Democratic Party and the Ku Klux Klan

Congresswoman Carol-Shea Porter once again showed her perpetual ignorance of American History and obvious contempt for the Trump Administration by commenting on Charlottesville, VA saying, “His comments on Tuesday, expressing a moral equivalence between neo-Nazis and those that oppose them, were a disgrace to our nation. If Mr. Trump and certain staffers in the White House think they can tear down everything America stands for, they are wrong. We will not let them extinguish America’s beacon of hope and tolerance.”

Well Congresswoman, here’s the “Real Inconvenient Truth” about White Supremacy, KKK and their relationship to the Democratic Party.

Founded in 1866, In Pulaski, Tennessee, a group of Confederate veterans convenes to form a secret society that they christen the “Ku Klux Klan.” The KKK rapidly grew from a secret social fraternity to a paramilitary force bent on reversing the federal government’s progressive Reconstruction Era-activities in the South, especially policies that elevated the rights of the local African American population. The Ku Klux Klan extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and black Republican leaders. Though Congress passed legislation designed to curb Klan terrorism, the organization saw its primary goal–the reestablishment of white supremacy–fulfilled through Democratic victories in state legislatures across the South in the 1870s.

Most prominent in counties where the races were relatively balanced, the KKK engaged in terrorist raids against African Americans and white Republicans at night, employing intimidation, destruction of property, assault, and murder to achieve its aims and influence upcoming elections. In a few Southern states, Republicans organized militia units to break up the Klan. In 1871, the Ku Klux Act passed Congress, authorizing President Ulysses S. Grant to use military force to suppress the KKK. The Ku Klux Act resulted in nine South Carolina counties being placed under martial law and thousands of arrests. In 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Ku Klux Act unconstitutional, but by that time Reconstruction had ended and the KKK had faded away.

Source: http://www.history.com/this-da...