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Speaker 1: What's cracking my pebbers? This is that? Is that how

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Speaker 1: we should open it? Sophie? Is that bad? Do you

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Speaker 1: look ashamed of me and ashamed of where you work?

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Speaker 1: And all of that? Shouldn't use shouldn't use that. Mick

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Speaker 1: is literally climbing up on the roof. I think to

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Speaker 1: jump off. I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards

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Speaker 1: the show. We tell you everything you don't know about

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Speaker 1: the very worst people in all of history, one of

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Speaker 1: whom is me Based on the reaction everyone had to

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Speaker 1: that introduction with me today in the studio trying not

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Speaker 1: to make eye contact with me because of their deep shame.

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Speaker 1: Are my friends Cody Johnston, Katie Stole that's okay. I

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Speaker 1: just cocked my head kind of quizzically. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you were the most the most forgiving of that. All right,

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Speaker 1: we'll roll with that. I mean we did. There's no

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Speaker 1: taking it out. You can't edit audio. It's not like it.

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Speaker 1: So how's everybody doing today? All Right, I've got a

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Speaker 1: bit of a cold. I don't I'm feeling well and

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Speaker 1: I made the mistake last night. I've been cooped up

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Speaker 1: all week and so it was like, I really need

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Speaker 1: to get out. And so I went out with some

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Speaker 1: girlfriends and I had one and a half drinks and

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Speaker 1: it was a mist a set myself back. Also, should

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Speaker 1: have read the label warnings. I've had sudo fed in

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Speaker 1: my system, so I just like amplifies your drinks. It

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Speaker 1: was fun and then it wasn't. Yeah, you just like

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Speaker 1: throw your immune system for a loop. There. Well, anyway,

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Speaker 1: here I am if I know one thing that will

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Speaker 1: boost your immune system. It's spending roughly two hours learning

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Speaker 1: about the Ku Klux Klan. That's what my doctor said.

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Speaker 1: It's time to take our medicine. It's time for everyone

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Speaker 1: to take their medicine. I have that trump doctor of

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Speaker 1: the guys. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It looks like

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Speaker 1: someone Hunter S. Thompson would have done drugs with and

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Speaker 1: then like walked away from like this is this is

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Speaker 1: too far? Is that photo that looks like somebody photoshopped

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Speaker 1: out a gun he was holding. It's pretty beautiful. What

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Speaker 1: a great doctor. Well, today we're talking about the birth

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Speaker 1: of the Ku Klux Klan UH and in UH in

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Speaker 1: part two we'll be talking about the second clan, because

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Speaker 1: they're two distinctly different things. So let's start with the

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Speaker 1: the o g KKK. On April nine, eighteen sixty five,

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Speaker 1: General Robert Elie surrendered to General Ulysses Simpson Grant near

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Speaker 1: Appomatox Courthouse, Virginia. It is, in my imagination, one of

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Speaker 1: the most satisfying moments in American history. You've got this

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Speaker 1: this rich, fancy, slave owning asshole and like his like beautiful, pristine,

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Speaker 1: bright uniform, handing over his sword to a working classman

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Speaker 1: grew up poor in a filthy uniform who has just

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Speaker 1: been drunk off his ass for the last thirty some

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Speaker 1: odd years of his life. It's just a great moment

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Speaker 1: to me. It's nice. Thousands of white supremacist soldiers who's

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Speaker 1: been the rest of their lives knowing that an army

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Speaker 1: commanded by this man and that included black men who

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Speaker 1: had previously been owned by them, had whooped them. It's

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Speaker 1: a nice, you know, nice to think about. Wonderful. It's

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Speaker 1: a good moment. It's a good moment. But it brought

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Speaker 1: a lot of resentment and anger among the Southerners. You

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Speaker 1: could see that happening really piste off some people, and

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Speaker 1: they stayed piste off resentment, and it has just been simmering,

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Speaker 1: like we've just every now and then we get a

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Speaker 1: president who's good enough to take the top off the

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Speaker 1: pot because like over but it nobody turns off the heat. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, that's the situation. After Appomattox. You've got in,

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Speaker 1: you know, swelling back into the Old South from these

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Speaker 1: armies that Lee had commanded. You've got tens of thousands

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Speaker 1: of young men, many of them wounded, all of them

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Speaker 1: armed and experienced in doing violence, roaming the countryside looking

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Speaker 1: for excitement. Uh, and really hateful still of of black

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Speaker 1: folks that do away turns out terrible spoiler. Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: did not just would just like you know what, I

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Speaker 1: as racism lost, Your argument was better. So they didn't

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Speaker 1: really think the war was over. Well, they all got

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Speaker 1: the point that you can't fight the American government, but

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Speaker 1: they did not get the point that we should stop

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Speaker 1: fighting for racism. The debate was. The debate was not over.

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Speaker 1: They just like, yeah, we can't make more cannons than

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Speaker 1: those guys. They learned that lesson. So one of the

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Speaker 1: major sources for this podcast was a book called They

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Speaker 1: Called Themselves the KKK by Susan Barteletti. She opens her

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Speaker 1: book by quoting a number of white Southerners reactions to

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Speaker 1: the end of the war, including one former slave owner

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Speaker 1: from Virginia whose first reaction to the Confederacy surrender was

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Speaker 1: to ask about her now former slaves, if they don't

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Speaker 1: belong to me, whose are they? Pretty emblematic of the

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Speaker 1: additudes that you were not quite getting it. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: here's a quote from that book. Before the war, each

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Speaker 1: slave was worth about one thousand dollars or thirteen thousand dollars. Today,

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Speaker 1: the average slaveholder owned between one and nine slaves, and

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Speaker 1: some of the wealthiest planters owned hundreds. Many slaveholders expected

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Speaker 1: the federal government to compensate them for their great monetary loss.

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Speaker 1: The wife of an Alabama planter bitterly described her family situation.

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Speaker 1: We had all our earnings swept away, wrote Victoria Clayton.

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Speaker 1: The government of the United States as the credit of

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Speaker 1: giving the black man his freedom, while it was at

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Speaker 1: the expense of the Southern people. Okay, okay, I'm not confused. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm citing this not because I think both sides are

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Speaker 1: valid here, but it's important understand the temperature that the

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Speaker 1: South was at at this point in time. If we're

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Speaker 1: going to understand the rise of the first ku Klux Klan.

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Speaker 1: It started in Pulaski, Tennessee. Have you ever heard of Pulaski, Tennessee. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's that's about it. Yeah. Yeah. There were six former

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Speaker 1: Confederate officers, John Lester, Calvin Jones, Richard Reid, James Crowe,

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Speaker 1: Frank McCord, and John Kennedy. These men were pissed that

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Speaker 1: they'd lost the war, and they were also bored. War,

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Speaker 1: for all of its faults, offers a great deal of

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Speaker 1: excitement for able bodied young men. It turns out, board

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Speaker 1: and racist is a dangerous combination. John lay Lester later

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Speaker 1: recalled in his book quote, we could not engage at

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Speaker 1: once in business or professional pursuits. A few had capital

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Speaker 1: to enter mercantile or agricultural enterprises. There was a total

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Speaker 1: lack of amusements and social diversions, which prevail wherever society

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Speaker 1: is in a normal condition. So everything's fucked up because

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Speaker 1: of the war. Still, the South has been pretty ruined.

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Speaker 1: These guys are just they got nothing to do, right,

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Speaker 1: so they start hanging out in the law offices that

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Speaker 1: belonged to Calvin Jones's dad. Because these are all pretty rich,

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Speaker 1: upper middle class to upper class kids, and they were

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Speaker 1: all frat boys. They had all been in fraternities before

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Speaker 1: the war, and that will be very relevant here. Fraternity

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Speaker 1: is important, no matter the kind. Yeah, the fraternity just

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Speaker 1: important to have a fraternity's important, doesn't matter what they're about.

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Speaker 1: So at first they mostly drank and talked politics in

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Speaker 1: one of their dad's offices. Uh. This was going on

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Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty six. Now, in that April, President Johnson

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Speaker 1: had vetoed the Civil Rights Act. Congress had passed it

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Speaker 1: in anyway, but John's was a you wouldn't call him

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Speaker 1: a woke president vetoing the Civil Rights Act. Mac indion

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Speaker 1: on that. Yeah. Um. Now, the Civil Rights Act, when

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Speaker 1: it was pushed through by Congress, overruled the Black codes

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Speaker 1: that most Southern states had enacted to restrict the rights

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Speaker 1: of newly free blacks. There's been a race riot in

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Speaker 1: Memphis that May, which had been caused by a carriage

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Speaker 1: crash involving a black man and a white man. Basically,

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of racial tensions and the crash

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Speaker 1: would sparked them. Led to three days of writing, forty

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Speaker 1: six black people killed and two white people killed. So

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Speaker 1: this was all going on when these guys are meeting

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Speaker 1: in their dad's law office eighteen sixty six. The war

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Speaker 1: has just ended now. Depending on the source, I've read

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Speaker 1: that the decision to make a secret society from these

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Speaker 1: guys was made in either May, right after the Memphis

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Speaker 1: rioting or on Christmas Eve. Either way, it was somewhere

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Speaker 1: in the latter half of eighteen sixty six, and somewhere

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Speaker 1: yeah it's it really fits one way or the other. Um,

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Speaker 1: But it was sometime in the later half of eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty six when John Lester told his friends, boys, let

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Speaker 1: us get up a club or society. Yeah, well, said

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Speaker 1: everyone talked, well that club society. Let us get up

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Speaker 1: a club or society now. Prior to the war, the

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Speaker 1: Kuklos Adelphon had been a famous college frat for many

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Speaker 1: Southern men. Kappa Alpha, as it was more commonly known,

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Speaker 1: had been founded in eighteen twenty five. Before it was

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Speaker 1: disbanded during the Civil War, there had been numerous k

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Speaker 1: A circles throughout the South. The word cuclose itself means

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Speaker 1: circle in Greek, and something about that imagery was inspirational

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Speaker 1: to the six Confederate veterans drinking in Dad's office. Now.

