Advancing the Dream: 8 notable Civil Rights victories
2. Enforcement Acts
Formed shortly after the end of the American Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan was a prominent domestic terrorist organization in the South during the 1860s and 1870s.
The KKK was known for its targeting of newly freed African Americans who attempted to exercise their recently won rights to vote, run for public office and serve on local juries.
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In response, Congress passed multiple acts in 1870 and 1871, sometimes known as the Enforcement Acts, the Force Acts, or the Ku Klux Klan Acts.
These laws enacted a series of measures, including the barring of groups from going “in disguise upon the public highways, or upon the premises of another" to violate the constitutional rights, greater enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment, giving the administration of national elections to the federal government, and empowering the president to use the military to counter groups that attacked equal protection laws.
“While the Force acts and the publicity generated by the joint committee temporarily helped put an end to the violence and intimidation, the end of formal Reconstruction in 1877 allowed for a return of largescale disenfranchisement of African Americans,” noted the Senate Historical Office.
