AP US History in 1 Minute Daily: White Supremacy & the Ku Klux Klan (Day 154/309)

Hey APUSHers, let’s chat about White Supremacy & the Ku Klux Klan as part of my series- APUSH in 1 Minute Daily!

Control of U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, Wikimedia Commons

In the years after the Civil War, Republicans controlled both the federal and southern state governments to the dismay of white Democrats. 

“Of Course He Wants to Vote the Democratic Ticket,” Wikimedia Commons

As Republicans enacted several pieces of legislation to dismantle the racial hierarchy and provide civil rights to African Americans, Southern whites organized secret societies to oppose these changes.

KKK Costumes in North Carolina, 1871, Wikimedia Commons

The most notable of these organizations was the Ku Klux Klan, established in 1867. The goal of this “invisible empire” was to restore Democratic control of the South and reinforce white supremacy.

“Worse than Slavery,” Wikimedia Commons

Terrorist groups like the KKK used fear, violence, intimidation, and murder to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote, control the behavior of Blacks, and reestablish a society based on the belief in white superiority.

During Reconstruction, several secret societies emerged, most notably, the Ku Klux Klan, to defeat the Republican Party and reinforce white supremacy.

Join me tomorrow as I explain Reconstruction Supreme Court Cases in the next APUSH in 1 Minute Daily!