Klan skepticism and denial in Reconstruction-Era public discourse

Journal of Southern History

Volumn 77, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 53-90

  Parsons, Elaine Frantz ^a  

^a DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84865700237     PISSN: 00224642     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (81)

1. Greg Borchard, Tsekani Browne, Michael Fitzgerald, Carl Frantz, Carolyn Frantz, Janet Frantz, Tom Kinnahan, Caleb McDaniel, Jotham Parsons, K. Stephen Prince, Dorothy Ross, Ron Walters, and the anonymous readers for the Journal of Southern History.
2. Mark Wahlgren Summers, A Dangerous Stir: Fear, Paranoia, and the Making of Reconstruction (Chapel Hill, 2009), 252-255.
3. Michael W. Fitzgerald, "The Ku Klux Klan: Property Crime and the Plantation System in Reconstruction Alabama,'"AgriculturalHistory, 71 (Spring 1997), 186-206.
4. Mark Wahlgren Summers, The Press Gang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865-1878 (Chapel Hill, 1994), 201.
5. Christopher Waldrep, The Many Faces of Judge Lynch: Extralegal Violence and Punishment in America (New York, 2002), 67-97
6. Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Cambridge, Eng., 2001),21-50.
7. '"The Fight between the Kuklux and Troops in Arkansas," New York Times, November 19, 1868, p. 1.
8. "A Portion of South Carolina in Insurrection," New York Tribune, March 10, 1871, p. 1; "The Ku-Klux," Milwaukee Sentinel, October 23, 1871, p. 1.
9. see "A Supposed Member of the Ku Klux Klan Shot by a Negro," Washington (D.C.) Daily National Intelligencer, March 20, 1868, p. 2.
10. see Bruce E. Baker, What Reconstruction Meant: Historical Memory in the American South (Charlottesville, 2007), 15-16.
11. Henry W. Raymond], "Through the South," New York Times, May 22, 1871, p. 2.
12. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The FBI: A History (New Haven, 2007), 17-26.
13. Xi Wang, The Trial of Democracy: Black Suffrage and Northern Republicans, 1860-1910 (Athens, Ga., 1997), 95-96.
14. Everette Swinney, "Enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment, 1870-1 SIT," Journal of Southern History, 28 (May 1962), 202-218.
15. William Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879 (Baton Rouge, 1979), 25-55.
16. "The Ku Klux Klan," Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, April 25, 1868, p. 2.
17. Lou Falkner Williams, The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1872 (Athens, Ga., 1996), 47.
18. On hired detectives, see untitled article, Bangor (Maine) Daily Whig and Courier, October 14,1871, p. 3.
19. Williams, Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 44-45.
20. Report of Evidence Taken before the Military Committee in Relation to Outrages Committed by the Ku Klux Klan in Middle and West Tennessee, Submitted to the Extra Session of the Thirty- Fifth General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, Wednesday, the 2nd day of September, 1868 (Nashville, 1868).
21. Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 42 Cong., 1 Sess., 283-300 (April 4, 1871).
22. Proceedings in the Ku Klux Trials at Columbia, S.C. in the United States Circuit Court, November Term, 1871 (Columbia, S.C., 1872).
23. Report of the Joint Select Committee.
24. "K: K: K:," Little Rock Daily Arkansas Gazette, April 11,1868, p. 1.
25. "The Ku Klux Klan Humbug," Savannah Daily News and Herald, April 2, 1868, p. 2.
26. Cohen, States of Denial, 112 (first and second quotations).
27. Beecher, "What We Heard at the South," 330.
28. Untitled article, Little Rock Daily Arkansas Gazette, June 4, 1871,
29. Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction, 46-48, 54-55.
30. Mr. Greeley's Letters from Texas and the Lower Mississippi (New York, 1871) , 50 (first tation).
31. "Out of Their Mouths," Milwaukee Sentinel, April 12, 1871, p. 3.
32. Swinney, "Enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment," 209-10.
33. For allegations of torture, see Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 42 Cong., 1 Sess., 301 (April 3, 1871).
34. "South Carolina: The Terrorism in the State - Letter to Hon. Reverdy Johnson," Macon Georgia Weekly Telegraph and Georgia Journal and Messenger, November 7, 1871, p. 1 (reprint from the Baltimore Sun).
35. Elaine Frantz Parsons, "Midnight Rangers: Costume and Performance in the Reconstruction- Era Ku Klux Klan," Journal of American History, 92 (December 2005), 811-36.
36. "The Ku-Klux Klan," New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, April 11,1868, p. 1 (reprinted from the Memphis Avalanche).
37. E. C. Buell, Buell's Ku-Klux-Klan Songster (New York, 1868), 9-11 (quotation on 11).
