White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction

by Allen W. Trelease, Karen Cox (Foreword by)

Overview

Allen W. Trelease’s White Terror, originally published in 1971, was the first scholarly history of the Ku Klux Klan in the South during Reconstruction. With its research rooted in primary sources, it remains among the most comprehensive treatments of the subject. In addition to the Klan, Trelease discusses other night-riding groups, including the Ghouls, the White Brotherhood, and the Knights of the White Camellia. He treats the entire South state by state, details the close link between the Klan and the Democratic party, and recounts Republican efforts to resist the Klan.

Winner of the Charles S. Sydnor Award from the Southern Historical Association

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807180235
Publisher:	Louisiana State University Press
Publication date:	02/22/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	614
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Allen W. Trelease (1928–2011) was professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for twenty-seven years. He authored several books on southern history, including Reconstruction: The Great Experiment.

Karen L. Cox is professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her most recent book is No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice.

Editorial Reviews

A paper edition of a scholarly history--first published in 1971 and based largely on primary sources--that treats the post-Civil War South state by state and details the close link between the Klan and the Democratic Party. Trelease (history, U. of North Carolina-Greensboro) also looks at other "night-riding" groups, such as the Ghouls, the White Brotherhood, and the Knights of the White Camellia. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Professor Trelease’s pages stand as a monument to the heroic minority, those freedmen and white Republicans who resisted the seemingly endless Democratic terror and who often paid for their determination with their lives.

Journal of American History

This splendid study has stripped the Klan of the heroic imagery . . . and has revealed it for what it really was: a vicious organization manned by white Southerners of all classes, who hated, bullied, tortured, murdered, and betrayed, apparently without shame or remorse.

Journal of Southern History

White Terror is an important revisionist contribution to Reconstruction historiography—well-researched, well-organized, well-written.

Civil War History