Dominic Sandbrook

They'll probably vote for us.

Anyway, the Republicans win a clean sweep.

Among the white Southerners, there is this sense of terrible shock.

They can't believe that their African-American neighbours have voted against them.

And late that summer, Captain Judd of the Freedmen's Bureau reports on the Klan for the first time.

And he writes, this society is very numerous and it seems to extend all over the country, meaning the county.

They march about the streets thoroughly disguised in uniform.

I'm credibly informed that they are heavily armed.

I am sure they're capable of great mischief if they undertake it.

The best citizens here say this Ku Klux Klan is got up by the young men merely for fun, and they never intend to interfere with anyone.

This may well be true, but I doubt it mightily.

The Klan is poised to expand now.

From a few counties in central Tennessee, it is then going to burst out of Tennessee to every state in the former Confederacy.

And for all its talk of honour and chivalry, the Ku Klux Klan is about to unleash a reign of terror.

Now, Tom, you and I, when we're together, we always argue about one thing, don't we?

It's the existence or otherwise of the Loch Ness Monster.

But you, foolishly, are sceptical and you don't think that there is a monster beneath the freezing waters of that Scottish loch.

Well, Tom, this back and forth is what makes studying history so fun.

And actually, Claude was made for this kind of thinking.

Try Claude for free at claude.ai slash restishistory.