There were too many acts of violence that occurred in the South during
Reconstruction, 1865 -1877, to accurately describe…these
are just a
few…read through this and notice…the pattern…Violence against White Republicans, from
the South (called Scalawags), against those who moved South from the North (called
Carpetbaggers) and on the newly freed Blacks. This terrorist activity was committed by
Para-military groups known as the KKK, White League, Red-Shirts, Order of White
Camellia…etc.… these groups were organized, funded, and paid for by the White Planter
Aristocracy (Redeemers) who controlled the conservative Democratic Party…who also
controlled the Media (newspapers)…they always denied this link…and denied that these
events even occurred in some cases…always speaking publicly of their desire for peace…but
behind the scenes orchestrating these horrible events…In the 1960’s…this buffoonery could
no longer be hidden by words or control of the Southern Media…as TV showed the world
what the White Supremacists in the South were capable of---when u envision the 1960s --the acts of violence that occurred during Reconstruction were 100X worse—if you can even
imagine—This fight to keep their “Herrenvolk” (master race) democracy is successful leading
to the period known as “Jim Crow”—An accepted “Separate but Equal” society with clear
rules and consequences---“Lynching” becomes the usual punishment for breaking these
unwritten rules for conduct in the South---and lasts long into the 1960s.
Memphis Riots (Tenn), 1866During the Civil War, the black population in Memphis had quadrupled, and racial
tensions were high. The riot was sparked on May 1, 1866, when the hacks of a black
man and a white man collided. As a group of black veterans tried to intervene to stop
the arrest of the black man, a crowd of whites gathered at the scene. Fighting broke
out, then escalated into three days of racially-motivated violence, primarily pitting the
police (mainly Irish-Americans) against black residents.
In the end, 46 blacks and two whites were killed, five black women were raped, and
hundreds of black homes, schools, and churches were broken into or destroyed by
arson. Along with the New Orleans riot three months later, the Memphis riot helped
undermine the viability and support of President Andrew Johnson’s lenient
Reconstruction program.
New Orleans Riot, 1866While the Memphis riot was a manifestation of the general hostility that many
Southern whites felt toward blacks during the Reconstruction era, the New Orleans
riot was related specifically to Reconstruction politics. The reelection of the former
Confederate mayor in New Orleans, and other signs of the increasing influence of
erstwhile Confederates, led Louisiana Governor James Madison Wells to call a state
constitutional convention. He endorsed enfranchising black men, banning former
Confederates from voting, and other Radical Republican goals.
On July 30, 1866, 25 delegates and 200 black supporters assembled in New Orleans
for the constitutional convention. A fight began on the street outside the hall between
opponents and supporters of the convention. The arrival of the police, sympathetic to
the Confederate cause, only exacerbated the melee. General Philip Sheridan, in
charge of the Louisiana military district, was out of the state when the riot occurred.
He later described it as "an absolute massacre." During the New Orleans riot, 34
blacks and three white Radicals were killed, and over 100 persons were injured. The
New Orleans riot went even further than the Memphis riot in provoking scornful
opposition to President Andrew Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction policies.
Kirk-Holden War, 1870 & later Elections in (NC) - John W. Stephens, a Republican State
Senator, was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in the Caswell County Courthouse on May 21, 1870.
Shortly before that, Wyatt Outlaw, the African American town commissioner of Graham, was lynched
in Alamance County by the Klan. On July 8, 1870, Governor Holden declared the counties to be in a
state of insurrection. George Kirk was brought in to stop the Klan. Holden suspended the writ of
habeas corpus and imposed martial law in Caswell and Alamance counties to help Kirk in his efforts.
The Klan was preventing recently freed slaves from exercising their right to vote by intimidating them.
Governor William W. Holden hired Colonel George Washington Kirk, a former Union guerrilla leader,
suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and imposed martial law in Caswell and Alamance counties to
stop the Klan. Governor Holden was impeached, tried, and removed from office in a
party-line vote not long after the Democrats [Redeemers] took control of the North
Carolina Legislature in the August 1870 election.
The Red Shirts were one of several paramilitary organizations arising in the continuing efforts of white
Democrats to regain political power in the South in the 1870s. These groups acted as "the military
arm of the Democratic Party. They had one goal: the restoration of the Democrats to power by getting
rid of Republicans, which usually meant repressing civil rights and voting by the freedmen . During the
1876, 1898 and 1900 campaigns in North Carolina, local white Democrats wanted power and took it
in the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, the largest recognized coup d'état in United States history, six
days after the election. After overthrowing the government, the mob attacked black areas of the city
and killed numerous blacks, burning down houses, schools and churches. So many blacks left
Wilmington permanently that the demographics changed, resulting in a white-majority city.White
Democrats controlling the state legislature passed laws and a new constitution in 1899
that disfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites by requirements for poll
taxes and literacy tests. From 1896 to 1904, black voter turnout in North Carolina was reduced to
zero by a combination of provisions such as poll taxes, residency requirements, literacy
tests, grandfather clause and more complicated rules for voting. This followed a pattern of similar
state actions across the South, starting with the state of Mississippi's new constitution in 1890.
