On November 28, 1871 the South Carolina Klu Klux Klan trials began. This was brought to court because of several arrests and trial of other KKK members in the south, particularly in South Carolina. The federal government attempted to show how far they would go to preserve the fourteen and fifteenth amendments to the constitution. The Fourteenth amendment was intended to secure the rights of former slaves and the Fifteenth amendment was that the U.S may not prevent a citizen from voting based on their race(1).
The Klan was more active in South Carolina for many reasons one being that the Republicans, who were supported by the majority of blacks, won the election in 1870. The worst part of these actions by the Klan was in the northern parts of South Carolina such as Spartanburg, Union, and York counties. For example, in Spartanburg, from the election to July 1971 four people were killed and 200 beaten, whipped, wounded by gunfire, and had their ear cut off by a Klan member. The Federal Government got involved when the Enforcement Act was passed because it made it a Federal offense for two or more persons to deprive someone of any right of their citizenship(1).
At the end of the trial, of the 220 of the Klansmen that were indicted, only 5 were prosecuted and charged with violating the Enforcement Act. 53 others pleaded guilty. All the others cases were postponed. There were only four trials because two of the Klan members were tried together and at all four of those trials, the majority of the jurors were former slaves(1).
- Alex S.
(1) http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3498200088.html
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