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Speaker 1: One of these men suggested they called themselves ku Close,

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Speaker 1: and another modified that to ku Klux because he thought

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Speaker 1: it sounded better. The word Klan was added to the

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Speaker 1: end since it also means circle. Susan Barneletti notes that

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Speaker 1: Ku Klux Klan can be literally translated to circle circle.

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Speaker 1: James sounds better than Ku Klux Club or Ku Klux Society, society,

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Speaker 1: Klux Boys, the Ku Klux Boys. James Crowe, one of

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Speaker 1: the former Confederates, noted, quote, there was a weird potency

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Speaker 1: in the very name ku Klux Klan. The sound of

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Speaker 1: it is suggestive of bones rattling together. Now, I'm all

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Speaker 1: about admitting brilliance wherever I find it, even in the

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Speaker 1: branding of racist assholes, And the name Ku Klux Klan is,

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Speaker 1: unfortunately an example of really good marketing. The proof and

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Speaker 1: that is the fact that there's still people gone by

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Speaker 1: the fucking ku Klux Klan today. You know the name works. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that sharp consonant sound, it's you know, it's the Coca

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Speaker 1: Cola of racism. Now, after they locked down the name,

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Speaker 1: the six young frat brose did what frat brose do.

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Speaker 1: They wrote out a list of dumb rules, secret rituals, handshakes,

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Speaker 1: code words, and hazing guidelines for their new club. They

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Speaker 1: also created fanciful titles for themselves. Frank McCord would be

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Speaker 1: the president, but since president was a boring name, they

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Speaker 1: called him the Grand Cyclous. John Kennedy was the vice

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Speaker 1: president a k a. Grand Magi. James Crowe was the

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Speaker 1: Master of Ceremonies a k a. Grand Turk, and Calvin

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Speaker 1: Jones and John Lester were nighthawks or message like some

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Speaker 1: fantasy game. Yeah, so it's nerdy something like it's always

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Speaker 1: that nerdy twerpy like Grandga's like Hitler and his fucking

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Speaker 1: cowboy books. You know it's it's or Himmler and his

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Speaker 1: pretending he was a dead Danish prince and making everyone

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Speaker 1: dressed like knights, like buying all It's young kids who

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Speaker 1: read too many books and want to like be that

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Speaker 1: badass swinging a sword around and then get in power

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Speaker 1: and they're the hero. But like the enemy is like everyone,

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Speaker 1: not racism. They just can't bear the mondanity of normal life.

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Speaker 1: Guys like this, Like there's always that feeling of like

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Speaker 1: post war like young men have nothing to do. You know,

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Speaker 1: later on this would happen again and we do football.

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Speaker 1: We do football, like they're like, we gotta do with

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Speaker 1: the KKK. Yeah, And I've heard it said. And there's

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Speaker 1: a couple of different charity groups in parts of the

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Speaker 1: Middle East, I know in Egypt in particular, that aimed

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Speaker 1: at like stopping young men from radicalizing. Like the best

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Speaker 1: way to de radicalize a kids in the Middle East

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Speaker 1: is like soccer clubs and stuff. Nothing else. You give

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Speaker 1: them something like intern but like fun activities. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean they do that different inner city programs to

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Speaker 1: reduce youth crime and after school programs. They're good. They're

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Speaker 1: they're good. And that's kind of how this starts. So

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Speaker 1: one of the weird things is that it doesn't start

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Speaker 1: off super racist. So I'm going to read another quote

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Speaker 1: from they called James o KKK James School, that's his

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Speaker 1: real name. What go on? Quote their organizational work done.

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Speaker 1: The Klansmen rated a linen closet. They pulled white sheets

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Speaker 1: over their heads, cutting two holes for eyes in another

212
00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:43,679
Speaker 1: for their mouth, and they raced outside and leaped destride

213
00:11:43,720 --> 00:11:46,080
Speaker 1: their horses and swooped through the town streets, whooping and

214
00:11:46,080 --> 00:11:51,079
Speaker 1: moaning and shrieking like ghosts. So I'm gonna guarantee you

215
00:11:51,120 --> 00:11:55,320
Speaker 1: they're drunk, drunk, just just like drunk Tennessee boys dressing

216
00:11:55,360 --> 00:12:00,760
Speaker 1: like ghosts. Yeah, it's so silly, you the little baby,

217
00:12:00,840 --> 00:12:03,559
Speaker 1: and look in their taste. Let's go, let's go ra

218
00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:08,000
Speaker 1: pretend to be ghosts. Like, hey, look what I found.

219
00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:10,960
Speaker 1: So the gang found an abandoned house to gather, and

220
00:12:10,960 --> 00:12:12,960
Speaker 1: so they didn't need to do their sewing and stitching

221
00:12:12,960 --> 00:12:15,040
Speaker 1: at Dad's office anymore. And for the next few weeks

222
00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:17,960
Speaker 1: they just kind of had fun with it, put on

223
00:12:17,960 --> 00:12:20,240
Speaker 1: their robes and then ride their horses through the country,

224
00:12:20,480 --> 00:12:23,000
Speaker 1: ruining or making parties, depending on whether or not the

225
00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:25,280
Speaker 1: partygoers enjoyed the side of a bunch of men pretending

226
00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:28,600
Speaker 1: to be ghosts. It wasn't racist. They weren't targeting black people.

227
00:12:28,679 --> 00:12:30,439
Speaker 1: They were just like fucking with everybody pretending to be

228
00:12:30,520 --> 00:12:32,640
Speaker 1: ghosts riding around, and it was like everyone was bored,

229
00:12:32,679 --> 00:12:36,320
Speaker 1: so like, yeah, this is something lar ping trolls. Interesting, Yeah,

230
00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:42,240
Speaker 1: interesting it Yeah, here's where it leads. Some clansmen were

231
00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:45,360
Speaker 1: silent during these rides. Other spoken low, gravelly voices that

232
00:12:45,400 --> 00:12:47,920
Speaker 1: they thought made them sound like dead people. At this stage, again,

233
00:12:47,960 --> 00:12:50,880
Speaker 1: there was nothing outwardly super hateful about the KKK was

234
00:12:50,920 --> 00:12:53,880
Speaker 1: just much of weirdos riding around. The club quickly made

235
00:12:53,880 --> 00:12:56,360
Speaker 1: a name for itself, though in part because eighteen sixty

236
00:12:56,400 --> 00:12:59,080
Speaker 1: six was an incredibly boring time to be alive in Tennessee.

237
00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:02,079
Speaker 1: John Less, one of the founders, wrote later, quote, its

238
00:13:02,160 --> 00:13:04,920
Speaker 1: mysteriousness was the sensation of the hour. Every issue of

239
00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:08,280
Speaker 1: the local paper contains some notice of the strange order. Now,

240
00:13:08,360 --> 00:13:10,720
Speaker 1: the Pulaski citizen of the local paper was key to

241
00:13:10,760 --> 00:13:13,280
Speaker 1: the rise of the first KKK. Its editor had a

242
00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:15,600
Speaker 1: younger brother in the clan, and in general it seems

243
00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:17,960
Speaker 1: like he did everything in his power to make the

244
00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:21,760
Speaker 1: KKK seem irresistibly cool. Notices like this were published in

245
00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:26,160
Speaker 1: the paper, ostensibly submitted anonymously by mysterious hooded individuals. Quote,

246
00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:28,960
Speaker 1: take notice the ku Klux Klan will assemble at their

247
00:13:29,040 --> 00:13:32,360
Speaker 1: usual place of rendezvous, the Din, on Tuesday night next

248
00:13:32,600 --> 00:13:35,280
Speaker 1: exactly at the hour of midnight, in costume and bearing

249
00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:38,080
Speaker 1: the arms of the clan, by or of the great Cyclops.

250
00:13:38,640 --> 00:13:42,960
Speaker 1: Now it's signed. That's really I'm going to read so

251
00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:46,160
Speaker 1: many ridiculous k names. You guys are going to so

252
00:13:46,240 --> 00:13:48,679
Speaker 1: tragic about how this starts. We're dressing up his ghost.

253
00:13:48,679 --> 00:13:52,160
Speaker 1: We're pretending to be dead. It's like we're already dead.

