Backlash and the KKK

Lesson Plan

Day 1 

Activity 1: Reflect on the Experience of Confronting Violence in Society

Before beginning the lesson, briefly review the class contract with students. This will help to reinforce the norms you have established and reinforce the classroom as a safe space for students to voice concerns, questions, or emotions that may arise. Begin this lesson by prompting students to write a short reflection in response to the following question:

Write about a time when you learned about an incident of violence in your community, in the news, or in history. How did it make you feel? What did you need to do to process it or understand it? What impact did it have on you and those around you?

After students have spent a few minutes recording their thoughts, ask for volunteers to share their thoughts. We suggest that you make sharing optional, in case students have written about experiences they prefer to keep personal.

Activity 2: Watch the Video “Violence and Backlash”

The clip from the video Violence and Backlash (0:0–9:40) provides an overview of two different periods of violence during the Reconstruction era, and it helps students distinguish between the vigilante violence of the Ku Klux Klan—which was largely ended by federal law enforcement—and the paramilitary violence that erupted later in the 1870s and played a key role in ending the period of Radical Reconstruction. Before showing the video, share the following questions with students to guide their note taking:

1. According to the scholars in the video, what were the perpetrators of violence reacting to during Reconstruction?
2. What was the Ku Klux Klan? What were the Klan’s goals?
3. What can you infer from the video about the goals of political violence? What examples of political violence does the video provide?

Activity 3: Read and Respond to “The Klansmen Broke My Door Open”

In the reading Klansmen Broke My Door Open, Freedman Abram Colby provides firsthand testimony about the violence and terror inflicted on Black Southerners by the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1860s and early 1870s. It is important to give students time, space, and structure to process this story both individually and together.

Distribute Klansmen Broke My Door Open and read it aloud once as a whole group. Then give students time to reread the document. As they do so, have them record the following in their journals:

• One sentence from the document that they find surprising, interesting, or troubling
• One word that describes their experience reading this testimony

Process the document as a whole group using the Wraparound strategy. 

Start with the sentences students recorded. One at a time, have students share their sentences. It often works best to have students simply respond in the order in which they are sitting. This way, you do not have to call on students to respond; once their neighbor has had a turn, students know it is their turn to present. Be sure to tell students not to say anything except the sentence they identified, because otherwise the activity will lose the desired effect. It is okay if the same sentence is read more than one time.

After everyone has shared, you can ask students to report back on common themes that have emerged or on something that surprised them. Repeat the activity a second time, asking students to read the word they wrote down to describe their experience reading the testimony.

Activity 4: Allow Students to Process their Learning 

Before ending the period, ask students to briefly complete an exit card. Pass out index cards to each student and ask them to record one comment, question, or connection that they have about what they learned and experienced in class today. Collect the cards as they leave class.

Day 2 

Activity 1: Acknowledge Exit Cards

Begin by acknowledging the exit tickets that students completed at the end of the previous lesson. Point out any patterns that you noticed in the students’ comments, and address any questions you received that might pertain to the experiences of the class as a whole. Unless you have permission from students, it is usually best to keep anonymous the authors of any specific exit card comments you discuss.

Activity 2: Explore Sources about Klan Violence

In this activity, students will examine sources related to Klan violence using the Big Paper silent discussion strategy. (See Teaching Note 1 to prepare for the Big Paper activity.)

• Divide the class into groups of three or four and prepare a piece of chart paper for each group with one of the following readings taped in the middle:
  • A Nucleus of Ordinary Men
  • Collaborators and Bystanders
  • Protecting Democracy

• Make sure that each student has a pen or marker to write with, and then give them eight minutes to have a written discussion about their assigned handout in complete silence. The following question can help guide their discussion: How does this document help you understand the factors that made Ku Klux Klan violence possible and acceptable to so many Americans as a reaction to Reconstruction and interracial democracy?

• The written conversation should start with students’ responses to these questions, but it can continue wherever the students take it. Students should feel free to annotate the text. If someone in the group writes a question, another member of the group should answer it. Students can draw lines connecting a comment to a particular question. Make sure students know that more than one of them can write on the Big Paper at the same time.  
• After the ten minutes, rotate each group to a different “big paper” and give them two or three minutes to read the document and the written conversation on that paper. They can add new comments and questions if they have them. Then rotate the groups one more time, making sure that each group has seen each of the three handouts at least once.  

Activity 3: Diagram the Causes of Klan Violence

To help students consolidate what they have learned and sharpen their reflections on the causes and nature of Ku Klux Klan violence as a backlash to Reconstruction, use the Iceberg Diagrams strategy. Draw an iceberg diagram (or project the handout Analyzing the Causes of Klan Violence) on the board. Lead the class through the following steps to fill in the diagram:  

1. Introduce the metaphor: Ask students what they know about icebergs

   or show them a picture of an iceberg, focusing on the idea that what you see above the water is only the tip of the iceberg. The larger foundation rests below the surface.

2. The tip of the iceberg: In or around the tip of the iceberg, ask students to list

   all the facts they know about Ku Klux Klan violence in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Questions they should answer include: What happened? What choices were made in this situation? By whom? Who was affected? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Write the ideas supplied by the class on the diagram on the board.

3. Beneath the surface: Ask students to think about what factors caused or enabled Klan violence. Answers to the question What factors made Ku Klux Klan violence possible and acceptable to so many Americans as a reaction to Reconstruction and interracial democracy? should be written in the bottom part of the iceberg (under the water line). Consider letting students discuss possible answers to this question in pairs or small groups.
4. Debrief: Prompts you might use to guide journal writing and/or class discussion include:
   • Of the causes listed in the bottom part of the iceberg, which were corroborated by more than one document? Were any mentioned in one document and then contradicted in another?
   • Of the causes listed in the bottom part of the iceberg, which one or two do you think were most significant? Why?
   • What more would you need to know to better understand the factors that made Klan violence possible?
   • What could have happened, if anything, to prevent the rise of Ku Klux Klan violence?

You might also pass out copies of Analyzing the Causes of Klan Violence to students (or have them draw iceberg diagrams in their notebooks) so that they can fill in their own diagrams as you guide them through the steps. If class time is short, students can complete their iceberg diagrams for homework.