White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction

Rating:
Summary: AmeriKKKan Terror
Review: Trelease goes into great detail about the history of the KKK in the immediate post-Civil War period. The organization of the book is difficult (my reason for the 4 stars, it is mindnumbing in many parts, even for a research piece), since he goes state by state, year by year, and his facts are voluminous. But this is a well-researched book.

Trelease shows how returning Confederates, having lost the battlefield war, almost immediately began a war of terror. The KKK became the terror arm of the Democratic Party, and was the primary force in restoring 'white supremacy' throughout the south. He details the origins of the Klan (and its local variants) and its rapid descent into a force for hate and terror, and its widespread acceptance throughout the south.

The Klan's war against the Republican occupation was inextricably tied to the race question, and 'white supremacy' (and the concommitant fear of black equality) was the 'bloody shirt' the Klan waved to become the major force in southern politics in the post-war period.

The Klan was so successful that it can be argued the south 'won' the war - ending Reconstruction and federal occupation - restoring and insuring white domination for another 100 years - reducing the black freedmen to second-class citizenship politically, economically, and socially - reinventing slavery as apartheid and "Jim Crow".

One of the principal activities of the early Klan was forcibly disarming Negros, always by using overwhelming mob force, many times in the middle of the night. Intimidating black voters into voting Democrat or not voting was another main activity - this was done by whippings, beatings, and lynchings.

One hears much about the valor of the rebel soldier and the nobility of the "Lost Cause". Trelease's book - with its unrelenting accounts of "White Terror" committed by mobs almost always unwilling to attack their victims unless they could use overwhelming force - casts a huge shadow over these myths.

Trelease's book is a 'must-read' for anyone interested in Civil War history and/or the failures of Reconstruction. Reconstruction is a troublesome portion of American history that many have swept under the rug or modified to suit their politics, and Trelease is there with fact after fact after fact, tale after tale after tale of lynching and intimidation. The heart of "White Terror" is the black heart of racism.

Rating:
Summary: AmeriKKKan Terror
Review: Trelease goes into great detail about the history of the KKK in the immediate post-Civil War period. The organization of the book is difficult (my reason for the 4 stars, it is mindnumbing in many parts, even for a research piece), since he goes state by state, year by year, and his facts are voluminous. But this is a well-researched book.

Trelease shows how returning Confederates, having lost the battlefield war, almost immediately began a war of terror. The KKK became the terror arm of the Democratic Party, and was the primary force in restoring 'white supremacy' throughout the south. He details the origins of the Klan (and its local variants) and its rapid descent into a force for hate and terror, and its widespread acceptance throughout the south.

The Klan's war against the Republican occupation was inextricably tied to the race question, and 'white supremacy' (and the concommitant fear of black equality) was the 'bloody shirt' the Klan waved to become the major force in southern politics in the post-war period.

The Klan was so successful that it can be argued the south 'won' the war - ending Reconstruction and federal occupation - restoring and insuring white domination for another 100 years - reducing the black freedmen to second-class citizenship politically, economically, and socially - reinventing slavery as apartheid and "Jim Crow".

One of the principal activities of the early Klan was forcibly disarming Negros, always by using overwhelming mob force, many times in the middle of the night. Intimidating black voters into voting Democrat or not voting was another main activity - this was done by whippings, beatings, and lynchings.

One hears much about the valor of the rebel soldier and the nobility of the "Lost Cause". Trelease's book - with its unrelenting accounts of "White Terror" committed by mobs almost always unwilling to attack their victims unless they could use overwhelming force - casts a huge shadow over these myths.

Trelease's book is a 'must-read' for anyone interested in Civil War history and/or the failures of Reconstruction. Reconstruction is a troublesome portion of American history that many have swept under the rug or modified to suit their politics, and Trelease is there with fact after fact after fact, tale after tale after tale of lynching and intimidation. The heart of "White Terror" is the black heart of racism.

