X Confederates didn't let go of slavery lightly.

They did what they could to hold on to it.

And so African Americans largely had to fight their way out of bondage.

They had to fight to escape the people who had been holding them in slavery.

And so as they escaped, they're enduring a lot of violence.

There are a lot of people who are killed.

Hello and welcome to Wise This Happening With Me Your Host, Chris Hayes.

Last week on the podcast, as I'm speaking to you here, and maybe weeks later, as you

listened, we had Dialith Wiccon about her fantastic book, Lady Justice.

And one of the chapters in that book, which we discussed, was a chapter about a litigator named

Robbie Kaplan, and another one named Karen Dunn, who were two elite high-powered lawyers who

brought this incredible case in Charlottesville in which they sued the organizers of the

United Right Rally under a federal law from 1871 that actually really hadn't been used in

a very long time. That's called the KKK Act, the Klan Act, also known as the Enforcement Act.

And the basic law under which they sued, which was passed by a Reconstructionary Congress,

gives people who are on the receiving end of threats, intimidation, and violence by organized

white supremacists a private right of action to enforce their civil rights through lawsuits,

through federal lawsuits. Now, why would such a lobby necessary? The reason such a law was

necessary is that when it was passed in 1871, in the wake of the Civil War, the KKK had organized

and grown and was essentially using mob violence, threats of mob violence, extortion,

intimidation, public showings of force to undo the gains of Black Americans,

freedmen in the language of the time, in the wake of the Civil War. And so powerful and insidious,

...