From 1868 onward, Southern terror groups like the Klu Klux Klan carried out a brutal repression of both blacks and whites complicit in the plan to give the former slaves social and political equality. Thousands – especially prominent blacks – were whipped, beaten, mutilated and killed. The Southern political apparatus, primarily the Democratic Party, was no friend to blacks either, and in conjunction with the Klan carried out a de facto disenfranchisement through fraud and intimidation.
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