Violence and Backlash

• What made Ku Klux Klan violence possible and acceptable to so many Americans as a reaction to Reconstruction?

• Significant political and social change often provokes a backlash when large portions of the population do not support the change.
• Backlash, especially when it results in violence, is corrosive to democracy.

This lesson is designed to fit into one 50-minute class period and includes:

• 3 activities
• 1 video
• 3 readings
• 1 extension activity

Before watching the video Violence and Backlash, it is important to ask students to reflect on the effects of violence and terror on a democratic society and the ways in which that society might respond. Begin this lesson by prompting students to write a short reflection in response to the following question:

How should a democratic society respond to violence and terror?

After students have spent a few minutes recording their thoughts, use the Think, Pair, Share teaching strategy to have them share their ideas with each other.

Show the video Violence and Backlash, pausing at the 7:45 mark. Before showing the video, share the following questions with students to guide their note-taking:

1. According to the scholars in the video, to what were the perpetrators of violence during Reconstruction reacting?
2. What was the Ku Klux Klan? What were the Klan’s goals?
3. What can you infer from the video about the goals of political violence? What examples of political violence does the video provide?

Debrief students’ responses as a class.

Now that students understand the historical context, give them the opportunity to bear witness to the violence by reading a firsthand account from Abram Colby, a survivor of Klan violence who testified before Congress. It is important to give students the time to confront and respond together to the violence and terror depicted in the primary source document they analyze.

Read Klansmen Broke My Door Open aloud as a class. After reading, use the Wraparound teaching strategy to help the class process the reading together. Students will first share a phrase or sentence from the reading that they find surprising, interesting, or troubling. Close the lesson by asking students to share a single word that describes their experience of reading this testimony.

After processing a description of Klan violence together, the class can now engage in a deeper analysis of how such violence was possible and permissible to so many in American society in the 1860s and 1870s. Read aloud as a class or in small groups the following analyses by W. E. B. Du Bois and historian Eric Foner:

• Collaborators and Bystanders
• A Nucleus of Ordinary Men

Then ask the class to consider these questions:

1. What made Ku Klux Klan violence possible and acceptable to so many Americans as a reaction to Reconstruction and interracial democracy?
2. What evidence does the film provide to help you answer this question? Record your initial thoughts in your journal.