Genre: non-fiction, U.S. History
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Review: Although the title of this book is somewhat misleading, as Ulysses S. Grant is something of a minor characters, there is a lot of information about the early KKK, and anyone interested in American History will find this book a worthwhile read. Grant was a strong proponent of civil rights, but he's not really the focus of the book. Bordewich does justice to Grant, detailing legislation he championed in support of civil rights, as well as the judges and cabinet members he appointed who helped make his vision a reality.
And it was a reality. Sort of. For a little while. The reader learns about many of the new elected officials, many newly emancipated, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, and the ways their activism pushed forward the civil rights agenda.
Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, there's a backlash, and it is this that forms the bulk of this book. Alongside the stories of brave people who fought for equal rights are the stories of people who believed in both segregation and subjugation, and the violence they perpetrated in pursuit of their goals. There are numerous descriptions of lynchings, assaults, brutality, and cruelty as the KKK became more organized.
Readers will learn the many ways in which the KKK of the 1860s and 1870s was different from what we now think of as the Klan, and may be surprised to find out that the Klan was essentially dormant from the late 19th century until the early 1920s, at which point it was increasing immigration that provided the impetus for the resurrection of the Klan into what we know today.
