Another point of view

Rating: Null/10 (18 October 2005)

In reading the comments, I think it's important for people to try to be open-minded, and perhaps put themselves in the shoes of white southerners of the time.
The truth is that the south was in fact oppressed by the north after the civil war, and most white southerners were in fact disenfranchised, and deprived of their civil rights. Southern blacks were not a majority in most states, and were only elected to office because of this disenfranchisement.
This is all despite the fact that most southerners never owned slaves, and some blacks did own slaves.
There is also evidence that there was in fact lawlessness and anarchy in the South during this period, with the northern occupying soldiers not particularly concerned with protecting white southerners from newly freed slaves, not all of whom were saints or benign.
In light of the above, I'm not sure we can blame southerners from creating groups like the KKK to protect themselves. Those who claim to sympathize with groups like the black panthers in the 1960's, or Palestinian militias today, should be able to understand the perspective of a group that has been disenfranchised and oppressed, and feels the need to fight back.
As others have noted, the KKK in the 20th century was a completely unnecessary evil, because white southerners at that point already had their civil rights back, and completely dominated local government, to an unjust extent. However, the KKK during the time of reconstruction was simply a different entity, with different causes.