The Danger of Vigilante Justice by Steven Beschloss

[OhioBlue]

When Amos Akerman became the first US Attorney General to lead the newly formed Department of Justice in 1870, he and President Ulysses S. Grant were quite clear what the highest priority was. Across the South, in county after county, the Ku Klux Klan was spreading violence, pursuing a murderous reign of terror to frighten Black voters, deny the emergence of Black elected officials, undermine Reconstruction and the new rights of former slaves, and reinstate a Black populace broken by and submissive to their white masters.

With vigilante abandon, they terrorized witnesses and juries to avoid prosecution. And it was far from an isolated few: Akerman said that the KKK involved “at least two thirds of the active white men” in certain counties who “no doubt are part of a grand system of criminal associations pervading most of the Southern states.”

South Carolina Gov. Robert K. Scott described the horror of an election that “for rancor and virulence…has never been excelled in a civilized community…Colored men and women have been dragged from their homes at the dead hour of night and most cruelly and brutally scourged for the sole reason that they dared to exercise their own opinions upon political subjects.” In Mississippi, Black churches and schools were burned down and, after several Black leaders spoke out in one town, nearly every Black leader was murdered.

[link:https://america.substack.com/p/the-danger-of-vigilante-justice|
https://america.substack.com/p/the-danger-of-vigilante-justice]

[Karadeniz]

1. Jeez...the lack of improvement.

[David__77]

2. In response to such things, reliance on voting and authorities will not do.

That’s my opinion.

[DinahMoeHum]

3. +1000s

[Hekate]

4. When I consider the thuggery openly planned for & taking place at School Board meetings...

… in all states, it is not hard to see the Proud Boys as the heirs of the KKK.

Be warned.

[OhioBlue]

5. I see the exact same thing.