They Called Themselves the K.K.K. Quotes

“In April, President Grant signed the Civil Rights Act of 1871, better known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. This new law enforced the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been ratified nearly three years earlier in 1868. The Ku Klux Klan Act made it a federal offense to interfere with an individual’s right to vote, hold office, serve on a jury, or enjoy equal protection of the law.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“The strongest chains with which the body of a man can be bound are the chains of ignorance. You keep a man ignorant and you’ve got him. You don’t have to stand guard over him with a shotgun. You don’t have to lock him up at night. Just turn him aloose and he isn’t going any place.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“Today, psychologists explain that people who join groups such as the Ku Klux Klan are insecure and feel a need to belong to something that makes them feel powerful or superior.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“Speaking in eerie voices, the Klansmen claimed to be the ghosts of Confederate soldiers who had died in battle and needed water.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“Someone else suggested adding the word “klan,” a word also meaning “band” or “circle,” and so they did. In this way, the name Ku Klux Klan was cobbled together, a redundant, alliterative name that meant, simply and ridiculously, “circle circle.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“Encouraged by President Johnson, Southern lawmakers quickly passed laws called the Black Codes.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“Most white Southerners believed that God created black people for the special purpose of working and serving white people.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“During times of crisis or uncertainty, people often resort to rumors, or stories circulated without facts to confirm the truth, to help them cope with anxieties and fears. Of all the rumors, racial and hate rumors are considered the most dangerous because they are divisive and create hostility that can lead to violence.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866