Content-Type: text/html Terror Masked in Silence TERROR MASKED IN SILENCE Black Press Coverage of the Reconstruction-Era Ku Klux Klan -Mike Conway 3115 Tom Green St. #306 Austin, TX 78705 (512)476-2031 [log in to unmask] TERROR MASKED IN SILENCE Black Press Coverage of the Reconstruction-Era Ku Klux Klan Contents INTRODUCTION 2 METHODOLOGY 4 REWRITING HISTORY 6 RACIAL CLIMATE AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR 8 KLAN BEGINNINGS 10 KLAN TURNS VIOLENT 12 LAWS AND PRESSURE FORCE KLAN UNDERGROUND 16 KLAN COVERAGE IN WHITE-OWNED NEWSPAPERS 17 DISAPPEARANCE OF KLAN 19 DISCUSSION 23 ENDNOTES 24 REPRINTS OF BLACK PRESS ARTICLES Appendix 1-34 INTRODUCTION No group in American history has sparked as much passion, debate and violence on the issue of race than the Ku Klux Klan. For close to 140 years, the KKK has been the strongest symbol of oppression of African-Americans in this country. Even though the Klan has deteriorated to small groups scattered across the country, it can still cause strong reaction when it dares to stage a public showing of its white supremacist views. In 1998, the city of Erie, Pennsylvania spent more money, organized more law enforcement personnel, and orchestrated more elaborate preparations than for any peacetime event in city history. The police presence was in response to a planned rally on the Erie County Courthouse steps of fewer than 20 Ku Klux Klan members. Erie City officials said the money, planning, and people were necessary to make sure the rally didn't turn violent.[1] But our image of the Klan today is filtered through more than a hundred years of facts, legends, and even complete rewrites of history. The original Ku Klux Klan lasted fewer than 20 years after the Civil War and didn't spread beyond the Southern States. But even though the 20th century versions of the Klan had more members and stretched nationwide, the original Klan probably committed more crimes than the groups of later years.[2] The original Ku Klux Klan formed around 1866 which is fewer than 40 years after the first Black-owned newspaper came off the presses in this country. From the beginning, the black press had mirrored the major concerns of its readers. Whether the issue was the abolition of slavery or emigration to a less hostile land, the courageous black publishers printed the needs, wants, and even demands of the African-Americans at a time when the people in power did not often share those views. The purpose of this study is to try and strip away the years of hindsight and rewrites and look at the original Klan through the eyes of the people most threatened. The idea is that the original coverage of the Ku Klux Klan in the black press would give a personal and emotional glimpse into the terror caused by that secret society. But as we shall see, the rise of the original Ku Klux Klan is one issue on which the black press was mostly silent. The Klan is usually not mentioned by name and is rarely even the focus of articles concerning murders, other violence, and threats against the African-Americans in the black press at that time. In fact, the Ku Klux Klan is mentioned more in the black press in the 1880s when the group had mostly disbanded. The most common way to refer to the secret society was to turn the name into a generic noun or verb. A Washington reporter in 1880 describes threats he received after writing an editorial; "I had been told that he was going to Ku Klux me, but I paid no attention to it." [3] Even without a plethora of direct references, the inferences and tone of the articles from the black press of that era gives a chilling glimpse into the terror-filled world created by the Ku Klux Klan of the 19th Century. METHODOLOGY My primary source for black-owned newspapers after the Civil War was the microfilm collection from the Library of Congress for The American Council of Learned Societies' Committee of Negro Studies (ACLS). In 1940, the ACLS started a program called the Committee on Negro Studies to study and research African Americans. One of the major projects of the Committee on Negro Studies was collecting and microfilming scattered copies of African American-owned newspapers from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[4] This collection includes black newspapers from Tennessee, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kansas, Texas, Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, Iowa, and the District of Columbia. The collection is important because it involved black-owned newspapers from both the Northern and the Southern parts of the country. The newspapers from the Committee on Negro Studies collection studied for Klan references included Colored American, Colored Tennessean, Loyal Georgian, Weekly Free Man's Press, The Free Press, The Georgetown Planet, Concordia Eagle, Kansas Herald, Herald of Kansas, The Weekly Echo, The State Journal, The Maryville Republican, The Bulletin, North Carolina Republican, Richmond Planet, Virginia Star, Republican Courier, American Citizen, The Black Republican, The Weekly Defiance, Pacific Appeal, The Echo, The Southern Republican, South Carolina Leader, The Freeman's Press, Freedman's Press, The Colored Visitor, National Leader, The Progress, Tennessee Star, The Negro World, The American Negro, The Conservator, Western Cyclone, Nicodemus Cyclone, Nicodemus Enterprise, Colored Patriot, Benevolent Banner, American Citizen, Vindicator, Elevator, Arkansas Freeman, Afro Independent, Weekly Review, The Free American, The Torchlight Appeal, and The Freeman's Journal. The time period for the study ranged from 1865 for the climate at the time of the Klan formation to the early 1890s. I also looked at individual black press collections such as the Indianapolis Freeman and the Ohio newspapers represented in the Ohio Historical Society's The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850 - 1920.