75: Reconstruction (Part 3): The Rise of the KKK and the First Black Men in Government

History That Doesn't Suck

ProfGregJackson

Education, History, Society & Culture

4.5 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2020

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Boys, let us get up a club or society of some description.” This is the story of Reconstruction peaking and its opponents organizing to fight back. With Radical Republicans at the helm of Reconstruction, the former Confederate states are forced to make new state constitutions that include black men in the process. The outcome is nothing short of revolutionary. Black men not only come away with the vote but the ability to run for office! Black Americans like PBS Pinchback, Robert Smalls, and Robert Elliott are soon filling the highest offices in the land—even Congress. But this change is far too radical for some ex-Confederates. When six Tennessean men form a social club, it quickly takes a paramilitary turn. Its former rebel members realize that the only way to restore the antebellum world they long for is through violence and murder ... and they aren’t above resorting to such measures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode contains stories of racial violence that some listeners may find disturbing.
0:04.4	Listener discretion is advised.
0:07.5	History that doesn't suck is a bi-weekly podcast,
0:09.8	delivering a legit, seriously researched hard-hitting survey of American history through entertaining stories.
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0:26.8	To keep up with HTTDS News, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
0:39.4	It's the evening of May 12, 1862.
0:43.0	A three-deck steamship with a massive smoke stack and two powerful paddle wheels
0:47.9	called the CSS planter. It's tied up at Charleston, South Carolina's Southern Warf.
0:53.7	It's been a long week. While she hasn't gone past the arc of U.S. Navy warships
0:58.6	blockading the harbor, the planter has spent several days laboriously moving Confederate guns
1:03.5	from one nearby island to another, and her 10-man crew is spent.
1:08.8	Captain Charles J. Rayleigh and his two officers are looking forward to their warm beds in the city
1:13.6	tonight. Now what they're doing isn't by the book. Confederate General Order Number 5 states
1:19.9	that officers are to stay on their ships and be ready to sail at a moment's notice.
1:24.3	But hey, these officers aren't worried. Where are these exhausted enslaved sailors going to do?
1:30.7	Use all the right steam whistle codes to sail the planter past Charleston Harbour's
1:35.1	several Confederate forts, then signal the Union fleet that they're friendly?
1:39.9	Even if they knew the codes, that'd be suicidal.
1:43.3	Insane.
	...

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