38. See also D. A. Warden, K. K. K.: Ku Klux Klan: Comic Song (Philadelphia, 1868).
39. Yale Pot-pourri, 1868-9 (New Haven, 1868), 50 (first quotation), 61.
40. "Local Matters," Augusta (Ga.) Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, October 29, 1868, p. 3.
41. "Base Ball Match," Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, June 8, 1868, p. 3.
42. Frank A. Flower, History of the Republican Party, Embracing Its Origin, Growth, and Mission (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1884), 567.
43. W. W. Clayton and William Nelson, History of Bergen and Passaic Counties, New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1882), 275-76.
44. Albert Nelson Marquis, Who's Who in New England (2nd ed.; Chicago, 1916), 1006.
45. Constance Rourke, "Miss Rourke Replies to Mr. Blair," American Literature, 4 (May 1932), 207-210 (quotation on 208).
46. Constance Rourke, American Humor: A Study of the National Character (Garden City, N.Y., 1931), 48-49.
47. "The Kuklux," Little Rock Morning Republican, March 20, 1868, p. 2.
48. "A Supposed Member of the Ku Klux Klan Shot by a Negro," Washington Daily National Intelligencer, March 20, 1868, p. 3.
49. "Details of Eastern News," San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, April 9, 1868, p. 1.
50. "The Ku-Klux-Klan," Charleston Courier, Tri-Weekly, April 4, 1868, p. 4.
51. "A Late Member," The Oaths, Signs, Ceremonies and Objects of the Ku-Klux-Klan: A Full Exposé (Cleveland, 1868), 15.
52. Horrible Disclosures: A Full and Authentic Exposé of the Ku-Klux Klan (Cincinnati, 1868), 79.
53. "Scalpel, M. D.," The Terrible Mysteries of the Ku-Klux Klan: A Full Expose⋯ (New York, 1868), 16-17.
54. Oaths, Signs, Ceremonies and Objects of the Ku-Klux-Klan, 5 (second quotation), 28 (first quotation).
55. Terrible Mysteries of the Ku-Klux-Klan, 38-40.
56. Oaths, Signs, Ceremonies and Objects of the Ku-Klux-Klan, 28. Similarly.
57. Robert A. Parrish Jr., Details of an Unpaid Claim on France for 24,000,000 Francs . . . (Philadelphia, 1869), 5.
58. Charles Wesley Alexander, Poor Ellen Stuart's Fate, or, Victim of the Free Love Institute in Oneida, N.Y.: A True and Thrilling Account of Miss Ellen Stuart's Captivity in a Free Love Institute, and Her Tragic Escape and Sufferings (Philadelphia, 1868).
59. The Masked Lady of the White House; or, The Ku-Klux-Klan: A Most Startling Exposure of the Doings of This Extensive Secret Band, Whose Mysterious Lodges Exist in Every City and County in the Land (Philadelphia, 1868).
60. Horrible Disclosures, 69.
61. Senate Journal of the Extra Session of the Thirty-Fifth General Assembly of the State of Tennessee (Nashville, 1868), 7.
62. "The Political Campaign of 1872," North American Review, 115 (October 1872), 410-422.
63. Thomas L. Masson, Our American Humorists (New York, 1922), 34.
64. Untitled article, Lowell Daily Citizen and News, April 10, 1868, p. 2.
65. "Ku-Klux," Once a Week, new ser., 7 (May 27, 1871), 505-508.
66. "The Carnival," Memphis Daily Avalanche, February 14, 1872, p. 4.
67. "High Carnival," Memphis Daily Appeal, February 14, 1872, p. 4.
68. see Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance (New York, 1996), 261-62.
69. James Gill, Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans (Jackson, Miss., 1997), 86,104-108.
70. see "Carnival Ball at Louisville," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 22, 1873, p. 27.
71. Max Black, The Prevalence of Humbug and Other Essays (Ithaca, 1983), 139.
72. Michael A. Mlibum and Sheree D. Conrad, The Politics of Denial (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), 3.
73. Ed White, "The Value of Conspiracy Theory," American Literary History, 14 (Spring 2002), 1-31 (quotations on 5).
74. See Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (New York, 1988), 44-45.
75. Ann Mische, "Cross-talk in Movements: Reconceiving the Culture-Network Link," in Mario Diani and Doug McAdam, eds., Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action (New York, 2003), 258-280 (quotation on 264).
76. W. Fitzhugh Brundage, "Introduction: No Deed But Memory," in Brundage, ed., Where These Memories Crow: History, Memory, and Southern Identity (Chapel Hill, 2000), 1-28, esp. 4.
77. Baker, What Reconstruction Meant, 6-7.
78. See, for instance, "More about the K. K. K.," Salt Lake Daily Telegraph, April 21, 1868, p. 2 (in part reprinted from the New York World).
79. Brundage, "Introduction: No Deed But Memory," 6-7.
80. David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), 50-51.
81. Nina Silber, The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill, 1993).