The Record of Murders and Outrages Quotes

“Most agents did the best they could under difficult circumstances; however, the limitations of the Freedmen’s Bureau’s infrastructure, lack of clear policies, and other structural matters within the agency guaranteed that their monthly reports, contrary to Democrats’ claims, understated the crimes in their jurisdictions. Southern whites also had a hand in limiting a fuller accounting of atrocities against Black people. White people used various forms of coercion to prevent African Americans from seeking justice with military authorities, including murder.7 Because of this, officers of the Freedmen’s Bureau believed that atrocities were underreported by at least half. Meanwhile, the half that the agents gathered told a shameful story of law enforcement officers in the South turning a blind eye to, and even encouraging, slayings, beatings, burglaries, and sexual assaults.”
― William A. Blair, The Record of Murders and Outrages: Racial Violence and the Fight over Truth at the Dawn of Reconstruction

“Most agents did the best they could under difficult circumstances; however, the limitations of the Freedmen’s Bureau’s infrastructure, lack of clear policies, and other structural matters within the agency guaranteed that their monthly reports, contrary to Democrats’ claims, understated the crimes in their jurisdictions. Southern whites also had a hand in limiting a fuller accounting of atrocities against Black people. White people used various forms”
― William A. Blair, The Record of Murders and Outrages: Racial Violence and the Fight over Truth at the Dawn of Reconstruction

“and Gone with the Wind, popular books, and textbooks joined with biased academic histories to indoctrinate Americans with erroneous ideas about law and order in the post–Civil War South. Concerns remain about the lack of public knowledge of the era—especially for how, in the words of the Equal Justice Initiative, the deadly attacks in the first years of freedom paved the way for the later era of racial terrorism that employed lynching to solidify Jim Crow policies and practices. The extent of atrocities has”
― William A. Blair, The Record of Murders and Outrages: Racial Violence and the Fight over Truth at the Dawn of Reconstruction

“Even when confronted with seemingly hard evidence, critics dismissed the murders, rapes, assaults, and other outrages on Black people as either cultural or social conflicts rather than struggles over political power to maintain white supremacy. They claimed that if African Americans experienced crime, it was nothing more than the usual violence occurring everywhere in America, including between white people. They also claimed, without proof, that white people were more often the victims of outrages perpetrated by Black people.”
― William A. Blair, The Record of Murders and Outrages: Racial Violence and the Fight over Truth at the Dawn of Reconstruction

“In a media landscape that was as partisan as the halls of government, Democrats and conservative Republicans refused to believe correspondents from opposing newspapers about lawlessness. Doubters also rejected the testimony from witnesses delivered before congressional committees under oath and denied the existence of the Ku Klux Klan.2”
― William A. Blair, The Record of Murders and Outrages: Racial Violence and the Fight over Truth at the Dawn of Reconstruction

“landscape that was as partisan as the halls of government, Democrats and conservative Republicans refused to believe correspondents from opposing newspapers about lawlessness. Doubters also rejected the testimony from witnesses delivered before congressional committees under”
― William A. Blair, The Record of Murders and Outrages: Racial Violence and the Fight over Truth at the Dawn of Reconstruction