At war with the KKK

The Ku Klux Klan, which historian Fergus Bordewich defines as “the first organized terrorist movement in American history,” rose from the ashes of the Civil War. Their mission was to obliterate the democratic power of newly emancipated Black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrifying means imaginable. To repel the virulent tidal wave of violence, President Ulysses S. Grant waged a two-term battle against the armed Southern enemies of Reconstruction and Northern politicians seduced by visions of postwar conciliation.

Klan War is a bracing record of America’s past that reveals the bloody, Reconstruction-era roots of present-day battles to protect the ballot box and stamp out resurgent white supremacist ideologies.

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