254
00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:55,000
Speaker 1: It's like they're just showing their pain. They're like, I mean,

255
00:13:55,080 --> 00:13:56,800
Speaker 1: maybe they probably saw some ships. Civil war is a

256
00:13:56,920 --> 00:13:59,320
Speaker 1: rough thing to say, you know, they're just expressing their

257
00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:04,480
Speaker 1: angsts are as. Yeah, yeah, it's you could see how

258
00:14:04,520 --> 00:14:06,880
Speaker 1: if like there had been trained therapists back then and

259
00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:08,439
Speaker 1: one of them around, he could have like guided this

260
00:14:08,520 --> 00:14:10,679
Speaker 1: in a positive direction. And it's like, oh, this could

261
00:14:10,679 --> 00:14:12,920
Speaker 1: be a healthy thing to do, Like yeah, like dress

262
00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:14,560
Speaker 1: up as your friends who died in the war and

263
00:14:14,640 --> 00:14:19,520
Speaker 1: let's you know, let's work through this ship. Yeah you could.

264
00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:26,080
Speaker 1: It's possible. It could have been pushing. Now, many local

265
00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:29,200
Speaker 1: men soon joined the clan. Most of them were Confederate veterans.

266
00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:31,960
Speaker 1: Like the founders, these people generally seemed to be the

267
00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:36,000
Speaker 1: crem of Southern society. Doctors, prominent churchmen, and respected former

268
00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:38,480
Speaker 1: Confederate officers. I'm going to guess, and awful lot of

269
00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:40,800
Speaker 1: them went by colonel in their daily life because it

270
00:14:40,880 --> 00:14:43,400
Speaker 1: was the South in the eighteen sixties and every third

271
00:14:43,400 --> 00:14:46,640
Speaker 1: man was a colonel. Now, for some early klansmen, the

272
00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:48,720
Speaker 1: thrill must have been the chance to see August. Members

273
00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:52,400
Speaker 1: of society debase themselves in preposterous hazing rituals. For example,

274
00:14:52,560 --> 00:14:55,680
Speaker 1: the KKK had a secret initiation. First, the initiate would

275
00:14:55,680 --> 00:14:58,640
Speaker 1: be blindfolded and asked ridiculous questions for the sole purpose

276
00:14:58,640 --> 00:15:01,560
Speaker 1: of embarrassing him. After he'd answered enough, the Grand Cyclops

277
00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:03,960
Speaker 1: would say, place him before the royal altar and a

278
00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:06,400
Speaker 1: door in his head with the regal crown. Then they

279
00:15:06,400 --> 00:15:09,120
Speaker 1: would all chant an oath, which the oath was, oh,

280
00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:11,960
Speaker 1: would some power the gift to give us to see

281
00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:16,240
Speaker 1: ourselves as others see us? And then after the initiate

282
00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:18,960
Speaker 1: finished reciting these words, the blindfold was untied, revealing a

283
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:21,600
Speaker 1: mirror that showed the man himself wearing a regal crown,

284
00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:25,120
Speaker 1: which was in fact a donkey hat. Now they called

285
00:15:25,160 --> 00:15:27,200
Speaker 1: themselves the KKK. It doesn't go any more detail, but

286
00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:29,800
Speaker 1: the Southern Poverty Law Center describes that donkey hat as

287
00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:32,800
Speaker 1: two large donkey ears. So it's like a joke. It

288
00:15:32,840 --> 00:15:36,680
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, silly you are, yeah, fun, And

289
00:15:36,680 --> 00:15:39,520
Speaker 1: then everyone would laugh at the guy looking silly in

290
00:15:39,560 --> 00:15:41,240
Speaker 1: the thing. And that was the initiation. So it's like

291
00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:44,920
Speaker 1: it's like some hazing, hazing, not hating that doesn't sound

292
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:47,360
Speaker 1: so bad. It doesn't sound so bad. It sounds good.

293
00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:50,120
Speaker 1: I want to join, it sounds great. I'm selling the

294
00:15:50,160 --> 00:15:55,040
Speaker 1: clan right now. Works. It's kind of edgy, kind of fun,

295
00:15:55,320 --> 00:15:58,360
Speaker 1: kind of fun. You can see the appeal. Especially it's

296
00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:02,880
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six and they're fucking nothing. Really really is

297
00:16:02,920 --> 00:16:07,000
Speaker 1: a driver for some awful, awful behavior. Yes, it's very

298
00:16:07,040 --> 00:16:11,240
Speaker 1: sad actually to me and like sylpathetic. Yeah, that's where

299
00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:13,880
Speaker 1: it starts. So in his book Ku Klux Klan Its Origin,

300
00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:16,760
Speaker 1: Growth and Disbandment, John Lester claims the clan spread almost

301
00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:20,600
Speaker 1: by accident at first, essentially as an old timey meme quote.

302
00:16:20,880 --> 00:16:22,920
Speaker 1: During the fall and winter of eighteen sixty six. The

303
00:16:22,920 --> 00:16:24,800
Speaker 1: growth of the clan was rapid. It spread over a

304
00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:27,280
Speaker 1: wide extent of territory, sometimes by a sudden leap. It

305
00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:30,280
Speaker 1: appeared in localities far distant from any existing dens. A

306
00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:33,680
Speaker 1: stranger from West Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, or Texas visiting in

307
00:16:33,720 --> 00:16:36,680
Speaker 1: a neighborhood where the order prevailed would be initiated, and

308
00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:39,640
Speaker 1: on his departure carry with him permission to establish a

309
00:16:39,720 --> 00:16:42,960
Speaker 1: din at home. These dens were loosely connected in any

310
00:16:43,040 --> 00:16:45,720
Speaker 1: central control by the grand cyclops of the Pulaski clan

311
00:16:46,120 --> 00:16:48,520
Speaker 1: was more formal than literal. It's hard to say those words,

312
00:16:48,640 --> 00:16:51,920
Speaker 1: it hard to listen to them. That won't even qualify

313
00:16:51,920 --> 00:16:53,680
Speaker 1: as silly. By the time we get done with all

314
00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:57,760
Speaker 1: the titles, they're going to be I know so. At first,

315
00:16:57,800 --> 00:16:59,880
Speaker 1: at least, according to one branch of scholars, the kk

316
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:02,320
Speaker 1: K was mostly a way for board young white veterans

317
00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:04,400
Speaker 1: to drink and play pranks on themselves and others. Since

318
00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:06,640
Speaker 1: all these guys were racist as fuck, the relatively good

319
00:17:06,640 --> 00:17:09,000
Speaker 1: hearted pranks against their fellow white people soon gave way

320
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:12,800
Speaker 1: to distinctly less fun pranks against black people. Luckily for us.

321
00:17:12,840 --> 00:17:15,439
Speaker 1: Back in the nineteen thirties, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had of

322
00:17:15,440 --> 00:17:18,399
Speaker 1: a bunch of interviewers go out and talk to former slaves,

323
00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:20,000
Speaker 1: because people were very old at the time, but there

324
00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,000
Speaker 1: were still a bunch of them alive, and these people

325
00:17:22,040 --> 00:17:24,800
Speaker 1: were asked about their experiences with the KKK, which had

326
00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:27,600
Speaker 1: just had its second resurgence in the nineteen twenties. So

327
00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:30,080
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read you a quote from Henry Gary of Birmingham,

328
00:17:30,119 --> 00:17:33,359
Speaker 1: Alabama relating the tale of an early clan prank. Now,

329
00:17:33,960 --> 00:17:36,560
Speaker 1: when these interviewers would talk to these former slaves, they

330
00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:39,719
Speaker 1: were given the explicit order of preserving their diction as

331
00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:42,120
Speaker 1: much as possible. And I am not going to read

332
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:44,040
Speaker 1: that an exact diction because I think that might come

333
00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:46,359
Speaker 1: across as like a caricature. I'm gonna try to translate

334
00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:48,120
Speaker 1: it as well as I can. There's also a hell

335
00:17:48,119 --> 00:17:50,000
Speaker 1: of a lot of in words in these There's a

336
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:52,400
Speaker 1: debate to be had when you're reading like a scholarly

337
00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:54,360
Speaker 1: document about whether or not you read the inn word

338
00:17:54,359 --> 00:17:56,600
Speaker 1: to preserve like the call, I'm not going to say it,

339
00:17:56,640 --> 00:17:59,720
Speaker 1: because I think that's a really good but there's a

340
00:17:59,760 --> 00:18:03,520
Speaker 1: debate who likes saying it racist? But like if you're

341
00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:06,520
Speaker 1: like a lecture in your Confederate documents, there's an argument

342
00:18:06,520 --> 00:18:08,880
Speaker 1: to me, but I I don't. I'm just not gonna

343
00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:12,359
Speaker 1: say so. Here's uh Henry Gary of Birmingham, Alabama, relating

344
00:18:12,359 --> 00:18:15,360
Speaker 1: an early clan attack or prank. My daddy went over

345
00:18:15,400 --> 00:18:17,280
Speaker 1: to where he was sitting on his horse at the well.

346
00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:20,439
Speaker 1: Uh then he the klansman said, and word, get a

347
00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:22,800
Speaker 1: bucket and draw me up some cool water. Daddy got

348
00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:25,000
Speaker 1: a bucket, fill it up and hand it to him, Captain,

349
00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:27,080
Speaker 1: Would you believe it? That man just lifted the bucket

350
00:18:27,119 --> 00:18:29,040
Speaker 1: to his mouth and never stopped till it was empty.