[5] The paper follows the period in chronological order: from the end of the Civil War, the beginning of the Klan, Reconstruction, the violent period of the KKK, to the eventual disappearance of the original Klan. References to the Ku Klux Klan in black-owned newspapers appear throughout the chronological history. REWRITING HISTORY One reason why it is important to go back to the original black press coverage of the Ku Klux Klan is because of the image changes, makeovers, and even revisions of history undertaken by both Klan sympathizers and critics in the past hundred years. Plus, the 20th Century version of the KKK can also color our image of the original secret society. The original Ku Klux Klan faded away in the 1870s partly because of strong federal laws passed in response to the widespread acts of terrorism by the Klan and other groups after the Civil War. Plus, many people who had been silent and accepting of the Klan for years eventually turned against the group because of the amount and brutality of the terrorism. But at the start of the 20th Century, some Southern scholars decided the Ku Klux Klan should have a more positive place in history. So they began to turn the original Klan into the white man's savior against black insurrection after the Civil War.[6] An example of this type of historical revision is Susan Lawrence Davis' Authentic History: Ku Klux Klan 1865-1877, which was published in 1924. Davis' father was an original Klan member and she said it was her duty to set the record straight: The Ku Klux Klan, seeing no relief in sight, renewed their determination to save the South or die in the attempt. (The fulfillment of this determination for 'white supremacy' came between the years 1890 to 1902 when new election laws and new State constitutions excluded the negro from the polls and a white man's government was a reality, and the Ku Klux Klan had solidified the South politically for all time to come.[7] Texas attorney and politician Thomas Watt Gregory made many of the same points in a speech he gave to the Arkansas and Texas Bar Associations on July 10, 1906: _.it was the most thoroughly organized, extensive, and effective vigilance committee the world has ever seen, or is likely to see_. I am thoroughly convinced that, among conditions as they existed in the States referred to between 1866 and 1872, scarcely a man in this assembly would have been other than a Ku Klux or a Ku Klux sympathizer.[8] Gregory later became the U.S. Attorney General in the Wilson administration and was even asked by President Wilson to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, an offer that Gregory declined. One of the most popular authors of Klan revisionism was Thomas Dixon who played a big role in changing the group's image with such books as The Leopard's Spots and The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan. Dixon wrote that The Clansman "_develops the true story of the 'Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy,' which overturned the Reconstruction regime."[9] How the young South, led by the reincarnated souls of the Clansmen of Old Scotland, went forth under this cover and against overwhelming odds, daring exile, imprisonment, and a felon's death, and saved the life of a people, forms one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of the Aryan race.[10] Dixon's book became one of the first major motion pictures in United States history. Director D.W. Griffith turned Dixon's story into a 12-reel epic in 1915 and it was even premiered for President Wilson at the White House. Shortly after its release, the name of the movie was changed from The Clansman to Birth of a Nation. The book and movie helped spark the rebirth of the Klan itself, which exists in some form to this day. Since so many people have attempted to frame the Ku Klux Klan's role in the South after the Civil War, it's important to go back to the people who were most affected by the Klan. One of the strongest ways for African-Americans to express their views in the 1800s was through the black-owned newspaper. It would be expected that the black press would give the most vivid, descriptive view of "The Invisible Empire." RACIAL CLIMATE AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR The end of the Civil War should have been one of the most promising times for African-Americans, especially in the South. Abraham Lincoln had started the process of outlawing slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. In April of 1865, the North anti-slavery troops defeated the pro-slavery South when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. A few days later, Lincoln gave the first presidential speech that supported African-American suffrage, at least in a limited way.