Colfax Massacre (Louisiana), 1873-The 1872 state election results in Louisiana were
disputed between the regular Republicans and a coalition of Liberal Republicans and
Democrats, with each side inaugurating their own governor and legislature. A federal district
judge ruled that the regular Republicans were the victors, so newly-reelected President
Ulysses S. Grant sent federal troops to ensure compliance with the judicial decree.
Many whites in Louisiana refused to accept that decision. They established a shadow
government and used paramilitary units known as the White League to intimidate and attack
blacks and white Republicans.
The worst incident of violence was the Colfax Massacre of April 13, 1873. The fighting left two
white men and 70 black men dead, with half of the latter killed after they surrendered. Federal
officials arrested and indicted over 100 white men. They were later freed, however, when the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the basis for their prosecution (part of the 1870- FORCE ACT
enforcement act) was unconstitutional.
Battle of Liberty Place, 1874 (New Orleans, La.)-. The "Battle of Liberty Place" was the
name given to the insurrection by its white Democratic supporters, as part of their story of the struggle
to overturn Republicans and the Reconstruction government in Louisiana. They viewed the
government as corrupt and illegal. The paramilitary White League entered the city with 5,000 forces
to seat McEnery; they fought against 3500 police and state militia for control. The White League
defeated the state militia, inflicting about 100 casualties. The insurgents occupied the state house and
armory for three days, and turned out Governor Kellogg. When former Confederate general James
Longstreet tried to stop the fighting, he was pulled from his horse, shot by a spent bullet, and taken
prisoner by the White League. Kellogg wired for federal troops and, within three days, President
Ulysses S. Grant sent Federal troops there. The White League insurgents retreated from New
Orleans before the federal troops arrived, and no one was prosecuted.
******Current inscription on Monument in New Orleans, erected in 1932, AND STILL THERE
TODAY:
“The white people, were duly installed by this overthrow of carpetbag government,
ousting the usurpers, Governor Kellogg (white) and Lieutenant-Governor Antoine
(colored). United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the
usurpers but the national election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in
the South and gave us our state."
HARPERS EDITORIAL on “the battle of Liberty Place.” -White Leaguers who were only a few
days ago urging that every one who opposed their rule in New Orleans should be "shot down like a dog," are
now complaining of "misrepresentation" and of the harsh construction put upon their actions by the more
observant part of the Northern press. We think their actions are not unworthy of their words, and that they are
not unknown to the history of the times. Never did so small a community as Louisiana in so few years exhibit
such a succession of horrors. In 1868 we have the raids on the Negro voters detailed in the Ku-Klux reports,
when the White Camellias dominated in the streets of New Orleans. In 1869-1871 fear kept them in tolerable
quiet. In 1872 they re-appear. In 1873 they burned or shot down sixty or seventy Negroes at Grant Parish, and
attempted an insurrection in New Orleans. In 1874 they have murdered the United States officials at Coushatta
and a large number of Negroes; they have risen in rebellion in New Orleans and shot thirty or forty Unionists in
a deadly contest. They are still importing large quantities of arms, and are evidently preparing for further
massacres whenever the eye of the law is withdrawn. That such men should complain that they are
"misrepresented" is an excess of effrontery; that they should find any portion of the Northern Democracy
willing to believe any thing they choose to affirm against the Republican government is not a little remarkable.
It is ridiculous.
Hamburg Massacre (SC), 1876- was a key event in South Carolina during July 1876, leading
up to the last election season of the Reconstruction era. It was the first of a series of civil
disturbances, many of which Democrats planned in the majority-black/Republican Edgefield District,
to disrupt Republican meetings and suppress black voting through actual and threatened violence.
Beginning with a dispute nominally over free passage on a public road, this incident was based on
racial and political grounds. A court hearing attracted armed white militia numbering more than one
hundred, including members of Red Shirts paramilitary groups. They attacked about 30 black militia
of the National Guard at the armory, killing two as they tried to leave that night. Later that night the
Red Shirts murdered four freedmen of the militia while holding them as prisoners, and wounded
several others. In total, the events in Hamburg resulted in the death of one white man and six
freedmen; several more blacks were wounded by the white mob. The accused in the Hamburg
Massacre wore red shirts as they marched on September 5 to their arraignment in Aiken, South
Carolina.
Although 94 white men were indicted for murder by a coroner's jury, none was prosecuted.
The events catalyzed parties to the volatile 1876 election campaign. There were other episodes of
white violence in the months before the election, including an estimated 100 blacks killed during
several days in Ellenton, South Carolina, also in Aiken County. The Democrats succeeded in
"redeeming" the state government and electing Wade Hampton III as governor. During the remainder
of the century, they passed laws to establish single-party white supremacist rule, impose legal
segregation and "Jim Crow," and disfranchise blacks in 1895. This exclusion of blacks from the
political system was effectively maintained into the 1960s.