351
00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:30,879
Speaker 1: Did he have enough? He just smacked his mouth and

352
00:18:30,920 --> 00:18:33,000
Speaker 1: called for more, Just like that. He didn't stop till

353
00:18:33,040 --> 00:18:35,600
Speaker 1: he drunk three more buckets full. Then he just wiped

354
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:37,639
Speaker 1: his mouth and said, Laurie, that share was good. It

355
00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:39,439
Speaker 1: was the first drink of water I've had since I

356
00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:43,160
Speaker 1: was killed at the Battle of Shiloh. Now. Other interviewed

357
00:18:43,160 --> 00:18:45,520
Speaker 1: freed people claimed that the water trick was accomplished by

358
00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:47,800
Speaker 1: the klansman holding a bag under his robes that they

359
00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:49,960
Speaker 1: poured the water into right, so they would have like

360
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:51,960
Speaker 1: a tube running from their mouth they'd pour it in

361
00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:55,200
Speaker 1: or something like that. Klansman also stole bones from dead

362
00:18:55,240 --> 00:18:56,959
Speaker 1: people so that they could pretend to rip off their

363
00:18:56,960 --> 00:18:58,960
Speaker 1: own arm and then hand it to a freed person.

364
00:18:59,160 --> 00:19:00,919
Speaker 1: The goal was to ski are black people so that

365
00:19:00,960 --> 00:19:03,640
Speaker 1: the newly independent black farmers would move away and black

366
00:19:03,680 --> 00:19:07,080
Speaker 1: citizens would stay out of predominantly white areas. John Lester

367
00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:09,520
Speaker 1: claims that the switchover from the prank based clan to

368
00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:12,760
Speaker 1: being regulators, as he puts it, happened accidentally when they

369
00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:15,240
Speaker 1: realized that black people who walked past their din got

370
00:19:15,280 --> 00:19:17,720
Speaker 1: scared by the lictors out guarding the door. When asked

371
00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:21,040
Speaker 1: their names, these lictors would reply, a spirit from the

372
00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:23,720
Speaker 1: other world. I was killed at Kickamauga. So these guys

373
00:19:23,760 --> 00:19:26,520
Speaker 1: are pretending to be dead Confederate veterans and they realized that, oh,

374
00:19:26,560 --> 00:19:30,239
Speaker 1: this is scary to people, and they start taking it

375
00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:33,400
Speaker 1: further and taking it further. So we're going to talk

376
00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:35,600
Speaker 1: about where this all leads and how it leads to

377
00:19:35,680 --> 00:19:39,040
Speaker 1: an orgy of unspeakable violence. But first, are you guys

378
00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:43,040
Speaker 1: in the mood for ads? The only thing I want?

379
00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:52,800
Speaker 1: It's like sunshine on my soul, all right, products, And

380
00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:58,159
Speaker 1: we're back talking about the k K K. So I'm

381
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:01,040
Speaker 1: gonna read you another bit from John Uster sort of explaining,

382
00:20:01,240 --> 00:20:03,320
Speaker 1: you know, the evolution of the clan from like harmless

383
00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:08,120
Speaker 1: pranks on everybody to really just screwing with black people. Yeah,

384
00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:11,119
Speaker 1: just a prank. Bro. It's not quiet until it's just racism, bro.

385
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:17,000
Speaker 1: Kind of like read it, it's just racism, bro. Quote.

386
00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:19,040
Speaker 1: In a short time, the lictor of the Pulaski Din

387
00:20:19,080 --> 00:20:21,159
Speaker 1: reported that travel along the road which he had his

388
00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:23,240
Speaker 1: post had almost entirely stopped in the country, it was

389
00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:26,520
Speaker 1: noticed that the nocturnal perambulation of the colored population diminished

390
00:20:26,600 --> 00:20:29,440
Speaker 1: or entirely ceased. Wherever the ku Klux appeared. In many

391
00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:31,399
Speaker 1: ways there was a noticeable improvement in the habits of

392
00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:33,920
Speaker 1: a large class who had hitherto been causing large annoyance.

393
00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:36,120
Speaker 1: And this way the clan gradually realized that the most

394
00:20:36,119 --> 00:20:39,640
Speaker 1: powerful devices ever constructed for controlling the ignorant and superstitious

395
00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:42,000
Speaker 1: were in their hands. Even the most highly cultured were

396
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:44,320
Speaker 1: not able to wholly resist the weird and peculiar feeling

397
00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:47,400
Speaker 1: which pervaded every community where the ku Klux appeared. Every week,

398
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:49,960
Speaker 1: some new incident occurred to illustrate the amazing power of

399
00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:52,160
Speaker 1: the unknown over the minds of men of all classes.

400
00:20:52,480 --> 00:20:55,160
Speaker 1: Circumstances made it evident that the measures and methods employed

401
00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:58,360
Speaker 1: for sport might be effectually used to subserve the public welfare,

402
00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:03,159
Speaker 1: to suppress lawlessness and protect property. So that's how they became,

403
00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:06,880
Speaker 1: in his words, a band of regulators really just stumbled

404
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:08,800
Speaker 1: into it. Yeah. He says that their goal was to

405
00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:11,520
Speaker 1: protect property and preserve peace and order. Oh was it?

406
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:17,040
Speaker 1: Now We're just cops, bro, We're just cops. Just fake

407
00:21:17,119 --> 00:21:23,240
Speaker 1: ghost cops. The realization of the power of terror. Yeah, yeah,

408
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:26,560
Speaker 1: exactly under Ryan Reynolds movie The Realization of the power

409
00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:31,879
Speaker 1: of terror. I actually think the power of terror. That's um,

410
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:39,919
Speaker 1: that's international. Okay, it translates. So tals quickly began to

411
00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:42,359
Speaker 1: spread across the Old South and communities of freed Black

412
00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:44,840
Speaker 1: people that ghosts of dead Confederates or men pretending to

413
00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:46,840
Speaker 1: be the ghost of dead Confederates had started to wander

414
00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:50,360
Speaker 1: the earth. Lester says that KK came in suddenly realized

415
00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:52,760
Speaker 1: that this, yeah, give them another way to dominate their

416
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:55,560
Speaker 1: former slaves, and he and other races claim that the

417
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:59,320
Speaker 1: clan's tactics were powerful because freed people were superstitious. Testimonies

418
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:02,160
Speaker 1: from former slave who experienced KKK raids makes it clear

419
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:04,320
Speaker 1: to me, at least, that superstition was not the issue

420
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:07,920
Speaker 1: of the day. Here is freedwoman An L. Rick Evans.

421
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 1: The Ku Klux Klan just come all around our house

422
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:12,719
Speaker 1: at nighttime and shooting the doors in the windows. They

423
00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:15,520
Speaker 1: never bothered anybody in the daytime. Then sometime they come

424
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:17,560
Speaker 1: in the house, tear up everything in the place, claim

425
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:19,560
Speaker 1: they were looking for somebody, and tell us they're hungry

426
00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:21,440
Speaker 1: because they ain't had nothing to eat since the Battle

427
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:25,240
Speaker 1: of Shiloh. So superstition is probably not a major fact.

428
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:28,880
Speaker 1: They're shooting into your house. It's like, we're ghosts. I'm

429
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:31,280
Speaker 1: not scared of them being spooky. I'm scared they're gonna

430
00:22:31,359 --> 00:22:33,640
Speaker 1: kill me. There's dozens of them and they're shooting at

431
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:37,960
Speaker 1: my house like it's I don't think they're ghost And

432
00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:40,440
Speaker 1: she was like a little kid at the time. They're

433
00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:45,360
Speaker 1: shooting at me, like, and it was clearly like, if

434
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 1: you're a black person this situation, the smart thing to

435
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: do was like, oh, yeah, you're ghosts. Yeah. So the

436
00:22:57,200 --> 00:22:59,920
Speaker 1: claim grew throughout eighteen sixty six. By April of eighteen

437
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:02,600
Speaker 1: sixties seven, it had enough influence that when the Tennessee

438
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 1: Democratic Party held their first midterm convention to pick candidates

439
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:08,200
Speaker 1: for the upcoming elections, the first elections since the war,

440
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 1: every clan leader in the state was invited. They called

441
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 1: themselves the KKK. Historians agree that the timing of these

442
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:17,400
Speaker 1: two meetings was significant. It suggests that the Southern Democrats

443
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 1: wanted to ally with the Ku Klux Klan in order

444
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 1: to create a secret empire powerful enough to overthrow Republican

445
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:25,920
Speaker 1: rule and battle reconstruction policies. No longer was the klu

446
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:28,399
Speaker 1: Klux Klan a social club. With this secret meeting, they

447
00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:33,720
Speaker 1: became a paramilitary organization. So we can't fight the Union

448
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 1: on the battlefield, that's real clear to us. So we

449
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:39,080
Speaker 1: need to fight them as a political entity to still

450
00:23:39,119 --> 00:23:41,399
Speaker 1: get as much of our way as possible. And if

451
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:43,720
Speaker 1: these guys are murdering people in the streets and suppressing

452
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,199
Speaker 1: black people from voting, that helps our bottom line. So

453
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 1: this is what the Democratic Party decides at the time

454
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:52,320
Speaker 1: in Tennessee. Yeah, it's a new war, different war, it's

455
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 1: a different kind of war. Yeah. So during this convention,

456
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:02,000
Speaker 1: the clan laid out the official prescript declaring that they

457
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: quote reverently acknowledged the majesty and supremacy of the Divine

458
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:07,880
Speaker 1: Being and recognized the goodness and providence of the same.

