Commonwealth Club of California Podcast
News:Politics
The Ku Klux Klan rose from the ashes of the Civil War. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan had tens of thousands of members, many of them landowners, lawmen, doctors, journalists, and churchmen, as well as future governors and congressmen. The Klan’s mission was to obliterate the democratic power of newly emancipated Black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrific means imaginable.
To repel the tidal wave of violence, President Ulysses S. Grant waged a two-term battle against both armed Southern enemies of Reconstruction and Northern politicians seduced by visions of postwar reconciliation. In his new book Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction, historian Fergus Bordewich transports us to the hamlets of the former Confederate States and to the marble corridors of Congress, where an unsung generation of Black leaders tried to hold onto Reconstruction-era political gains, and where senators such as Carl Schurz from Missouri, and the ruthless former slave trader and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest, worked to eliminate the rights of Black Americans in the name of political “reform.”
Join us for a special online-only program as Bordewich shares the stunning history of the first national anti-terrorist campaign waged on American soil, as Ulysses S. Grant wielded the power of the federal government to dismantle the KKK. It is also a bracing reminder of the bloody, Reconstruction-era roots of current battles to protect the ballot box and to undercut resurgent white supremacist ideologies.
A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Batya Ungar-Sargo: The Working Class and the American Dream
CLIMATE ONE: Fighting Fossil Fuels in the Courts and on the Ballot
Ari Berman: Minority Rule and Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Democracy
CLIMATE ONE: Big Plastic: The New Big Oil
Week to Week Political Roundtable: February 22, 2024
Philippines–U.S. Relations: Evolving Opportunities and Challenges
Jonathan Haidt with Tristan Harris: The Anxious Generation and the Epidemic of Childhood Mental Illness
Youth Talk: Are We Too Polarized to Govern? The Importance of Working Across Political Divides
Annie Jacobsen - Nuclear War
CLIMATE ONE: When California Dreams Hit Political Reality
Excessive Punishment: How the Justice System Creates Mass Incarceration
Justice Stephen Breyer: Reading the Constitution
David Sanger: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West
Antonio López: Civic Leader, Poet, and Mayor of East Palo Alto
CLIMATE ONE: REWIND: Building a Better Battery Supply Chain with JB Straubel and Aimee Boulanger
Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action
Special Southeast Asian New Year Celebration
CLIMATE ONE: Artificial Intelligence, Real Climate Impacts
Susannah Fox: Rebel Health
Overlooked Histories of the Bay and Beyond
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free