[11] But the thought that life would dramatically change for the better for Southern African-Americans didn't last long. Just four days after his suffrage speech, Lincoln was assassinated in Washington D.C. Within months, Southern states started to pass legislation to make sure blacks wouldn't be able to enjoy their newly-won freedom. The new laws became known as Black Codes because they were aimed at allowing as little change as possible from the former master-slave relationship. Black Codes covered everything from making it illegal for blacks to hunt or fish for food to paying a high yearly tax if they wanted to pursue a career other than farming or servitude.[12] Violence against African-Americans, of course, didn't start with the Ku Klux Klan. It was a part of slavery and became even more prevalent at the end of the war. African-Americans were most often beaten or killed when they tried to assert their freedom from their former masters.[13] In fewer than two years after the Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau reported an alarming number of blacks murdered by whites in the South: 33 in Tennessee, 29 in Arkansas, 24 in South Carolina, 19 in Kentucky, 70 in Louisiana. And those numbers are considered to be much lower than what actually happened.[14] In January of 1866, the Augusta, Georgia Colored American reprinted an article from Cincinnati's Colored Citizen, which looks at the climate among many whites in the South after the war. "There are others, who prove themselves our enemies, who kill, wound, and cowardly beat the colored people, who charge the race with all that is bad and give them credit for nothing good."[15] (Reproduction of article on Appendix 1) African-Americans weren't the only ones who were scared of violence in the South after the war. White men and women were also worried about the future. They had just lost the war and were waiting for their penance from the victorious Northern states. Plus, with the end of slavery, many were expecting a "negro insurrection and race war." Author Stanley Horn called it "_the chronic Southern Nightmare."[16] Even the whites who were supposedly enforcing the rights of the ex-slaves often didn't believe in full equality. William Brownlow had been named Tennessee's Governor after the war and he later was known as an enemy of the Klan. But in the months after the war, Brownlow told Congress how he really felt about African-Americans. His speech was printed in its entirety in Colored Tennessean on October 7, 1865. "A long and intimate acquaintance with affairs in the South has convinced me that the white and colored people cannot live together, politically or socially, as equals_." (Reproduction of article on Appendix 2 and 3) Even the method of terrorism later attributed to the Klan didn't originate with the group. This excerpt from the black-owned Loyal Georgian on January 27, 1866 describes a Klan-like incident. But the crime happens months before the Klan is formed. "We are informed that a most fiendish outrage was committed near Hamburg, South Carolina, one night last week, by five white men, disguised with masks. They went to the house of Chandler Garrot, a colored man, and each violated the person of his wife, a colored woman."[17] (Reproduction of this article on Appendix 4) This environment of escalated violence against African-Americans and fear amongst the Southern whites of a race war is what helped start what eventually became one of the most racist and violent organizations in American history. KLAN BEGINNINGS With the fear and anger the name would inspire in later years, the Ku Klux Klan had innocent beginnings. After the Civil War, six young confederate army veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee were looking for something to occupy their time. Sometime around May 1866, they decided to start their own private club and used secrecy as a way to give their group a mysterious and important reputation. There are a few different explanations for the term "Ku Klux" but the most accepted is that it was a version of the greek word "kuklos." One of the most popular of the early social fraternities was Kuklos Adelphon. "Klan" was merely added for the alliteration.[18] Much like social fraternities, the Ku Klux Klan held ritualistic initiation ceremonies for people who wanted to join. To keep the members anonymous, they started wearing masks and robes when appearing in public. But the organizers later emphasized that the Klan was originally formed purely for the amusement for the members and didn't have any ulterior motives.