Like Joe, I was also shocked to find out how racist the KKK was in its early days. I was always led to believe, even by some primary school teachers, that Nathan Bedford Forrest, along with others, founded the Klan with decent intentions. I also was taught that the Klan transformed into a hate group in the 20th Century, and lost focus of its original intentions. However, after reading Nelson’s book, it certainly seemed that hatred was one of the driving forces of their actions during Reconstruction. I think Kim proved in her assessment that more was driving these men than just politics. It almost seems like these ex-Confederate are in some way trying to vindicate themselves after losing the war by terrorizing freedmen. Particularly disturbing was the “ceremonial slitting of the throat after the shooting.” (126). These people are already dead, and Klansmen are mutilating their corpses. If hate is not involved there, I don’t know what hate is.

In response to Joe’s question of why the Democratic Party was allowed to exist, I think it is fair to give some blame to the North. In Nelson’s book, he more than adequately showed the power these Northern Railroad corporations had over politics (controlling everything from politicians to newspapers), and people like Tom Scott were going to pull any strings necessary to complete his grand railroad ideas. Scott supported the Redeemers, and tried to correlate his Southern Railroad with southern conservatives when it suited his financial aspirations. The almighty dollar was the driving force during Reconstruction, and influential Northerners like Scott were willing to sacrifice former slaves to reach their fiscal goals (i.e. allying with Benjamin Hill). If that meant letting Democratic leaders dress up in sheets and lynch people, so be it as long as it didn’t effect the railroads. This is just another example of why it is hard for me to believe the North was fighting a war to bring civil rights to African Americans. It seems like more steps would have been taken to ensure not only freedmen’s civil rights, but their very lives… especially when 100,000+ blacks fought and died beside Northern whites.

As everyone has mentioned, the KKK was strongly linked to the Democratic party. I found it interesting that many members came from upper-class respectable families. It seems like an organization that a bunch of blood thirsty backcountry people would be affiliated with. Doctors, merchants, and even ministers belonged to the underground group. The article even says, "every unmarried young man of respectability in the town" was in the KKK. This leads me to believe there was a certain amount of pressure for whites to join the group in order to maintain status in their community. It sounds like a case of you are either with them, or against them. In order to not be terrorized, men joined out of fear. This is precisely how the KKK worked, by using scare tactics. I had always thought the KKK was a group of drunk racist guys who burned crosses, yelled obscenitites, and committed sporadic murders, but it turns out they were racist guys trying to control politics with violence.

It amazes me that the Klan and the Democratic party were so closely related. The Klan used intimidation to make sure blacks and other republican supporters would not show up on election day. However their intimidation tactics only lasted so long until the federal government stepped in and passed laws against the klan that would suspend habeus corpus. I always believed that the Klan was originally a racist group started because of the lose of the civil war and the laws passed making blacks their civil equal. I never knew that it had so much political background.

I agree with Scott's response, but I think that Shapiro's whole point is that Simkins' "myth" is not really a myth at all but what is perceived as a horrible and widespread cruelty was really as horrible and widespread as it has been made out. I think however we are ignoring the social implications of Klan violence and black social groups which I have found somewhat interesting to look at in parts of Nelson. I think obviously it is not just "us" here but Shapiro, et al. I also want to echo was Scott is saying about the Democratic Party. It seems from the Shapiro piece that the leadership of the Klan and the Democratic Party were virtually inseperable. Why then was the Democratic Party allowed to persist? I was also interested in find out, which was not my childhood understanding, that the Klan was an overtly racist and political group from its very earliest days. I think I had always been told that this did not come about until the resurgence in the 1920's.

"The Ku Klux Klan came into existence in the Carolinas to fight the northern railroad because they saw it as a threat to a southern way of life built around black subordination." Now Simkins claimed that the Klan was political in its purpose because it was aimed at "the Negro as a citizen- one attempting to be a voter and at times the social equal of other men". In Nelson's book, other historians agree that it was a political aim but because the Klan attacked white Republicans and freedmen. Nelson proved that just with Benjamin Hill's opening speech alone politics was not the Klan's only motivation. The violence, abuse, torture that they inflicted on men and women is just hard to imagine, that someone could be so cold as to go to such lengths to stop people from voting or to stop people from being on a equal footing as themselves. And it wasn't just a few select people, because the Klan would not have survive without the support of the community. By taking the law into their own hands, murdering many innoncent victims the Klan raised the morale of the southern conservatives, that just amazes me.

In response to Derick's post, I think that Shapiro is saying that the Klan was important in the overall political power struggle in the Reconstruction-era Upstate. He is seeking to discount Simpkins' underanalyzation and understatement of it, not supporting him. To downplay the KKK's murderous and unpalatable actions is a disgrace to the men who died as a result of violence that purposefully sought to undermine democracy.

The activities of the Klan, overall, have re-emerged in recent times. Some political group, founded on the issue of superiority of some basis? That appears to me to be precisely like the rise to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan, with the purposeful subjugation of women and any other entity that got in their way. As for Simpkins, I find is despicable that anyone can write on the eve of World War II, when Jews were already being purposefully subjugated in Nazi Germany, of the "romantic" views of any group whose primary purpose is to terrorize innocent men, women, and children. The Democratic Party should be ashamed of its antics in the situation, as well. If one studies the foundations of the Democratic party, since southerners as a whole are generally (and I intentionally use a stereotype here) regressive and historically-minded, how can the "Negro" existence of subsistence farming in general be attacked so violently? Incredible irony surrounds the mere name of the "Democratic Party," given their abhorrable actions and support of the KKK.

Unfortunately, the KKK's ideals actually did come to fruition. The mere existence of the Klan was sufficient enough to defeat Radicalism and reinstate the southern conservatives who had fallen out of favor and political prominence with the end of the Civil War. The KKK is directly responsible in every major way for the suppression and subjugation of the African-American in ways that are readily cognizant even today.

Shapiro opens his document with an objective to separate the actuality of the Ku Klux Klan from the myth. He cites Simkins' view that the Klan was really an unimportant political movement of poor whites. Shapiro then proceeds to prevent the evidence of Klan activity as one of political aims. Is it me, or does he blatantly confirm the "myths" of the Ku Klux Klan? Is this satire, was I asleep, or did he really do exactly what he intended not too? As I began reading, I expected an argument for justification or at least downplay of the Klan's activities. What I got was confirmation of what I had already perceived the Klan to be. Sure, it may have started out with political goals, but it is clear that the Klan boiled down to an organization feuled by hate, racism, prejudism, etc. It was led by the leaders of society with popular support; It was not a minority of poor whites. The only thing stopping its absolute success was the Federal government's legislation. The Klan broke up but awaited a day when they could take advantage of a passive government.