal government, levy war against

9009-572: The federal government passed the Enforcement Acts , which were intended to prosecute and suppress Klan crimes. The first Klan had mixed results in terms of achieving its objectives. It seriously weakened the Black political leadership through its use of assassinations and threats of violence, and it drove some people out of politics. On the other hand, it caused a sharp backlash, with passage of federal laws that historian Eric Foner says were

9126-666: The federal government to retain its power over the South, and they began to turn against it. There were outlandish claims made, such as Georgian B. H. Hill stating "that some of these outrages were actually perpetrated by the political friends of the parties slain." Union Army veterans in mountainous Blount County, Alabama , organized "the anti-Ku Klux". They put an end to violence by threatening Klansmen with reprisals unless they stopped whipping Unionists and burning Black churches and schools. Armed Black people formed their own defense in Bennettsville, South Carolina , and patrolled

9243-494: The first six months of the Association's national recruitment campaign, Klan membership had increased by 85,000. At its peak in the mid-1920s, the organization's membership ranged from three to eight million members. In 1923, Simmons was ousted as leader of the KKK by Hiram Wesley Evans . From September 1923 there were two Ku Klux Klan organizations: the one founded by Simmons and led by Evans with its strength primarily in

9360-497: The first time since Reconstruction that the federal government could criminalize racist acts by private actors. In 1964, the United States Department of Justice charged eighteen individuals under the Enforcement Act of 1870, with conspiring to deprive Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman of their civil rights by murder because Mississippi officials refused to prosecute their killers for murder,

9477-633: The form of localized and isolated groups that use the KKK name. They have focused on opposition to the civil rights movement , often using violence and murder to suppress activists. This manifestation is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center . As of 2016 , the Anti-Defamation League puts total KKK membership nationwide at around 3,000, while

9594-486: The form of monetary damages—available to those whose constitutional rights and laws had been violated by a person acting under State authority . Normally, constitutional rights and laws violations are remedied by specific performance including injunctions by the courts. Thus, if a person's right to due process was violated by a prison guard who was said to be acting under the authority of the state, under § 1983, that person could bring suit for monetary damages against

9711-541: 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 Black people and their allies as intimidation. They burned houses and attacked and killed Black people , leaving their bodies on

9828-474: The late 1860s, assaulted and murdered politically active Black people and their allies in the South . The second iteration of the Klan originated in the late 1910s, and was the first to use cross burnings and white-hooded robes. The KKK of the 1920s had a nationwide membership in the millions and reflected a cross-section of the native-born white English-speaking and Protestant population. The third Klan formed in

9945-619: The law. The Enforcement Acts did many things to help freedmen. The main purpose under the act was the prohibited use of violence or any form of intimidation to prevent the freedmen from voting and denying them that right. There were many provisions placed under the act, many with serious consequences. The Enforcement Acts were created as part of the Reconstruction era following the American Civil War . To allow full national unity, all citizens must be accepted and viewed equally, with violence prohibited. The Enforcement Act of 1870 prohibited discrimination by state officials in voter registration on

10062-522: The leaders of churches and community groups, because these people had many roles in society. Agents of the Freedmen's Bureau reported weekly assaults and murders of Black people. "Armed guerrilla warfare killed thousands of Negroes; political riots were staged; their causes or occasions were always obscure, their results always certain: ten to one hundred times as many Negroes were killed as whites." Masked men shot into houses and burned them, sometimes with

10179-415: The mid 20th century, largely as a reaction to the growing civil rights movement . It used murder and bombings to achieve its aims. All three movements have called for the "purification" of American society, and are all considered far-right extremist organizations. In each era, membership was secret and estimates of the total were highly exaggerated by both allies and enemies. The first Klan, established in

10296-524: The militia against the Klan in 1870, adding to his unpopularity. This and extensive violence and fraud at the polls caused the Republicans to lose their majority in the state legislature. Disaffection with Holden's actions contributed to white Democratic legislators impeaching him and removing him from office, but their reasons for doing so were numerous. Ku Klux Klan Act The Enforcement Act of 1871 (17  Stat.   13 ), also known as

10413-514: The occupants still inside. They drove successful Black farmers off their land. "Generally, it can be reported that in North and South Carolina, in 18 months ending in June 1867, there were 197 murders and 548 cases of aggravated assault." Klan violence worked to suppress Black voting, and campaign seasons were deadly. More than 2,000 people were killed, wounded, or otherwise injured in Louisiana within

10530-458: The only objects of the Klan", according to Albert Stevens in 1907. The manual of rituals was printed by Laps D. McCord of Pulaski. The origins of the hood are uncertain; it may have been appropriated from the Spanish capirote hood, or it may be traced to the uniform of Southern Mardi Gras celebrations. According to The Cyclopædia of Fraternities (1907), "Beginning in April, 1867, there

