Joseph H. Rainey

Radical Republicans faced opposition both inside and outside of their party. The most dangerous of these opponents were the members of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was formed after the Civil War by white Southern Democrats who sought to regain control of the war-torn region, which was governed during Reconstruction by Radical Republican politicians. Klan members held secret meetings where they planned violent acts, including murder, against blacks and their Radical Republican advocates. In the following viewpoint, excerpted from his statement before Congress, South Carolina representative Joseph H. Rainey details some of the Klan’s atrocities and charges that the nation must pass laws that will protect the life and liberty of black Southerners and white Republicans. Rainey, a Republican, was the nation’s first black congressman.

Ineed not, Mr. Speaker, recite...