This Day in History: April 20, 1871

The Civil Rights Act of 1871 destroyed the first incarnation of the KKK.

Every American over the age of ten know the abbreviation KKK stands for Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group founded in Tennessee by a former Confederates in 1865. Starting off as secret fraternal organization, the KKK morphed into a paramilitary organization that murdered and intimidated African-Americans and their white Republican allies throughout the American South. By the beginning of the 1870’s, their actions had successfully suppressed black and white Republican voters throughout the…