Between 1865 and 1872, the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan conducted a reign of terror across the former Confederate States, harassing, intimidating, and murdering freedpeople and their white allies. As violence spread with impunity across the South, Congress, at President Ulysses S. Grant’s urging, passed three Enforcement Acts, which radically expanded the federal government's ability to protect individuals from violence when their state governments could or would not.
Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey sat down with Fergus Bordewich, author of “Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction,” to discuss how the Grant administration fought the first domestic terrorist organization the federal government had ever faced. They also talked about the political terrorism conducted by the Klan in that era and what we can learn from that violent period of American history.
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