Congressional intervention could seat Black lawmakers, but white backlash soon dismantled Reconstruction

Evidence

The speech aroused the ire of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists. A statement in the Columbus Weekly Sun, a local newspaper, declared that “we should be neither seized with anger or regret” if Turner were to be lynched. He survived and Congress intervened, compelling the Georgia state legislature to seat the elected Black lawmakers, including Turner. But over the next nine years, Reconstruction would begin to crumble as white politicians, law enforcement, and Christians banded together to push back violently against the autonomy of Black people in the South. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1036

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Wilentz letter / 1619-Project-dispute frame about how much of American development to attribute to slavery versus organic white backlash. — connects to: Confederate monument construction spikes track eras of white political reassertion. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 342