459
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:10,679
Speaker 1: We recognize their relations to the United States Government and

460
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 1: acknowledge the supremacy of its laws. So that sounds nice

461
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:17,160
Speaker 1: and patriotic. What wasn't stated, but was very clear from

462
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,359
Speaker 1: the context, is that the KKK didn't think all of

463
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: the U. S. Government's laws were valid, just like they

464
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:25,240
Speaker 1: didn't think that all U s citizens deserve to be citizens. Now,

465
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:28,439
Speaker 1: during that election season, the RNC put together a document

466
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 1: as well, a guy named or the sorry d NC

467
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 1: put together a document as well. Oh no, sorry, this

468
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: was the RNC, because they are publicly the Republicans were

469
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:37,160
Speaker 1: putting together a document on like sort of. They sent

470
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:40,120
Speaker 1: a guy named Shares around the South to um observe

471
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: the different kinds of people and classify Southerners into groups

472
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: that they could try to figure out a strategy for

473
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: winning elections in the South. Still, even though again the

474
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:49,879
Speaker 1: Republicans had very little power electorally in the South for

475
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:54,439
Speaker 1: you know, most of the post war period. So oh,

476
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 1: how things change. So this guy Shares divided the Southerners

477
00:24:57,720 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 1: he met into four distinct groups. Here's how we disc

478
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:04,360
Speaker 1: the largest group of Southerners. They quote have no definite

479
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 1: ideas about the circumstances under which they live and about

480
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 1: the course they have to follow. Their intellects are weak,

481
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:12,120
Speaker 1: but their prejudices and impulses are strong, and they are

482
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:13,959
Speaker 1: apt to be carried along by those who know how

483
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 1: to appeal to the latter. So that's his description of

484
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 1: the bulk of the South. He noted that these people

485
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 1: had all been thoroughly convinced that furtherir armed resistance the

486
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,439
Speaker 1: state was not the answer, but he warned that they

487
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:26,679
Speaker 1: were still willing to do violence if the right justification

488
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,480
Speaker 1: of rose. The KKK in essence weaponized these men uh

489
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 1: and that fact was clearly its goal by this point.

490
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: So once the Klan Prescript was completed, the Ku Klux

491
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,960
Speaker 1: Klan declared itself the Invisible Empire. They divided the nation

492
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: in the different realms, dominions, and provinces, and prepared for

493
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: their organization to expand across the nation. The goal was

494
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,399
Speaker 1: for the clan to be its own secret country of

495
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:51,120
Speaker 1: racists inside the United States, with its own government dedicated

496
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 1: to the overthrow of every aspect of real society that

497
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 1: was not focused around white dudes. The pre script included

498
00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:00,639
Speaker 1: a list of titles for all their members. Okay Okay,

499
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 1: okay okay. The officers of this Ku Klux Klan shall

500
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 1: consist of a Grand Wizard of the Empire and his

501
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: Tin g I, a Grand Dragon of the Realm and

502
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: his eight Hydras, a Grand Titan of the Dominion and

503
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: his six Furies, a Grand Giant of the Province and

504
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: his four Goblins, a Grand Cyclops of the Den and

505
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,399
Speaker 1: his two nighthawks, a Grand Magi, a Grand Monk, a

506
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 1: Grand exchequer, a Grand Turk, a Grand Scribe, a Grand Sentinel,

507
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,120
Speaker 1: and a Grand insign. The body politic of this clan

508
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:35,360
Speaker 1: shall be designated and known as ghouls. No, no, wait

509
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:37,880
Speaker 1: a minute, real quick, when it's like the Grand Soul.

510
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: And so with his eight dwarves, um is that seven

511
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 1: different positions? Does he get? So he gets to a

512
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 1: point his dwarves, Yeah, he gets, he gets his his

513
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: his goblin dwarfs, his grand Magizes, his night hawks. Fascinating, fascinating. Yeah,

514
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 1: it sounds like cool cool. It's almost indistinguishable from chunks

515
00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:02,880
Speaker 1: of D and D source books that I read. Yeah, yeah,

516
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: it really could be. Now. The KKK printed up a

517
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: bunch of copies of its new prescript and sent them

518
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:09,679
Speaker 1: out to every den in the country for ten dollars

519
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: about a hundred and forty five dollars in modern money.

520
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 1: The clan also picked a leader to go with their

521
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,360
Speaker 1: new more formal style and goals, and they picked as

522
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 1: their leader who else but famous racist Nathan Bedford Forrest.

523
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,159
Speaker 1: Now Forrest was a former Confederate cavalry general and in

524
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,159
Speaker 1: general a very smart guy. Some historians consider him to

525
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: be the greatest cavalry commander of the modern era. I've

526
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: read people who will argue that it took the European

527
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: powers until nineteen fifteen or sixteen to figure out some

528
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: of the things he knew at the start of the

529
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:38,199
Speaker 1: Civil Wars. And he's very good at fighting, and it's

530
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: like one of these really good enough I mean, I say,

531
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:43,640
Speaker 1: the reason that he was so popular among these people

532
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 1: he's one of these very few guys in the cavalry

533
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: who actually fought with a sword on horseback against other guys,

534
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: like killed them. Like. So he's the biggest war hero

535
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:55,439
Speaker 1: that the South has alive other than generally like they

536
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 1: gets him in Forest he's the guy. He's the guy.

537
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 1: So he's warrior. And you can see why all of

538
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: these kind of want to be guys would flock to

539
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: the plan. Fucking Nathan Bedford Forest is in charge. Yeah,

540
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:13,439
Speaker 1: well there you go, smart casting. Smart casting. During the

541
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 1: Civil War, he'd been described as a wizard of the Saddle,

542
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: and so his office title was Grand Wizard. Yeah. Forrest

543
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:23,920
Speaker 1: was famous, particularly within the community of former Confederate veterans.

544
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:26,479
Speaker 1: His name attached to the growing notoriety of the KKK

545
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:28,399
Speaker 1: cause it to swell with new blood, many of them

546
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 1: combat hardened former cavalrymen who were super used to killing

547
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: people from horseback. Yeah. It's at this point that I

548
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 1: should note that during the Civil War, Nathan Bedford Forest

549
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: was the commanding officer of what would be known as

550
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 1: the Fort Pillow Massacre. After the garrison surrendered, Forest ordered

551
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 1: his men not to treat the forts three black soldiers

552
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: as POWs. They were all murdered. So that's this guy,

553
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: this guy who winds up in charge of the clan,

554
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: and we don't know a tremendous amount about his actions

555
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: as head of the KKK because it was a secret

556
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 1: and a quasi illegal organization. He's always kind. They're always

557
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 1: covered with that. Damn she it was secret. What I

558
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: What I do know is that more than a century later,

559
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: a painting of him led to one of the funniest

560
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: headlines I have ever seen in the Washington Post. Cody,

561
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 1: why don't you just try to read that quote? I

562
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: thought it was very nice v a official showcase portrait

563
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: of KKK's first Grand Wizard. I imagine saying is I

564
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 1: thought it was very nice. Old man, just a man

565
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 1: on a horse. It was very nice. Now. Forest claims

566
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: that despite the surgeon membership, the KKK brought in only

567
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: the best people. Quote this is Nathan Bedford, Forest bed

568
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 1: no bed for bed for that's his nickname. They admitted

569
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 1: no man who was not a gentleman and a man

570
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 1: who could be relied upon to act discreetly. No men

571
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: who were in the habit of drinking, boisterous men, or

572
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 1: men liable to commit era or wrong or anything of

573
00:29:55,520 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: that sort. What doesn't seem like they followed their own rules. No, No,

574
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: they did not. Susan Barteletti, using primary sources, makes a

575
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: strong and not surprising case that this was nonsense, and

576
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: she played W. P. Burnett, a seven year old illiterate

577
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: man and klansman at the time. Quote pretty and I

578
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: everybody in our neighborhood belonged to the organization. The leaders

579
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 1: pushed the poor people into it and made them go

580
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: on rates. I was induced to join because they came

581
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: to my house and told me if I didn't, I'd

582
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: have to pay five dollars and take fifty lashes. Well,

583
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 1: you're gonna get you an army if you whip people

584
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: that don't join people can't join us fast enough, either

585
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 1: be racist or will hit you. Well, I'm already racist,

586
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: so I'll pretend to be a ghostism into this fake ghost.

587
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 1: Newspapers continue to play a crucial role in this stage

588
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 1: of the clan's development. Rather than just advertising meetings and

589
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 1: drumming up suspense, many newspapers started to carry what we're

590
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 1: known as coffin notices. These were threats to enemies of

591
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: the clan and of course any black people who lived

592
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: in the area. And here's I I gotta read it.

593
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 1: Here's here's how one of these was written. The Sergeant

594
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 1: and the Scorpion. Already some shall weep, some shall pray.

