Ku Klux Klan Violence and the Problem of Evidence

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Abstract
This article offers a forensic analysis of one key archive of sexual violence: The official record of a congressional investigation of the Ku Klux Klan and federal trials of Klan members in the years immediately after the American Civil War. The 13 volumes constitute the single most important source of victim testimony on white supremacist violence and are used widely by historians. It also presents daunting problems of interpretation particularly with respect to sexual violence. This analysis challenges historians’ traditional accounts of the Klan as overly reliant on the Republican party narrative that it constituted the terrorist arm of the Democratic party intent on suppressing black men’s new constitutional right to vote.As I argue here, the Klan’s campaign of terror aimed at something far more, as the routine deployment of sexual violence against women reveals. Sexual regulation was the very core of white supremacy. The representation of the Klan in the official record—its signature acts, motives, and victims—was shaped not by the patterns of the violence itself but by the objectives of the investigation in the battle over public opinion and political strategy. In time and place, I argue, the narrow framing of Klan violence around electoral politics involved real costs to black women victims of the Klan with respect to the protection of their civil and political—or human—rights.
Reference Key
persistent_1761420418_68fd2482c96ed Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Stephanie McCurry
Journal ADVANCES IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL PRACTICE
Year Year not found
DOI
10.1017/S0738248025101065
URL
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/law-and-history-review/article/ku-klux-klan-violence-and-the-problem-of-evidence/3F4521B6CE72AD2ED0BB39AD2EE35C22
Keywords Keywords not found

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