The Man Who Took On The Klan
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What historical context led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina?
A note before we get started. This episode contains descriptions of racist violence.
Yorkville, South Carolina, July 27, 1871.
Give us your best information with regard to the disturbances in this county at the last election by men in disguise. Well, sir, there is no doubt about the matter. There have been several men killed since the last election. Can you give me the names and circumstances? The first killing I remember was Roundtree. Tell us something about the raids you were on.
The first raid I was on was on the 2nd of December. A week or ten days before the night, Ned Turner came over to the shop where I was at work and told me that they were going to make a raid on Roundtree.
Who was Tom Roundtree? He was a black man. What position in his race?
He occupied no position at all. What was his politics? He did not meddle in politics much, I don't think.
You're hearing readings of testimony about a murder in York County, South Carolina that happened the year before, in 1870. The men were testifying in front of Congress.
Well, when the night came on, I went down there.
Some four or five fellows there, I asked them what they was going to do. They said they was going to kill him. I asked them what they were staying there for. They said they were waiting for some people to come from the other side of the river. He then hollered for them all to form a line in the road and start.
They went to about a quarter of a mile of Roundtree's house and got down and hitched the horses.
Roundtree was a cotton farmer who lived in York County. He had just come back from selling his cotton in Charlotte, North Carolina with $200 in his pocket. Around one o'clock in the morning, 60 or 70 Klansmen surrounded his house.
And somebody fired. I don't know which side fired the first gun. When the first gun was fired, about 50 or 75 guns were fired into the cracks and windows of the house.
He went up in the loft. They discovered it.
Roundtree run to the edge of the loft and shot down at us in the entry. He then jumped out of the window. I run out and run around and just got around when I saw him fall. Henry Sepah came up and drew a long bowie knife.
Then they shot him and cut his throat. It was moonlight. They had balls of turpentine and lit them.
That got the attention of practically everybody.
Tom Roundtree's killing was part of the Ku Klux Klan's campaign to restore white power in South Carolina by keeping Black people from the ballot box.
And it gets to be really chaotic. Over the next several months, black folks start burning gin houses and crops of white farmers around York County.
Black resistance spawned white reprisal. The Klan embarked on a reign of terror in the South Carolina upcountry. The violence got so bad that the governor of South Carolina sent a telegram to President Ulysses S. Grant warning that South Carolina was in a state of war. He even threatened to declare martial law. The Civil War had ended only a few years before.
How did Tom Roundtree's murder exemplify Klan violence?
Enter Amos Ackerman, a former Confederate soldier and slaveholder, and the newly appointed Attorney General of the United States. Ackerman was in charge of the brand new Department of Justice, created to enforce federal law in the South and protect Black people from violence. He believed in the rule of law, and he had the power of the U.S. federal government at his disposal.
He comes in and he's interested in one thing. He's interested in getting rid of the Ku Klux Klan.
But that would prove easier said than done.
I'm Randa Abdelfattah.
And I'm Ramtin Arablui.
Today on the show, the man who took on the Klan.
Hi. Hi. This is Carolyn from Wappingers Falls, New York, and you're listening to ThruLine from NPR. Part one, there had never been peace. When the war began and black Carolinians heard the first shots, a lot of those people heard the sound of freedom.
And that was true for Black people across the South.
The end of the war, it came just like that. Like you snap your fingers. How did you know the end of the war had come? How did we know it? Hallelujah broke out. Felix Haywood, enslaved in Texas.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What historical context led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina?
0:00–4:37
2
How did Tom Roundtree's murder exemplify Klan violence?
4:37–9:06
3
What role did Amos Ackerman play in combating Klan activities?
9:06–13:27
4
How did the Reconstruction Acts impact Black political participation?
13:27–18:56
5
What challenges did federal authorities face in prosecuting the Klan?
18:56–23:51
6
What were the outcomes of the Klan trials in South Carolina?
23:51–29:11
7
How did the political landscape change after the Klan trials?
29:11–33:59
8
What legacy did the Klan trials leave on civil rights and federal authority?
33:59–48:37