Civil Rights of 1871In the United States of America Blacks have always suffered from injustice. Africans were brought to America against their will and turned into slaves.
Even after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation African Americans still struggled to be free. The white southern farmers were so used to having slaves do their work for them that they became very angry. A group called the KKK which stood for Ku Klux Klan came together and were totally against all the laws concerning freedom of slaves. The Ku Klux Klan was formed as a secret fraternal organization that promoted violence of any kind (encyclopedia.com). Throughout its cruel history the Ku Klux Klan was responsible for murder, lynching, arson, rape, and bombing all in order to oppose the granting of civil rights to African Americans or any other minorities (encyclopedia.com).
The KKK was not about to deal with seeing former slaves having equal rights. Having equal rights meant that everyone had the right to buy, rent or own property. During this time in history, violence was so bad that Congress could not control it.In 1871 there was a big shake up in American history especially pertaining to former slaves of the African American community.
On April 20, 1871 the legislative body had to respond to this brutal violence (encyclopedia.com). The Ku Klux Klan was responsible for the majority of the violence going on during this period of time. The Civil Rights Act of 1871 was passed by the 41st U.S. Congress to prevent public officials and the KKK in the South from violating the constitutional rights of former slaves (usedulaw.com).
The Civil Rights Act of 1871 was used in the United States federal law to stop the racial crimes and violence against blacks (encyclopedia.com). The law was passed to protect southern blacks from the Ku Klux Klan who were doing everything possible to see that civil rights for ex slaves of the South would not happen in no kind of a way (encyclopedia.com). The Congress had led the Civil Rights Act of 1870 and 1871 law which had been a big part America’s history and also the Constitution of the United States,” which was becoming to be the Second Enforcement Act (encyclopedia.com). The act was put in place to protect African Americans from the Klan and their violence during Reconstruction, giving those prosperous of the constitutional rights by someone of a different color of the law and the right to seek relief in a federal district or circuit court (encyclopedia.com).
This became an inferior violent problem in the south with the legislation and later it happened to make a part of the United States lawsuits which was against state and the local officials. In March of 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant requested from Congress legislation that would address the problem of Ku Klux Klan violence, which had grown efficiently since the group’s formation. The Ku Klux Act was very popular, The Congress had to refuse President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to support the Ku Klux Klan (encyclopedia.
com). In 1871, The Ku Klux Act led to nine of South Carolina’s counties which were very effective. It was not until May 1871, when President Grant broadcast an issue and a more federal agency that the white leaders in South Carolina finally called off Klan activity (encyclopedia.com). These attacks were the work of a number of white supremacy groups, the most notorious of which was the Ku Klux Klan (encyclopedia.com).
What made the situation really awful that there was evidence that state politicians were behind a lot of these violent actions and were so cunning that they tried to persuade the law enforcements not to do their jobs by upholding the laws(encyclopedia.com). The criminals who committed these cruel acts of violence never received their just due punishment (encyclopedia.com).The Fourteenth Amendment gave Congress the power to address the problem President Grant described(encyclopedia.com). Representative Samuel Shellabarger which was a Republican from Ohio was properly introduced by a bill that would cease the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (encyclopedia.com).
Works Citedhttps://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-canada/us-history/ku-klux-klanhttps://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/social-reform/civil-rightshttp://usedulaw.com/215-civil-rights-act-of-1871-section-1983.html