[19] According to Klan legend, the group noticed on its night rides that African-Americans were scared of the white sheets and mysterious men. Klan members considered the blacks superstitious and started to use the disguises to frighten the former slaves. KKK members impersonated the ghosts of confederate soldiers and played various practical jokes on their victims. One of the favorite Klan tricks that has been told and retold over the generations was to hide a funnel, tube and oilcloth bag under the sheets. Then the Klan member would ride up to a black person filling a water bucket and ask for a drink. He would proceed to "drink" several buckets of water and tell the victim that he hadn't had water since a long-ago confederate battle and that he gets thirsty in hell.[20] In reality, the victim of the prank was probably more scared of the real person under the sheet than any fear of the supernatural. As with all Klan rituals and later violent acts, there wasn't anything original about their behavior. Slave owners in the South had been dressing up as ghosts at night for generations to keep the slaves from travelling at night or leaving the plantation.[21] The Klan imitation of earlier rituals is another reason why the black press at the time didn't give the group as much attention as it later received. Blacks had already been subjected to the night riders well before the Klan so it wasn't a new phenomenon. Even when the Klan turned violent, it was just one of many secret societies bent on doing whatever was necessary to keep the African-Americans from enjoying their rights. KLAN TURNS VIOLENT Given the mood of the times, it's not surprising that the Klan quickly forgot about the amusement and became a much more serious group. After the Civil War, the Federal Government had to find ways to keep order in the Southern states. A black-owned newspaper in Georgia printed the full text of an order from the Provisional Governor to set up militias in each county: I, James Johnson, Provisional Governor of the State, do hereby authorize and request the people of this State to organize, according to law, in each of the counties of the State, a volunteer company, for the purpose of aiding the civil authorities in the execution of law and the suppression of violence. -Colored American, Augusta, GA, December 30, 1865[22] Reproduction of this article on Appendix 5 It's a common misconception that the Klan was formed in response to the Reconstruction Act, which was condemned by most Southern whites. But as we have seen, the Klan was already more than a year-and-a-half old when Congress passed the Reconstruction Act over President Johnson's veto in 1867.[23] Coupled with new measures that opened up voting to African-Americans and restricted voting to others, many Southern whites were starting to feel powerless in the new political climate. A phrase which white people of the time were using to describe the new social dynamic was "the bottom rail's on top."[24] Once African-Americans in the South had a voice in the elections, they enthusiastically got involved in politics. Union Leagues, also known as Loyal Leagues, became popular as political organizations for the blacks and the Republican Party. But many whites saw the Leagues as much more than political groups. They considered the popular groups as another step on the road to black domination of the South.[25] Klan apologists go so far as to say that the Union Leagues caused so much terrorism and violence that the Ku Klux Klan took on the role of stopping the violence against whites.[26] A black-owned newspaper in Austin, Texas, Weekly Free Man's Press, felt compelled to respond to the negative portrayal of the of the Loyal Leagues on August 15, 1868. "Much bad has been said about the League, but we challenge any one to point to a single act of violence in this State which has originated in this State from the Union League."[27] (Reproduction of article on Appendix 6 and 7) But this article also shows how the black press treated the Ku Klux Klan at the height of its power. By August of 1868, the Klan had spread throughout the South and was responsible for countless acts of violence. But even though the author of this article in the Weekly Free Man's Press on August 15, 1868 makes strong statements about the Union Leagues, at the same time the author won't even mention the Klan by name. "The country is full of secret societies of a bad and treasonable nature; this fact also makes it the more necessary for loyal men to have secret societies."[28] (Reproduction of this article on Appendix 6 and 7.) Since one of the main rules of the Ku Klux Klan was the secrecy of its members, it's hard to pin down exactly when the group forgot the pranks and night riding intimidation and turned into a feared terrorist group. After its beginning in the spring of 1866 in Tennessee, the idea quickly spread to northern Alabama, Georgia, and eventually to most of the Southern states. The black press might not have made special mention of the Klan because it turned violent at a time in the South when blacks were under attack by many groups. A particularly chilling group of stories appeared in the Loyal Georgian in October of 1866. A lengthy article described in great detail the brutal beating and rape of a black woman by former confederate soldiers. The article is followed by a sidebar story about several other incidents of violence against blacks in the area. We have reports that murders are very frequent; and it is said that seven freedmen were killed in