595
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 1: Meet at Skull for the feast of the wolf and

596
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: dance of the muffled skeletons. The death watches set the

597
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: last out wur cometh. The moon is full. These losers,

598
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: My god, it's someone who at least it's as someone

599
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: who was bullied for bringing D and D books to

600
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: class when I was in middle school. I kind of

601
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 1: get it. I get it. Maybe you gotta put that

602
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: back in the hole sometimes. The Ku Klux Klan was

603
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: strong enough by eighteen sixty eight to make a major effort.

604
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: In the election, Republican U. S. Grant faced off against

605
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 1: Democrat Horatio Seymour. The clan broke for Seymour. By that point,

606
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: racist had hit upon the idea of scaring black people

607
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 1: into not voting and then basically doing everything possible for

608
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: their control of the state and local governments to make

609
00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 1: Black people kind of close to slaves again. This series

610
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: of innovations eventually brought us Jim Crow, but in eighteen

611
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: sixty eight it brought k k K and Nighthawks putting

612
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: together dossiers on local black people who registered to vote

613
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: or gotten some sort of job they didn't think black

614
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 1: people ought to have. The KKK also targeted white people

615
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 1: who planned to vote for Grant, and while their main

616
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: focus was clearly political repression of the Republican Party, they

617
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: also seemed to decide, well, since we're out here committing terrorism,

618
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: we might as well be vigilante cops too, So they

619
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: reported on white men who abused their wives, sold liquor

620
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 1: on Sunday, and, according to Barteletti, even quote boys who

621
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: didn't mind their mothers. Ryan Randolph and Alabama Grand Cyclops

622
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 1: explained the ku klux did not consider themselves lawbreakers, but

623
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: as law enforcers. So the clan would hold regular meetings

624
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: to vote on whether or not to punish someone for

625
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 1: selling liquor or being a black eye vaguely near a

626
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 1: white woman. Some people they'd warned, some people they'd whip.

627
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: Some people they just straight up murdered. White people were

628
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: more likely to start their interaction with the KKK via

629
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: a warning. Maggie Stenhouse was born enslaved in South Carolina.

630
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: Here's how she recalled one of the clans visit to

631
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 1: her home a warning to her father, who was a preacher.

632
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 1: The client did not like black preachers. Really, we're not

633
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 1: fans of that. The clue klux came, pulled off his

634
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: robe indoor face, hung it up on a nail in

635
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 1: the room, and said, where's that Jim Jesus. He pulled

636
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 1: him out of the room. The crowd ran off. Mama

637
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: took three little children, but forgotten me and ran off too.

638
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 1: They beat Papa until they thought he was dead and

639
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 1: throwed him in the fence corner. He was beat nearly

640
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: to death, just cut all to pieces. He crawled to

641
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: my bed and woke me up and back on the steps.

642
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: I thought he was dead. Bled to death on the steps.

643
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 1: Mama come back to leave and found he was alive.

644
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: She docked him up and he lived thirty years after that.

645
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 1: We left that morning, we switched states, left her farm,

646
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 1: and they would regularly go to the farms of black

647
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:37,959
Speaker 1: people who would like had like right when they were

648
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 1: about to harvest, and run them off of their farms

649
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: and take their ship. Yeah to the clan. A visit

650
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: like that was a success. They wanted the black family out,

651
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 1: and they got what they wanted. The book they called themselves,

652
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 1: the KKK, gives more detail on these raids. Quote traveling

653
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: by horseback, a clanned in might cover to thirty miles

654
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: in one night. What is called a raid is a

655
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: night's trip, explained James Justice, a state legislator from North

656
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 1: Carolina who was pistol whipped by several clansmen. They may

657
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 1: commit twenty violations of law and one night. Justice estimated

658
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: several hundred acts of clan violence or outrages in his

659
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 1: county alone over a twelve month period, and even greater

660
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 1: numbers in the neighboring counties. On a raid, the clansmen

661
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: always outnumbered their victims, sometimes forty or more to one.

662
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 1: During the attacks, some clansmen acted theatrically, speaking in fake

663
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: foreign accents are gibberish. They claimed to have come from

664
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: the moon, risen from a Confederate grave, or traveled from

665
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 1: the depths of Hell to sek revenge, expanding their stories.

666
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 1: I do love that the moon comes into it. He consistent, though,

667
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 1: you gotta like, I mean, where a Confederate ghost? Are

668
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:41,720
Speaker 1: you from the moon? He would just do the moon tonight, guys, alight, alright, alright,

669
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: that won't be a goblet. Were moon Cops Cops another

670
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 1: great TV show, I would totally watch Moon Cops. Who

671
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: do we get John Goodman? John Goodman? And uh, what's

672
00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 1: his name? Crazy teeth? He was in the second Predator movie,

673
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 1: Crazy Teeth, Crazy Teeth. He's also crazy his son is

674
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 1: in Starship Troopers. And also it's a fucking weird looking guy.

675
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 1: Can we have Henry Winkler just for fun? Yeah, we

676
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: get it. He would be the commission He was like

677
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 1: the FBI agent. Yes, yes, that's him. Showed Cody the

678
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:27,400
Speaker 1: picture for Gary Busey, John Goodman and Gary Busey. I

679
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: can see that way too. Wow, I'm ashamed a little bit.

680
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't know any of those clues. But

681
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 1: but I'm also excited to see Mooncups. Mooncups. It's in production.

682
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: It's in production right now. It's already been green with

683
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:46,840
Speaker 1: Henry Harry Winkler. Henry Winkler, he doesn't have to the commissioner.

684
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:51,319
Speaker 1: He adds something beautiful to everything he touches. So, you know,

685
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:53,359
Speaker 1: it would be nice, like, since you're going to have

686
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: these guys who are both loose cannons, if the chief

687
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:59,959
Speaker 1: was actually really calm and chill the moon Cops, yeah,

688
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 1: kind sort of supportive. Yeah, bakes them bad like muffin

689
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: baskets after it goes bad. Moon he's the base from

690
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:14,800
Speaker 1: which they springs, the anchor that gives them license to soar. Also,

691
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: they're from Hell and their ghosts and their all ghosts

692
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: of the Moon. I know there's a lot of casting

693
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 1: agents out or you know Netflix, it's free. Yeah, come on,

694
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:28,479
Speaker 1: you got you're making so many shows. Make mood Cups

695
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 1: just raised our rates. So back to the thing. Ku

696
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: Klux Klan spread like wildfire during eighteen sixty eight and

697
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,240
Speaker 1: eventually into every former Confederate state as well as Kentucky.

698
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:41,759
Speaker 1: For some reason, South Carolina at the first state to

699
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:45,240
Speaker 1: succeed had the highest clan membership per capita. Nathan Bedford

700
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: Forrest told the Cincinnati Reporter that year that the KKK

701
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 1: had a nationwide enrollment of five and fifty thousand men.

702
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:53,680
Speaker 1: This former rebel general claiming to have raised an army

703
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:56,360
Speaker 1: of half a million men cast some understandable uproar. What

704
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 1: with yeah? Five days later, four started saying that the

705
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:03,920
Speaker 1: estimate was fake news, misrepresented by the reporter. He didn't know,

706
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 1: but he said misrepresentative. He said it was bad reporting.

707
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: I got to bring some modern times and it's people

708
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: get it. But it is the same thing. Because he

709
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:16,239
Speaker 1: said it was thousand people. He lied. Now historians do

710
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 1: regard that numbers fanciful, but it's clear that the KKK

711
00:37:18,719 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 1: was large during that time, and several hundred thousand members

712
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: is very probable in this period. Now, not all of

713
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 1: the clan, as we already stated, we're virulent racists. Many

714
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 1: of them were just poor guys who were like everyone

715
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:33,399
Speaker 1: else in town has joined, and we're going to get

716
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: fucking shot at. They're just gonna come by your house

717
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:37,359
Speaker 1: and funk us up, so we might as well join

718
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:41,239
Speaker 1: the clan. Probably, I mean everyone everyone. We're not calling

719
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: them woke, but they wouldn't have been fucking with people otherwise.

720
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: They're just like, yeah, Julius looks the other way and

721
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 1: not cared too much. Yeah, it was the South in

722
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,920
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty eight that counts as woke, not not actively

723
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: shooting people who are right. I don't think they have

724
00:37:57,160 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 1: to die. I'm a progressive. I don't load a bullet

725
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: my gun when I fire it near the house of

726
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: a You're welcome, You're welcome. Junius Tendall nineteen went on

727
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 1: three raids with the clan. He reported later quote, I

728
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: was pressed into the order for They said we had

729
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 1: to keep the Newgros down. They said we had to

730
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 1: keep them from overrunning white people. One of his raids

731
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 1: was to scare off a group of black people who

732
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: planned to hold a dance, clearly a threat to white supremacy. Yeah,

733
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:28,360
Speaker 1: here is another quote from that book. They called themselves

734
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 1: the KKK. Today, psychologists explain that people who join groups

735
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 1: such as the Ku Klux klanner and secure and feel

736
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: a need to do something that makes them feel powerful

737
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:38,919
Speaker 1: or superior. Perhaps W. E. B. Dubois, historian and civil

738
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: rights leader understood clansmen best. These human beings at heart

739
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:44,919
Speaker 1: are desperately afraid of something, of what, of many things,

740
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 1: but usually of losing their jobs, being declassed, degraded, or

741
00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:51,280
Speaker 1: actually disgraced, of losing their hopes, their savings, their plans

742
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:54,320
Speaker 1: for their children, of the actual pangs of hunger, of dirt,

743
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: of crime. Yeah still fits psychology. Yeah. I always love

744
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 1: to stop by here and hearing passages about today just

745
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 1: as applicable they were human nature. Here, we hurt others

746
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 1: because we are afraid and are in pain. I am scared.

