December 1865

The 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery and involuntary servitude 'except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.' The exception clause was immediately exploited by Southern states: by criminalizing ordinary Black behavior through vagrancy and Black Code statutes, states could re-enslave Black people through the criminal justice system. Convict leasing — which sent prisoners to work for private companies under brutal conditions — was directly enabled by this constitutional exception and became the dominant labor system in several Southern states.

Confederate veterans including former General Nathan Bedford Forrest founded the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee, on Christmas Eve 1865. Within two years it had spread across the South as a terrorist organization targeting Black voters, officeholders, teachers, and community leaders, along with white Republicans. Using night raids, beatings, and murder, the Klan systematically dismantled Black political participation. Forrest served as first Grand Wizard.

Slavery is abolished — except as punishment for crime, a loophole that enables convict leasing.

A terror organization forms in Tennessee to attack Black citizens and Reconstruction.