the vicinity of Edgefield court-house the first week in this month_. If General Sickles, or General Scott have any power, or means, with which to rid Edgefield of the band of ruffians that is so relentlessly persecuting the blacks, and disgracing the State of South Carolina, we call upon them in the name of humanity to act without further delay. -Loyal Georgian, Augusta, GA, October 13, 1866[29] Reproduction of this article on Appendix 8 and 9. The group of stories in the Loyal Georgian appeared before the Klan even started its reign of terror. By most accounts, the Klan began to step up its intimidation and violence in 1868, starting in Tennessee but quickly spreading to other states. The KKK was not a closely controlled group. The various Klan "dens" around the South had very little contact with the original group in Tennessee. The Grand Wizard of the Klan was former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, although he never formally admitted his involvement in the group.[30] But Forrest couldn't control the actions of the various Klan dens and that prompted some of the original members to denounce the violence.[31] It also gave Klan sympathizers a later argument that "real" Ku Klux Klan members never used violence except in self-defense. But "real" members or not, the KKK was now using whatever means necessary to intimidate African-Americans and to counteract the effects of Reconstruction. One of the most common Klan methods was to visit the black family or white sympathizer in the middle of the night with a warning to leave the county at once. If the warning was ignored, the Klan would return and torture or kill the person. [32] Ironically, the first mention of the Ku Klux Klan found in the black press was a reprint from a white-owned paper. The Charleston, South Carolina Free Press ran a clipping from a Cincinnati newspaper. The Cincinnati Gazette, of March 30th, has a dispatch saying that the murderous Ku Klux Clan left documents at Mr. Patrick Hanney's house, near Waverly, Tenn., a few days ago, warning him to quit the country_.. The Vidette (Klu Klux Klan organ) has published an extra, warning Union men and negroes not to leave their homes until after the election. -The Free Press, Charleston, SC, April 11, 1868[33] Reproduction of this article on Appendix 10 It's important to note that The Free Press article was not written by the Charleston paper and concerned Klan activity far away from where the reporters and publisher lived. It's understandable why black-owned papers in the South were reluctant to publicly take on the Ku Klux Klan at the height of the group's violence. First of all, the newspapers themselves were fairly new with the end of slavery coming just a few years previous. But more importantly, the publishers and writers knew the very real danger of publicly denouncing the Klan. In many communities, Klan members or Klan sympathizers ran the government and the courts. Very few whites, let alone blacks, were willing to stand up to the terrorist group. Plus, even if the Southern black press would start a campaign against the Klan, it's doubtful it would have made much of a difference. At that point in history, Southern local and state governments seemed powerless to stop the Klan and other secret groups bent on violence against African-Americans and destruction of the Republican Party.[34] LAWS AND PRESSURE FORCE KLAN UNDERGROUND While the black press was largely silent on the Ku Klux Klan, others were detailing the atrocities and soon even the Federal Government couldn't ignore the widespread violence. The November elections of 1868 caused many people to realize the true nature of the Klan. In many southern states, especially Tennessee and Arkansas, the KKK went on mission of terror to keep Republicans, black and white, away from the voting booth. The group used intimidation, torture and murder to help the Democratic candidates. These tactics forced the Governor of Arkansas to call out the militia and the Governor of Tennessee to declare martial law in several counties.[35] In January 1869, Klan Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest sent a proclamation to all of the KKK dens telling the groups to destroy the masks and costumes because of the violence attributed to the group. This order helped to dissolve the KKK in both Tennessee and Arkansas, but didn't have much effect on Klan activity in other states.[36] This proclamation also gave Klan supporters an easy excuse in later government investigations when they would respond to alleged Ku Klux Klan violence by saying the organization no longer existed. Klan violence continued, eventually forcing Congress to pass a wide-ranging Anti-Klan law in April of 1871. This was followed by an intense congressional investigation into Klan activity and resulted in the prosecution of hundreds of Klan members.