Inside the Ku Klux Klan’s Plan to Conquer America
My high-school history teacher was infamous for repeating information that she wanted her classes to remember. Anything worth knowing was generally said at least three times, which was her indication that we needed to take notes.
“Reconstruction: 1865 to 1877,” Ms. Thomas would chant.
It was the beginning of my tenth-grade year and the first time I had ever even heard about the political timeline just after the Civil War. During Reconstruction, the federal government put laws in place in attempts to help African Americans adjust after enslavement. Black people were running for political office, getting advanced degrees, and broadening their professional and social endeavors en masse.