Analysis Of The Klu Klux Klan

For the soldiers and families that had fought in the Civil War for years, the end meant victory; it meant that slavery would be abolished and things would turn for the better. All the suffering enslaved people had previously suffered would be over and the South would no longer be able to mistreat them. Finally, all men would be equal. This vision seemed like a happily ever after for America, a justice that was finally served. However, this dream never became reality. When the Civil War is thought of today, most see a valiant effort to rid America of slavery forever, and stop the vastly unequal practices that many white Americans relied on. The war is seen as its own story, beginning with people who were kept as property, and ending with the

This cartoon was published in 1874, almost a decade after the Civil War had ended, and yet these people were still in dangerous and cruel situations. The Klu Klux Klan, as defined by A.J. Bowser, was a “social club” whose philosophy was “white superiority…and they would often use violence and terrorization of Blacks as a means of exercising this philosophized superiority.”(Bowser) The KKK was formed shortly after the Civil War ended, and “blacks and white sympathizers were often threatened, beaten, or even murdered by Klan members in the South.” The member of the Klu Klux Klan is one of the most dominant figures in the cartoon, showing the club’s prevalence in post-Civil War times. The words “worse than slavery” are aptly displayed in the image, showing that people who had believed they would no longer be treated as animals were still subjected to abuse, constantly “threatened, beaten, or murdered” (Bowser) even with freedom. The cartoon showcases the racism that became prevalent in America after the war, and reveals the reality of life after war. Nast wiped away the idea of a perfect, slavery-free world with this drawing and drew a line from the end of the Civil War to segregation. People that had advocated for African-Americans felt like saints and those that had fought against them felt anger at having lost. They all felt a

The ““old” Jim Crow (a rigid pattern of racial segregation), lynching, disenfranchisement...that left little room for ambition or hope” (Graff) are examples of what African-Americans in the South went through after the war ended. Both the phrase “Worse than Slavery” and the image of a man being lynched in the background of the shield are elaborated in the article because “in the late 19th and early 20th century, some two or three black Southerners were hanged, burned at the stake, or quietly murdered every week…generated by a belief system that defined a people not only as inferior but as less than human.” Rather than the image of a united, peaceful America, the reality as shown in the shield in the cartoon was devastation, destruction, and death. As Nast wrote, “This is a white man’s government.” The enslaved people who had been freed were still subject to such brutality and made to be treated “less than human.” A giant skull and crossbones are shown in the cartoon and that shows the prevalence of death and despair that existed a decade after the war for freedom had ended. Thousands of people died in the name of equality for enslaved people, but this group of people continued to be vulnerable to attack even after such a big effort. These people were still made out to be animals whose deaths made little to no impact on the