October 1870

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.

On October 25, 1870, white Democrats opened fire on a Republican political rally in Eutaw, Greene County, Alabama, killing four Black men and wounding approximately 54. The attack was part of a systematic campaign of electoral violence in Alabama in 1870. Greene County had a large Black majority and was a Republican stronghold; the massacre was designed to suppress Black voting in the November elections. Federal troops were requested but did not arrive in time. The perpetrators faced no criminal penalties.