KKK Terror Campaign in South Carolina — Hundreds Attacked

Throughout 1870–71, Klan riders in Spartanburg, York, and Union counties of South Carolina conducted a systematic terror campaign against Black voters and Republicans. Congressional testimony documented over 200 murders and hundreds of beatings in York County alone. Witnesses described masked riders dragging men from homes, flogging women, and burning schools. The testimony drove passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act.