Rating:
Summary: An Important, Invaluable Failure
Review: Trelease makes a monumental effort to describe the Reconstruction-era Klan from his temporal location in 1970. This academic work is invaluable in that it is the best and only source of all major Klan activity from the end of the War for Southern Independence to the end of Radical Reconstruction--Trelease follows the Klan chronologically, focusing on hotbeds of activity in all regions of the South. This is important because different motivations and activities defined each local incidence of Klan activity. Sadly, Trelease fails to take advantage of his unique position, in which he could have written a scholarly, enlightening portrait of the many facets of Klan activities and Klan members. Instead, predictably, Trelease resorts to seeking out examples that support his own cries of conspiracy and terrorism. He gives no credence to stories of the defensive nature of the Reconstruction Klan, choosing to argue that the Klan was a terrorist organization seeking white supremacy, a conspiracy penetrating all aspects of white society to the point of subverting local justice. White violence, he asserts, was racially motivated, usually carried out by mobs, and almost always directed against blacks. He dismisses out of hand such motivating factors as illegal moonshining and Democratic-Republican political differences among whites and gives short shrift to cases of white-on-white violence. He relies heavily on the KKK Congressional Report and testimony of 1871 and on legislative acts dealing with the Klan, often failing to place these "facts" within the true social context of their origins. While admitting that the existence of the Union League served as a stimulus to the birth and growth of the Klan, he maintains that the Union League had no connections to violence, a tenuous (indeed laughable) position to take. While stressing white supremacy as the one major motivation of the Klan, he subverts this message by continually denigrating the Klan for its overriding political aspects. When he acknowledges the fact that some Klan leaders sought law and order, he continues to accuse even these men of politically-motivated violence. Trelease, while giving lip service to the existence of many independent "clans" and undisciplined individual acts, seeks to implicate the Klan in all cases of violence in the Reconstruction South. While this work is probably the most valuable resource available on Reconstruction-era Klan activity (due to the wealth of information it contains), it is also a major failure. Trelease had a golden opportunity to examine the real depths of the different motivations that went into Klan activity and violence (which, despite what Trelease implies, was not engaged in by every white man in the South), but he resorted to a myopic view of events and a decidedly shallow condemnation of a decidedly fluid, far from cohesive society, which he never really tried hard enough to understand.

Rating:
Summary: An Important, Invaluable Failure
Review: Trelease makes a monumental effort to describe the Reconstruction-era Klan from his temporal location in 1970. This academic work is invaluable in that it is the best and only source of all major Klan activity from the end of the War for Southern Independence to the end of Radical Reconstruction--Trelease follows the Klan chronologically, focusing on hotbeds of activity in all regions of the South. This is important because different motivations and activities defined each local incidence of Klan activity. Sadly, Trelease fails to take advantage of his unique position, in which he could have written a scholarly, enlightening portrait of the many facets of Klan activities and Klan members. Instead, predictably, Trelease resorts to seeking out examples that support his own cries of conspiracy and terrorism. He gives no credence to stories of the defensive nature of the Reconstruction Klan, choosing to argue that the Klan was a terrorist organization seeking white supremacy, a conspiracy penetrating all aspects of white society to the point of subverting local justice. White violence, he asserts, was racially motivated, usually carried out by mobs, and almost always directed against blacks. He dismisses out of hand such motivating factors as illegal moonshining and Democratic-Republican political differences among whites and gives short shrift to cases of white-on-white violence. He relies heavily on the KKK Congressional Report and testimony of 1871 and on legislative acts dealing with the Klan, often failing to place these "facts" within the true social context of their origins. While admitting that the existence of the Union League served as a stimulus to the birth and growth of the Klan, he maintains that the Union League had no connections to violence, a tenuous (indeed laughable) position to take. While stressing white supremacy as the one major motivation of the Klan, he subverts this message by continually denigrating the Klan for its overriding political aspects. When he acknowledges the fact that some Klan leaders sought law and order, he continues to accuse even these men of politically-motivated violence. Trelease, while giving lip service to the existence of many independent "clans" and undisciplined individual acts, seeks to implicate the Klan in all cases of violence in the Reconstruction South. While this work is probably the most valuable resource available on Reconstruction-era Klan activity (due to the wealth of information it contains), it is also a major failure. Trelease had a golden opportunity to examine the real depths of the different motivations that went into Klan activity and violence (which, despite what Trelease implies, was not engaged in by every white man in the South), but he resorted to a myopic view of events and a decidedly shallow condemnation of a decidedly fluid, far from cohesive society, which he never really tried hard enough to understand.