10647-501: The operation of the federal government, and prohibited those suspected of complicity in such conspiracies to serve on juries related to the Klan's activities. The Act also authorized the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus if violence rendered efforts to suppress the Klan ineffective. It was passed at the request of Ulysses S. Grant . As a response to the act, Klansmen in South Carolina were put on trial in front of juries made up of mainly African Americans. Amos T. Akerman

10764-580: The president the power to imprison people without a trial (known as suspending the writ of habeas corpus ) and to use the federal military on domestic soil to enforce constitutional rights, among other measures. In January 1871, Republican Senator John Scott of Pennsylvania convened a congressional committee to hear testimony from witnesses of Klan atrocities . In February, Republican Congressman Benjamin Franklin Butler of Massachusetts introduced his anti-Klan bill, intended to enforce both

10881-629: The prison guard. Without § 1983, that person would have to seek an injunction by the courts for the due process violation. The problem with such an action by the court is that injunctions, which instruct a party on penalty of contempt to perform or refrain from performing some action, cannot apply to past harm, only future harm. So, essentially the person would have an actionable cause—the constitutional violation—with no adequate remedy. Most § 1983 claims are brought against prison officials by prisoners, but prisoner claims are usually dismissed as being without merit. Claims can be brought by anyone stating

10998-517: The radical right-wing's perception of the Klan as outdated and unfashionable. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that between 2016 and 2019, the number of Klan groups in America dropped from 130 to just 51. A 2016 report by the Anti-Defamation League claims an estimate of just over 30 active Klan groups existing in the United States. Estimates of total collective membership range from about 3,000 to 8,000. In addition to its active membership,

11115-406: The regulations, and the prison sentences vary in length. The final act, and the most effective, was also a revision. Although the fines lowered again, and the prison sentences remained approximately the same, this act was the best enforced by the government. The Enforcement Act of 1871 , the third Enforcement Act passed by Congress and also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act (formally, "An Act to enforce

11232-508: The rest of the former Confederacy, where it had already been in decline for several years. The Klan was not to exist again until its renewal in 1915. During its brief existence, however, the "first era" Klan did achieve many of its goals in the South, such as denying voting rights to Southern blacks. In its early history, under the Grant Administration, this act was used, along with the Force Act, to bring to justice those who were violating

11349-520: The roads. At an 1867 meeting in Nashville, Tennessee , Klan members gathered to try to create a hierarchical organization with local chapters eventually reporting to a national headquarters. Since most of the Klan's members were veterans, they were used to such military hierarchy, but the Klan never operated under this centralized structure. Local chapters and bands were highly independent. Former Confederate brigadier general George Gordon developed

11466-537: The same as if this act had not been passed, except so far as the provisions of this act may go to sustain and validate such proceedings". Although some provisions were ruled unconstitutional in 1883, the 1870 Force Act and the 1871 Civil Rights Act have been invoked in later civil rights conflicts, including the 1964 murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner ; the 1965 murder of Viola Liuzzo ; and in Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic , 506 U.S. 263 (1993), in which

11583-659: The scapegoat and the heretic." It preached "One Hundred Percent Americanism" and demanded the purification of politics, calling for strict morality and better enforcement of Prohibition . Its official rhetoric focused on the threat of the Catholic Church , using anti-Catholicism and nativism . Its appeal was directed exclusively toward white Protestants; it opposed Jews, Black people, Catholics, and newly arriving Southern and Eastern European immigrants such as Italians , Russians , and Lithuanians , many of whom were Jewish or Catholic. Some local groups threatened violence against rum runners and those they deemed "notorious sinners";

11700-475: The several states of this union"), permitted federal oversight of local and state elections if any two citizens in a town with more than twenty-thousand inhabitants desired it. The Enforcement Act of 1871 (second act) and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 are very similar to the original act as they all have the same goal, but revised the first act with the intention of being more effective. The Act of 1871 has more severe punishments with larger fines for disregarding

11817-407: The south and northern states; it was funded by initiation fees and selling its members a standard white costume. The chapters did not have dues. It used K-words which were similar to those used by the first Klan, while adding cross burnings and mass parades to intimidate others. It rapidly declined in the latter half of the 1920s. The third and current manifestation of the KKK emerged after 1950, in

11934-571: The southern United States, and a breakaway group led by Grand Dragon D. C. Stephenson based in Evansville, Indiana with its membership primarily in the midwestern United States. Internal divisions, criminal behavior by leaders – especially Stephenson's conviction for the abduction, rape, and murder of Madge Oberholtzer – and external opposition brought about a collapse in the membership of both groups. The main group's membership had dropped to about 30,000 by 1930. It finally faded away in

12051-471: The state. A riot and massacre occurred in a Meridian, Mississippi , courthouse, from which a Black state representative escaped by fleeing to the woods. The 1871 Civil Rights Act allowed the president to suspend habeas corpus . In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant signed Butler's legislation. The Ku Klux Klan Act and the Enforcement Act of 1870 were used by the federal government to enforce

