Disenfranchisement of Black Citizens
The above was part of a protracted struggle that stretched back centuries. After the Civil War, black citizens in much of the former Confederacy were able to vote, run for office, and get elected. However, the end of Reconstruction ushered in a concerted disenfranchisement campaign, relying mainly on poll taxes and discriminatory voter registration practices. By the 1890s, blacks were effectively eliminated from politics in the South. Disenfranchisement was backstopped by terror and violence, perpetrated by white police, and reinforced by white vigilantes such as the Ku Klux Klan. Blacks who tried to assert their rights or organize other blacks to assert their rights were seen as “troublemakers”. They were frequently beaten, mutilated, imprisoned, or lynched.
By the time the Civil Rights Movement began in the 1950s, the KKK had long preyed on Blacks with impunity. Collaboration between the Klan and police was pervasive and often open. Southern cops frequently denied civil rights activists police protection, and sometimes helped the KKK murder them. In 1964, for example, police in Philadelphia, Mississippi, detained three civil workers, then coordinated with the Klan to lynch them upon their release from jail. So during the 1950s and much of the 1960s, the Klan had free rein to terrorize and murder civil rights workers. The widespread violence prompted many activists to arm themselves for self-protection. Dr. Martin Luther King’s home had so many firearms, that visitors compared it to an arsenal. Since Southern police had demonstrated that black lives did not matter, armed black groups emerged for self-defense. Most notable among them were the Deacons For Defense and Justice.