[37] In May of 1873, President U.S. Grant announced even tougher measures against Klan activity. In a rare mention of the Ku Klux Klan in a Southern black newspaper of this time, South Carolina's Georgetown Planet reprints Grant's proclamation and includes an editorial denouncing the secret societies. _.and hope the strong arm of the general government will be extended sufficiently to protect all from murder and repine, and effectually squench out all Ku Kluxism and the rebel Democracy, and learn them a lesson not to be forgotten in all time. -Georgetown Planet, SC, May 31, 1873[38] Reproduction of this article on Appendix 11 Notice how the writer uses the name as a generic term for terrorism and other violence. This is a method used often in the black press of the 19th century. EXAMPLES OF KLAN COVERAGE IN WHITE-OWNED NEWSPAPERS With such an absence of Ku Klux Klan references in the black press of this era, for comparison it's important to see how the white-owned newspapers covered the group. For obvious reasons, white-owned papers weren't as reticent about mentioning the Klan by name. The first ever reference in a newspaper happened in the birthplace of the Klan, Pulaski, Tennessee. The Pulaski Citizen printed this item on March 29, 1867: "TAKE NOTICE. - the Kuklux Klan will assemble at their usual place of rendezvous "The Den" on Tuesday night next, exactly at the hour of midnight, in costume and bearing the arms of the Klan. By order of the Grand Cyclops. G.T."[39] Next to the Klan notice, the editor wrote that he didn't know anything about the organization. In reality, the editor of the Pulaski Citizen was Frank McCord, one of the six original members of the Ku Klux Klan.[40] McCord's paper and many others in popular Klan areas printed meeting notices and positive stories about the KKK durin g the first years. Eventually, Tennessee made it illegal for newspapers to print Klan notices. Another example of newspaper coverage of the Klan is the following chilling piece of alliterative writing, which originated in the Richmond Dispatch but also ran in several other papers. "The Ku-Klux klan are kalled upon to kastigate or kill any kullered kusses who may approve the konstitution being koncocted by the kontemptible karpet-baggers at the kapital."[41] For a more systematic approach to Klan coverage in the white press, the New Orleans Picayune was studied during an important time period. The Picayune was started in 1839 and was the first of the penny press papers in the South and West. It's situated in a Southern state that had its share of white supremacist groups but also had the largest number of free African-Americans during the years of slavery.[42] The period chosen is a two-month stretch from March to early May 1871 when Congress debated and passed the Ku Klux Klan bill and an investigation began into Klan behavior in the Southern states. During that two-month period, the Picayune ran no fewer than 22 articles concerning the Ku Klux Klan. Almost all of the articles were political in nature and reported on the progress of the Klan bill in Congress. The Picayune attributed much of its Washington D.C. coverage to the New York Herald and the St. Louis Republican. A few examples of these stories are printed in their entirety on Appendix 12 through 21. Two of the articles were basically editorials against the Ku Klux bill. On March 29th, 1871 the Picayune argued that the North was exaggerating Klan violence in order to pass a law to penalize the South. The writer used a typical Klan argument that the secret groups usually had good intentions. "But while in some rare instances good men have been assassinated, the victims of these regulators are in most cases such as deserved capital sentence from a court of criminal judicature."[43] When the bill passed, the Picayune wrote the law was designed to keep anyone from challenging the Federal Government as the South did in the Civil War. "Rebellion thus isolated and individualized will be easily managed. It is the fable of the fagots in a new shape; the separated sticks of treason may be broken with ease, and the force bill forbids their being joined."[44] (Reproductions of these articles on Appendix 18-21.) In this two-month period, one of the leading newspapers of the South paid close attention to the political side of the Ku Klux Klan legislation but didn't shed any light onto the pain and suffering of the African-Americans because of this group. DISAPPEARANCE OF KLAN By the late 1870s, the Klan had lost almost all of its power and members. Klan supporters say the group disbanded on purpose because it had successfully saved the South for the white man.[45] But realistically, the federal government's strict laws, investigations, and enforcement stripped the Klan's power and turned many supporters against the group.[46] Ironically, as the original Ku Klux Klan was fading from the scene, the black press started to use the group's name more frequently. In 1877, the black paper of Concordia Parish, Louisiana reprinted a New York Times interview with new president Rutherford B. Hayes. Although this article is originally from a white-owned paper, it's important because of the way the President describes the Klan: _that the men who were in White League and Ku-Klux organizations were the lawless and ignorant, not the respectable and intelligent; that out of the better class a valuable addition to the Republican party can probably be had_. -Concordia Eagle, Concordia Parish, LA April 7, 1877 Reproduction of this article on Appendix 22 and 23. Editor William Eagleson made his mark with a few black newspapers in Kansas after the Civil War. While his Kansas Herald only survived for six months, it did a good job of putting the African-American issues around the country in perspective.