Authors Jamelle g-g-ghoulie 👻

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i’ll keep saying this but for example look no further than the ku klux klan, theatrical and silly and also deadly serious


we often talk about the overthrow of reconstruction as a singular organized effort, but it should be understood as something more disparate and fractured, with success tied less to martial superiority than the indifference of authorities to intimidation and violence.

a group of guys — maybe the owner of the general store, and the sheriff and some farmers who fought in the war — gets together to gripe and complain and plot a little mischief. they put on masks and grab guns and go beat up a black sharecropper or local clerk or whatever...

everyone knows who did it. but there’s no one to stop them. the army, if it’s even in the state, is tens or hundreds of miles away. and mustering a militia may risk open conflict. the guys realize they can do this and getaway with it. so they do it again.

maybe they have a few more people with them this time. maybe they escalate, not just beating up local blacks and their white allies but killing a few.