747
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 1: So I'm going to shoot a gun at someone who

748
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:17,239
Speaker 1: doesn't look like me. Oh yeah, they're not. They don't

749
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: look like you. They don't they don't look like me.

750
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 1: Who am I? If I don't have someone to hate,

751
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,239
Speaker 1: it's their fault. Everything like that. It's their fault for

752
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 1: not looking like me. You go, you know what, That's

753
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:31,400
Speaker 1: not a good way to segue into an AD. It's

754
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 1: a terrible way to segue into an ad. Uh, segways

755
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: are nice. They killed that guy, you know, the guy

756
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 1: who owned the copy. This is off the rails as

757
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: an AD. Wow, you've tried, though you tried. I didn't.

758
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: I did try. Anyone got a product you want to

759
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:50,720
Speaker 1: plug before we roll in, Just a random product, anything

760
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:53,280
Speaker 1: you like. I'm enjoying this coffee that I've been drinking.

761
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:55,760
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of cold brew usually, but today

762
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 1: it's okay. So if you like coffee, pick up a

763
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:01,840
Speaker 1: bottle of whatever kind of coldbrew we have at the office.

764
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: Nobody here remembers the name. Don't tell us the name

765
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 1: would be. If you do, just guess, you'll probably be

766
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 1: right or not. And if you don't want to spend

767
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 1: the money, I'll not just make your own. Yeah, just

768
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: let coffee get cold, that's right. Products. We're back in

769
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,760
Speaker 1: February of eighteen sixty eight, when super racist President Andrew

770
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: Johnson had impeachment proceedings brought against him. The clan threatened

771
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: Thaddeus Stevens, a Republican congressman, quote, this is a free country,

772
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 1: and by Heaven, we will not submit to your damnable

773
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 1: laws any longer. If we have not the power to

774
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 1: remove the laws, then we will remove those who make them.

775
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:45,840
Speaker 1: It's a letter they sent him. So there was a

776
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: lot of blood letting all throughout the South during this period.

777
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: In the run up to the election, South Carolina and

778
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 1: Tennessee were particularly dangerous places, and black people were regularly

779
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 1: beaten or murdered for registering to vote, or helping other

780
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 1: people registered to vote, or even sort of looking like

781
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 1: they might plan on voting someday. A black editorial writer

782
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: in Charleston summed up the defiant attitude of many freed people.

783
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 1: If we are to be a massacred because we refuse

784
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 1: to vote the Democratic ticket, if we are to be

785
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:12,399
Speaker 1: murdered in cold blood, then let it come. We can

786
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: die but once, and in spite of the Klan's terrorism,

787
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 1: newly freed black men turned out to vote in huge

788
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 1: numbers in Georgia. A hundred of them armed themselves with

789
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 1: rifles and handguns in March twelve miles to vote. There

790
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:26,919
Speaker 1: were countless similar stories, groups of women marching in mass

791
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: dozens of miles without the knowledge of their husbands to

792
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,840
Speaker 1: donate money to us Grant's campaign and receive a button.

793
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: The activism and voting of newly freed black people paid off.

794
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 1: On November third, eighteen sixty eight, Ulysses Simpson Grant was

795
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:42,560
Speaker 1: elected president in a landslide two fourteen electoral votes to eight,

796
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 1: and Grant, I gotta say he gets a lot of

797
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: ship in history because there's a lot of corruption in

798
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,280
Speaker 1: his administration, which was not super weird for the time.

799
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,800
Speaker 1: Everybody was corrupt as for any time for any time.

800
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 1: US Grant was a guy never owned a slave. His

801
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: wife did, but he was not a slave owner. Was

802
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 1: not an abo shiinist prior to the war in general

803
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 1: because he was just a hardcore alcoholic and didn't really

804
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: have strong opinions on anything, but didn't like slavery, beat

805
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,879
Speaker 1: the Confederacy, and as a president stuck his neck out

806
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: a number of times to pass laws and push things

807
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: that would like aid in like. He was like, these

808
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:17,880
Speaker 1: people are free, they deserve to vote, and was like

809
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:21,320
Speaker 1: it was pretty good about pushing that like and sacrificed

810
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: a lot of political capital to do the right thing

811
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 1: in that instance. Not a perfect guy, but if you're

812
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:29,440
Speaker 1: looking at like presidents that weren't shitty for black people

813
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:34,319
Speaker 1: up until like fucking like lb J almost TC might

814
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 1: be the best. Um, I mean f dr to like,

815
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 1: but like he he gets he should get some credit.

816
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: Um also smoke dozens of cigars a day, chain smoked cigars,

817
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 1: drank alled. I heard a really cool rumor that the

818
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 1: reason he was so successful as a general because like McClellan,

819
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 1: Lee thought was a way better general than U. S.

820
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 1: Grant Um. But McClellan didn't fucking do anything because he

821
00:42:57,400 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: was too scared to get his army massacred. And so

822
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 1: some stories are well Grant would mainly get wasted after

823
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 1: like planning and stuff. So maybe it was just the

824
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 1: fact that he would like, Okay, this is the plan.

825
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go get ship faced, and like, wouldn't second it.

826
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 1: I've done, and I'm not going to stay up all

827
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 1: night and then panic in the morning. I'm just gonna

828
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 1: get wasted, wake up, hung the funk over and let

829
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: this battle happen. And yeah, I like I like U. S. Grant.

830
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:31,319
Speaker 1: He's an interesting guy. Uh So the Klansmen responded to

831
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:34,719
Speaker 1: his election with an orgy of violence. The Republican legislature

832
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 1: in Tennessee passed a law allowing the governor to send

833
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,600
Speaker 1: the militia into enforce. You know the fact that you

834
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 1: can't murder people. Uh. Nathan Bedford Forrest threatened to raise

835
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 1: forty men if the Republicans sent in the militia. He said,

836
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:49,320
Speaker 1: I have no powder to burn killing negroes I intend

837
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: to kill radicals. There is not a radical leader in

838
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:53,840
Speaker 1: this town, but is a marked man, and if trouble

839
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 1: should break out, none of them would be left alive.

840
00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 1: One of these radicals, apparently was William Luke. He was

841
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:01,799
Speaker 1: a white man who had the goal to come down

842
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:04,359
Speaker 1: from Canada and educate freed black people, because as soon

843
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: as you know these people were freed, there were suddenly

844
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: millions of people who had never gotten an education wanted

845
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 1: to learn how to read the stuff, and so a

846
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: bunch of very brave teachers swarmed into the South. Luke

847
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:20,320
Speaker 1: was radical of them. Yeah, I'm not. I'm just gonna

848
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:24,759
Speaker 1: worried about killing radicals. I'm gonna use it. Ghost army,

849
00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 1: radical radical teaching people numbers right. So the KKK warned

850
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 1: William Luke to leave, and he did not listen. Even worse,

851
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: he dared to fight back. So quote, around midnight, three

852
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: klan dens met at a Baptist church where they voted

853
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 1: to take the law into their own hands. On horseback,

854
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 1: they headed into town and overtook the guards. Realizing his fate,

855
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 1: William Luke allegedly told the klansman, I know I've done wrong,

856
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 1: but I don't deserve this. At gunpoint, the Klansman abducted

857
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: the five prisoners just outside Cross Plains. They lynched the

858
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:56,879
Speaker 1: four black men from a tall oak tree, the guys

859
00:44:56,880 --> 00:44:59,879
Speaker 1: who'd been protecting him. Saving Luke for last. Before hanging,

860
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: they allowed him to write a letter to his wife,

861
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: who still lived in Canada with their six children. It's

862
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: a heartbreaking letter. It's a heartbreaking story. Yeah, but that's

863
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: the KKK. The American Missionary Journal reprinted the warning that

864
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 1: one of their teachers received from the Mississippi kkkden to

865
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: give you an idea of the sort of warning these

866
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 1: people sent out. And it's going to be m Larpi.

867
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: First quarter, eighth bloody moon Ere, the next quarter be gone,

868
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,919
Speaker 1: Unholy teacher of the Blacks, begone ere. It is too late.