[47] Eagleson's paper took on the state of Mississippi, which was trying to stop the mass exodus of blacks to Kansas: Of course this unconstitutional measure will cause considerable excitement among the colored people of that Ku-Klux stronghold, and in their efforts to escape from that State several, yes, hundreds, will be murdered, and for no other cause than they dare act as other oppressed people would and do act under similar circumstances. -Kansas Herald, Topeka, KS January 30, 1880[48] Reproduction of this article on Appendix 24 and 25. Shortly before its last edition, the renamed Herald of Kansas ran an interesting account of intimidation on June 11, 1880.. The story is about threats against Washington Exodus reporter F. Benjamin by a white newspaper editor. The article is taken from the Nashville Educator. "_. I saw Mr. Hansell all that day, but he said nothing to me. I had been told however that he was going to Ku Klux me, but I paid no attention to it." [49] (Reproduction of this article on Appendix 26 and 27.) The article above is important because it is supposedly the actual words of the Washington reporter. It shows that the Klan had not only become a generic term for terrorists, but it was also in use as a verb to describe threats and possible violence against a person. The most blatant discussion of the Ku Klux Klan in a black newspaper comes from Thomas Harden's Weekly Echo in Savannah, Georgia in 1883. In two cryptic short editorials, the Klan is mentioned in a derisive tone. But the comments make it clear the Klan was certainly still alive in Savannah: It is with pleasure that we inform certain kuklux bosses in the interior, that their threatening letters were consigned to THE ECHO waste basket. THE Georgia kuklux and their leaders must have heard something 'drop.' We notice since the last issue of THE ECHO they are hunting their 'holes.' 'Tis well. -Weekly Echo, Savannah, GA, August 26, 1883[50] Reproduction of this article on Appendix 28 On the same page of the Weekly Echo, an anonymous "subscriber" writes to the paper about the suspicious death of a black man from Rome, Georgia. "It is asserted that his death was caused by a Vigilance Committee or KuKlux, who are scouring the woods in and around the city." [51](Reproduction of this article on Appendix 28.) Throughout the 1880s, the black press used variations of the group's name in articles. But usually, as in this article from the State Journal of Harrisburg, PA on January 5, 1884, the Ku Klux Klan was relegated to a generic noun or verb or as a group from the past. "_it is simply another one of the many dastardly outrages to be chronicled in blood and symbolized in tears, deeds perpetrated by the remnants of red shirt victims, shot gun clubs and klu klux clans."[52] (Reproduction of this article on Appendix 29.) Another example came out of Cleveland, OH in 1886: THE COLORED people of Cass County, Tex., are excited over a Ku-Klux raid that was made upon certain members of the race at Douglassville recently. The trouble arose from the recent organization of a secret society, the aims and objects of which are a profound mystery to the white population. -Cleveland Gazette, Cleveland, OH, November 6, 1886[53] Reproduction of this article on Appendix 30 and 31 The first black political cartoonist, Henry J. Lewis, attacked the Klan during his time at the Indianapolis Freeman starting in the late 1880s. Lewis had worked at Harper's Weekly before moving to the African-American paper.[54] In a cartoon in June 1889 titled "Protection for the Negro," Lewis shows five episodes of violence or discrimination including one named "Regulators at Work" which shows KKK members pulling people from a cabin and hanging them from a tree. In September of that year, Lewis again takes aim on the Klan and the country's indifference with a cartoon labeled "Some Daily or Rather Nightly Occurrences in the South." This cartoon shows Klan members hanging a black man while Uncle Sam stands guard. Both of these cartoons are featured on Appendix 32-34. DISCUSSION The scarcity of Ku Klux Klan references in the 19th century black press is the result of a combination of factors. First of all, the original Klan flourished in the South right after the Civil War. At this time, black-owned newspapers in the South were just getting started after generations of slavery. [55] Plus, the Ku Klux Klan and other secret societies used violence and murder as a way to keep blacks from gaining too much power. To confront the Klan in the late 1860s and 1870s could mean very real danger for the writer and editor. And it wasn't just the African-Americans who kept quiet about the Klan. White Southern Republicans feared for their lives during that time and didn't see the wisdom of taking on the Klan. The lack of coverage of the original Ku Klux Klan in the black press doesn't diminish the terror and violence inflicted by that hate group of the post-Civil War era. Instead, the absence of articles shows the power of the Klan and the racial climate at the time of Southern Reconstruction. In areas where the Klan was strong, local officials either belonged to the Klan or looked the other way. Law enforcement officials were either members or unable to do anything about the violence. When KKK members were arrested, supporters lied to give them alibis. Major Lewis Merrill, who investigated the Klan in South Carolina, called it "the demoralization of public opinion."