The Ku Klux Klan mounted counterpickets to protect segregationist businesses

Evidence

Trapped between black boycotts and white counterboycotts, Rich’s management must have thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse. To their dismay, the Ku Klux Klan proved them wrong. When the sit-ins started, the hooded order—now known as “the U.S. Klans”—rushed to Rich’s aid. In late October 1960, just prior to the truce, Klansmen established their own picket line around the embattled store. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 435

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Segregationists recruited businessmen as their moderate alliance cracked — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 440; Segregationists understood resistance as defending their own rights and freedoms — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 31; City rebuilding of private anti-integration barricades aligned officials with Klan defenders — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 22

Broader Connections

• Segregationists understood resistance as defending their own rights and freedoms #expands (0.85) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 31