869
00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:33,839
Speaker 1: Punishment awaits you, and such horrors as no man ever

870
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 1: underwent and lived. The cusped moon is full of wrath,

871
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 1: and as its horns fill, the deadly mixture will fall

872
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: on your unhallowed head. Beware, when the black clack cat sleeps,

873
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:46,320
Speaker 1: we are the dead and yet live. Who are watching you, fool,

874
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 1: adulter and cursed hypocrite? The far piercing eye of the

875
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 1: Grand cyclops is upon you fly the wrath to come

876
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:59,759
Speaker 1: ku klux Klan. It's pretty embarrassing you talk like that

877
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: way that way around your kids, like they save it

878
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 1: all up for these kinds of save it all up

879
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:07,920
Speaker 1: for these kinds of things. They were just if someone,

880
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:10,400
Speaker 1: if if fucking Gary Guy Jacks had invented D and

881
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:13,399
Speaker 1: D in one, we might have been saved a lot

882
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: of trouble. Yeah, they just wanted to like talk like

883
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:19,759
Speaker 1: that with their buddies. Really, some impulses that might have

884
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 1: been redirected away from murdering people, just like, let's bring

885
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:27,440
Speaker 1: that over here. Yeah, there's a productive way to do that.

886
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:30,799
Speaker 1: Have you thought about writing short fiction? A sheet off?

887
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 1: Here's some Diecraft was just as racist as you, and

888
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:36,880
Speaker 1: people still read his stuff. If you heard what his

889
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 1: cat was made, don't have it was the inn word. Really, Yeah,

890
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: I knew that. I forgot about that. Yeah, it's really bad.

891
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 1: It's really bad. The KKK continued to raid after the

892
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:56,640
Speaker 1: disastrous eighteen seventy election, during which the Democrats lost again.

893
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: All this violence was eventually too much for the President ULYSSI. Simpson.

894
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: Grant was not a perfect man. He himself would have

895
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 1: been the first person to tell you that. But he

896
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: seemed to genuinely believe in legal equality for black people,

897
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: or at least more legal equality for black people than

898
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 1: the vast majority of white folks were willing to put

899
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: their neck out for him. And he was no fan

900
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:17,760
Speaker 1: of some goddamn confederate raising an army in his country

901
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 1: and terrorizing. I know u s grantacy. They're like a

902
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 1: rebel army. Yeah, and one thing we tell about not

903
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 1: like rebel armies. In April of eighteen seventy one, he

904
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,719
Speaker 1: signed the Civil Rights Act of eighteen seventy one into law.

905
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:40,720
Speaker 1: At the time, it was known as the Ku Klux

906
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: Klan Act. This act made it a federal offense to

907
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:46,479
Speaker 1: interfere with someone's right to vote, hold political office, serve

908
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 1: on a jury, etcetera. It was basically the y'all have

909
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,439
Speaker 1: to start treating Black people like people Act. This act

910
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: banned groups of people from conspiring to where disguises to

911
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 1: intimidate or hurt people. Any group accused of these crimes

912
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:00,080
Speaker 1: we tried in federal court. The act also authorized the

913
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:02,800
Speaker 1: federal government to send in troops and to spend habeas corpus.

914
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 1: It's the kind of ruling that can be terrifying even

915
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:07,799
Speaker 1: when applied to racists because of its implications. But there

916
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 1: was no slippery slope into tyranny this time. Mass Arrestive

917
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:13,200
Speaker 1: clansmen followed in its good thing to mass arrest. If

918
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: you kind of mass arrest, somebody wouldsmen maybe maybe goblins here,

919
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 1: the dwarves there, low gets in there, I want to

920
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:31,600
Speaker 1: hear Charlie from Always Sunny in Philadelphia read the KKK

921
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 1: right fun not place at all. YEA, many clansmen flip

922
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 1: the country. In South Carolina, two thousand prominent citizens and

923
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:49,240
Speaker 1: clansmen left for Canada. Maythan Bedford Forrest and the grand

924
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 1: tradition of all good right wing gang leaders rolled on

925
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:59,359
Speaker 1: his fellow clansmen in exchange for immunity. Nothing change. That's

926
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: a good stuff. That's that ship. He was questioned by

927
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 1: Congress quote from they called themselves the KKK. Despite the immunity.

928
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 1: Forced evaded the questions, often claiming he didn't know, although

929
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:12,239
Speaker 1: men who knew Forest While credited him with a quick

930
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 1: mind and a good memory. Forced repeatedly told the prosecutor,

931
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:17,799
Speaker 1: I do not remember and I do not recall. He

932
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: refused to admit his role in the clan, but he

933
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 1: justified the orders vigilante violence, arguing that klansmen defended the

934
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:26,200
Speaker 1: South against Northern Republican aggression and from outrages committed by

935
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 1: black people. I think this organization was got up to

936
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: protect the week, said Forest, with no political intention at all.

937
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 1: Forrest claimed to have ordered the clan to disband back

938
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty eight. He successfully held up under congressional testimony,

939
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:41,240
Speaker 1: and later in a bar was heard telling a friend,

940
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: I've been lying like a gentleman. Okay. I love it

941
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:52,919
Speaker 1: so literally, just like I didn't start it. I don't

942
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:54,439
Speaker 1: have anything to do with it. But I think it's

943
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 1: a good club. It's a good club, pretty good club

944
00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 1: because the world man. Yeah, I gave him Againnis mabn

945
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 1: him from that playbook History, It's great. Look how it happens.

946
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 1: In the three thousand, three hundred nineteen Clansmen were ultimately

947
00:50:15,239 --> 00:50:16,920
Speaker 1: brought in as a result of the government's war in

948
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 1: the KKK. A little over eleven hundred were actually jailed.

949
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:24,400
Speaker 1: Here's the Guardian quote. Maria Carter of Harrelson County, South Carolina,

950
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 1: testified that klansmen broke into her home, pointed a gun

951
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:28,640
Speaker 1: at her husband and frightened him to the point that

952
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 1: he could not speak. They forced Carter's husband to go

953
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 1: with him to a neighbor's house, where the assaulted a

954
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,279
Speaker 1: woman so ferociously that Carter remember that the house looked

955
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 1: quote as if somebody had been killing hogs. There. The

956
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:40,840
Speaker 1: men shot and then severely whipped the woman's husband. Carter's

957
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 1: husband was beaten mercilessly. His clothes were blood soaked. In

958
00:50:43,480 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 1: the next morning, they clung to his body. After Grant

959
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 1: one re election, he went on to pardon many of

960
00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 1: the arrested clansmen under the justification this was the only

961
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:53,520
Speaker 1: way to heal the divide between white people in the South.

962
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: It may have done that. What is certain is that

963
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: by eighteen seventy two, the KKK was no longer a

964
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:02,279
Speaker 1: major force in public life. Fortunately for racists, it turned

965
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:04,600
Speaker 1: out that vigilante violence was never the answer they were

966
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 1: looking for. Gradually disenfranchising black people through the law was

967
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:10,919
Speaker 1: the answer. In eighteen seventy seven, the first Jim Crow

968
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:12,959
Speaker 1: Laws were passed, bring me an end to the brief

969
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:15,320
Speaker 1: period of time where Southern blacks had a notable amount

970
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:18,360
Speaker 1: of political power. The plan would stay buried for decades.

971
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:21,000
Speaker 1: Jim Lester, writing in the eighteen eighties, ended his book

972
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:24,400
Speaker 1: on the KKK with this line, there never was before

973
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 1: since a period of all history when such an order

974
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:30,160
Speaker 1: could have lived, May there never again? He was wrong

975
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,759
Speaker 1: about that. On our next episode, we're going to talk

976
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:36,759
Speaker 1: about the phoenix like resurrection of the KKK during the

977
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:39,799
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. It's going to be a gigantic bummer, but

978
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 1: not the bummer you're expecting. Okay, Yeah, this one goes

979
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:48,000
Speaker 1: some weird places. But before it goes some weird places,

980
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:53,359
Speaker 1: y'all should plug the plugables that you have to plug plugables. Yeah, yeah,

981
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:58,160
Speaker 1: watch our show and show yea our podcast news show.

982
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:01,160
Speaker 1: The videos show is called Some More News is on YouTube.

983
00:52:01,200 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 1: It's on YouTube. You can check out patreon dot com,

984
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:06,200
Speaker 1: slash some More News on Twitter dot com slash some

985
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: more newsweet, and we're on We're on the Twitter Twitter

986
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:10,960
Speaker 1: to thank you for taking that ball and running with you,

987
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:14,040
Speaker 1: Dr Mr Cody, or you can find me on Twitter.

988
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:16,760
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at I right. Okay.

989
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: You can find my book on Amazon, A Brief History

990
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:21,239
Speaker 1: of Vice, and you can find me in your heart

991
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:25,040
Speaker 1: anytime you enjoy the satisfying crunch of the Dorrito's corn

992
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:29,360
Speaker 1: based snack. My god, just thinking about Dorrito's. How do

993
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:31,920
Speaker 1: you say that? I really want to you guys want

994
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:34,480
Speaker 1: to grab some Dorritos before? Yeah? Yeah, well let me

995
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 1: let me plug the stuff that's not Doritos and then

996
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:38,600
Speaker 1: we'll have a little derrito break before we talk more

997
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 1: about the KKK. You can find us online behind the

998
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:44,920
Speaker 1: Bastards dot com. You can find us on Instagram and

999
00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:49,080
Speaker 1: Twitter at Bastards Pod. You can buy t shirts, reverse

1000
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:53,360
Speaker 1: clan robes, and other branded content like cups at t

1001
00:52:53,520 --> 00:53:00,839
Speaker 1: public dot com. So bye bye and I'll so bye bye.

1002
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:08,279
Speaker 1: By the episodes over m h m hm