They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti 322.420973 BARTOLET

In 1866 six men decided to form a club to terrorize and harass blacks in the small town of Pulaski, Tennessee. In almost no time at all this group began to grow until it was the largest terrorist group to operate on American soil. Susan Campbell Bartoletti takes a chilling look at the rise of the most notorious hate group in America and how they used terrorism, violence, and murder to try and keep a race of people subjugated for decades.

The principal idea that the KKK were not just a hate group but actually terrorists is a compelling one and Bartoletti does a great job of providing evidence for her argument. This is a easy to read and hard to forget history of how such a racist and violent group could form while law enforcement turned a blind eye. It is important to remember the true history of the KKK because groups like them have always tried to lie about their own history. This book is filled with horrifying and heart wrenching firsthand accounts of what it was like to live as a secondhand citizen in a society that was ruled over by terrorists.