12168-688: The statute stands as one of the most powerful authorities with which state and federal courts may protect those whose rights are deprived. Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 1983) provides a way individuals can sue to redress when their federally protected rights are violated, like the First Amendment rights and the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment . Section 1979 can be used to redress violated rights based on

12285-399: The streets to protect their homes. National sentiment gathered to crack down on the Klan, even though some Democrats at the national level questioned whether the Klan really existed, or believed that it was a creation of nervous Southern Republican governors. Many southern states began to pass anti-Klan legislation. In January 1871, Pennsylvania Republican senator John Scott convened

12402-485: The three plaintiffs and awarded $ 10,000 in compensatory damages to the bus driver. The Austin American Statesman noted that "[t]he verdict marks the first time in the modern era that a jury has found a defendant liable under the support-or-advocacy clauses of the 1871 Klan Act...." Section 1 of the Act, which has since been amended and codified as section 1979 of the Revised Statutes ( 42 U.S.C. § 1983) and

12519-408: The use of terror, force or bribery to prevent people from voting because of their race. Other laws banned the KKK entirely. Hundreds of KKK members were arrested and tried as common criminals and terrorists. The first Klan was all but eradicated within a year of federal prosecution. The Second Enforcement Act of 1871 (formally, "an Act to enforce the rights of citizens of the United States to vote in

12636-507: The violent episodes generally took place in the South. The Red Knights were a militant group organized in opposition to the Klan and responded violently to Klan provocations on several occasions. The second Klan was a formal fraternal organization , with a national and state structure. During the resurgence of the second Klan in the 1920s, its publicity was handled by the Southern Publicity Association . Within

12753-507: The wake of the Civil War , was a defining organization of the Reconstruction era . Federal law enforcement began taking action against it around 1871. The Klan sought to overthrow Republican state governments in the South, especially by using voter intimidation and targeted violence against African-American leaders. The Klan was organized into numerous independent chapters across the Southern United States. Each chapter

12870-455: Was a gradual transformation. ... The members had conjured up a veritable Frankenstein. They had played with an engine of power and mystery, though organized on entirely innocent lines, and found themselves overcome by a belief that something must lie behind it all—that there was, after all, a serious purpose, a work for the Klan to do." The KKK had no organizational structure above the chapter level. However, there were similar groups across

12987-594: Was autonomous and highly secretive about membership and plans. Members made their own, often colorful, costumes: robes, masks and pointed hats , designed to be terrifying and to hide their identities. The second Klan started in 1915 as a small group in Georgia . It suddenly started to grow after 1920 and flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, including urban areas of the Midwest and West . Taking inspiration from D. W. Griffith 's 1915 silent film The Birth of

13104-495: Was founded atop Stone Mountain , Georgia, by William Joseph Simmons . While Simmons relied on documents from the original Klan and memories of some surviving elders, the revived Klan was based significantly on the wildly popular film The Birth of a Nation . The earlier Klan had not worn the white costumes and had not burned crosses; these aspects were introduced in Thomas Dixon 's book The Clansman: A Historical Romance of

13221-581: Was invoked in the 2010 Robbins v. Lower Merion School District case, where plaintiffs charged two suburban Philadelphia high schools secretly spied on students by surreptitiously and remotely activating webcams embedded in school-issued laptops the students were using at home, violating their right to privacy. The schools admitted to snapping over 66,000 webshots and screenshots secretly, including webcam shots of students in their bedrooms. The 2019 Supreme Court case Nieves v. Bartlett ruled that in general when probable cause for an arrest exists it overrides

13338-477: Was largely involved with the prosecutions of the Klansmen. He worked to make America aware of Klan violence and how much of a problem it was becoming. His work led to trials and to jail sentences of a few hundred Klan members. Many others who were put on trial either fled or were only given a warning. By 1872, the Klan as an organization had been officially broken. The Enforcement Acts were a series of acts, but it

13455-412: Was meant to fight the KKK and help black people and freedmen, many states were reluctant to take such relatively extreme actions, for several reasons. Some politicians at the state and federal levels were either members of the Klan, or did not have enough strength to fight the Klan. Another goal of these acts was to achieve national unity, by creating a country where all races were considered equal under

13572-498: Was not until the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, the third Enforcement Act, that their regulations to protect black Americans, and to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution were really enforced and followed. It was only after the creation of the third Enforcement Act that trials were conducted, and perpetrators were convicted for any crimes they had committed in violation of

13689-482: Was prominent in many cities. Writer W. J. Cash , in his 1941 book The Mind of the South characterized the second Klan as "anti-Negro, anti-Alien, anti-Red, anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-Darwin, anti-Modern, anti-Liberal, Fundamentalist, vastly Moral, [and] militantly Protestant. And summing up these fears, it brought them into focus with the tradition of the past, and above all with the ancient Southern pattern of high romantic histrionics, violence and mass coercion of

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