[56] As technology improves and there is a better method of indexing and searching black-owned newspapers of the 19th Century, it is important to continue to look for references to the original Ku Klux Klan to see if any of the papers took a stronger stand against the group. But for the most part, the black press responded to the original Ku Klux Klan with terror masked in silence. [1] ENDNOTES WICU-TV, Erie Pennsylvania. Coverage before, during, and after Ku Klux Klan rally on November 28, 1998. [2] Allen W. Trelease, "Ku Klux Klan," Encyclopedia Americana Online (Grolier, Inc. 2000), http://ea.grolier.com (April 7, 2000) [3] "An Attempted Assasination of a Colored Newspaper Correspondent," Herald of Kansas [Topeka] 11 June 1880, reprinted from Nashville Educator and Reformer [4] Robert L. Harris, Jr, "Segregation and Scholarship: The American Couoncil of Learned Socities' Committee on Negro Studies, 1941-1950," Journal of Black Studies, 12 (3), (Sage, 1982), and Walter B. Hill, Jr., "Institutions of Memory and the Documentation of African Americans in Federal Records," Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration, 29(2). [5] "The African-American Experience in Ohio," The Ohio Historical Society, (8 April 2000) [6] Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction ( New York: Harper & Row, 1990) 258. [7] Susan Lawrence Davis, Authentic History: Ku Klux Klan 1865-1877 (New York: American Library Service, 1924) 139. [8] Thomas Watt Gregory, "Reconstruction and the Ku Klux Klan," A Paper Read Before the Arkansas and Texas Bar Association, July 10, 1906, 1. [9] Thomas Dixon, The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1905) To The Reader. [10] Dixon, The Clansman, To The Reader [11] Foner, Reconstruction, 32-33. [12] Foner, Reconstruction, 93. [13] Foner, Reconstruction, 53. [14] Allen Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) xliii. [15] "Self Respect," Augusta, GA Colored American reprinted from the Cincinnati Colored Citizen. 6 January 1866. [16] Stanley Horn, Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan 1866-1871 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1939) 27. [17] "Horrible Outrage," Loyal Georgian, Augusta, GA, 27 January 1866 [18] Trelease, White Terror, 3-4. [19] ENDNOTES (Continued) Trelease, White Terror, 8-10. [20] Horn, Invisible Empire, 17-19. [21] Gladys-Marie Fry, Night Riders In Black Folk History (The University of Tennessee Press, 1975) 71. [22] "Proclamation By The Governor," Colored American, Augusta, GA, 30 December 1865. [23] Foner, Reconstruction, 122. [24] Horn, Invisible Empire, 28. [25] Ibid, 27. [26] Davis, Authentic History: Ku Klux Klan, 171-173. [27] "Loyal League," Weekly Free Man's Press [Austin, TX] 15 August, 1868 [28] Ibid. [29] "Seven Freedmen Reported Killed!!!," Loyal Georgian [Augusta, GA] 13 October 1866 [30] Trelease, White Terror, 18. [31] Ibid, 28. [32] Horn, Invisible Empire, 67. [33] The Free Press [Charleston, SC] 11 April 1868 [34] Trelease, White Terror, 419. [35] Ibid, 158-180. [36] Chester Quarles, The Ku Klux Klan and Related American Racialist and Antisemitic Organizations (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 1999. [37] Trelease, White Terror, 383-395. [38] "President Grant's Proclamation," Georgetown Planet [Georgetown, SC] 31 May 1873. [39] Horn, Invisible Empire, 22. [40] Quarles, The Ku Klux Klan, 29. [41] Trelease, White Terror, 61-62. [42] William Huntzicker, The Popular Press, 1833-1865 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999) 98-99. ENDNOTES (Continued) [43] "Pretexts For Hatred ," The Picayune [New Orleans] 29 March 1871. [44] "Ku-Klux," The Picayune [New Orleans] 3 May 1871. [45] Gregory, "Reconstruction and the Ku Klux Klan," 20-21. [46] Trelease, White Terror, 418. [47] Armistead Pride & Clint Wilson II, A History of the Black Press (Washington DC: Howard University Press, 1997) [48] "The State of Mississip," Kansas Herald [Topeka, KS] 30 January 1880 [49] "An Attempted Assassination of a Colored Newspaper Correspondent," Herald of Kansas [Topeka, KS] 11 June 1880. [50] "Editorial," The Weekly Echo [Savannah, GA] 26 August 1883 [51] "He has Blood in his Eye!," The Weekly Echo [Savannah, GA] 26 August 1883 [52] "The Yazoo Tragedy," State Journal [Harrisburg, PA] 5 January 1884. [53] "Cass County Tx. - Ku Klux Raid," Cleveland Gazette 6 November 1886. Ohio Historical Society "African American Experience in Ohio." (April 8, 2000) [54] Pride & Wilson, A History of the Black Press, 102. [55] Clint C. Wilson II, Associate Professor of Journalism at Howard University, e-mail to the author, 11 April, 2000. [56] Foner, Reconstruction, 187.