Attempting political power over whites, not activism, triggered Klan retaliation

Evidence

My mother always thought he had been run out of town because he took civil rights cases, but that’s not what the research revealed. He was run out of town because he ran for city council. He wanted to wield power over his white neighbors, and that was a bridge too far. As a result, he was forced to close his practice and flee north. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 39

Categorization

• SEED: The distinction between civil-rights lawyers tolerated and black men seeking governing power — a piece on which acts whites punished as ‘bridges too far’ in the Jim Crow era.
• QUESTION: What exactly did ‘uppity’ mean as an implicit code for threats to white political dominance? The archive may specify case law and statutes that reinforced it.