A Buried Statute Opens New Doors
Clip: Season 10 Episode 1002 | 1m 11sVideo has Closed Captions
A legal team working to get justice for victims of the KKK finds hope in a 150-year-old statute.
A legal team working to get justice for victims of the KKK finds hope in a 150-year-old statute.
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Support for Reel South is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Center for Asian American Media and by SouthArts.
A Buried Statute Opens New Doors
Clip: Season 10 Episode 1002 | 1m 11sVideo has Closed Captions
A legal team working to get justice for victims of the KKK finds hope in a 150-year-old statute.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipWe found this statute called The Ku Klux Klan Act.
It had been buried, and it was passed in 1871, right around the time reconstruction was taking off in the South.
President Grant sent a message to Congress saying, "law enforcement throughout the South basically are Klansmen, when they go to lynch people."
Grant said, "I don't have the power under current law to do anything about this."
And he said, "I'm asking for federal legislation."
BEN CRUMP: The 1871 KKK Act was passed because the Southerners who had lost the Civil War still had not acquiesced to this notion that Black people were free.
We needed Congress to act, and what they produced was this unprecedented law at the time.
RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: And that statute created a right to file a lawsuit in federal court by the victims of Klan violence.
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How to Sue the Klan | Official Trailer
Video has Closed Captions
Five Black women take on the Klan in a landmark 1982 civil case for justice. (17s)
Video has Closed Captions
After five Black women are shot by members of the KKK, the three men face trial. (1m 34s)
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Support for Reel South is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Center for Asian American Media and by SouthArts.