A leading historian of the Ku Klux Klan brings the story of America's oldest terrorist society. This book shows how Klan violence actually aided the civil rights movement of the 1960s and revolutionized the role of the national government in the protection of civil rights. It also shows how Morris Dees finally found a way to bring the Klan down.

David Chalmers, the leading historian of the Ku Klux Klan, brings the story of America's oldest terrorist society up to date. Chalmers skillfully shows how Klan violence actually aided the civil rights movement of the 1960s and revolutionized the role of the national government in the protection of civil rights. He follows the forty-year struggle to punish Klan murderers through the courts of Alabama, Georgia, and the U.S. Supreme Court, and how Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center finally found a way to bring the Klan down.

The challenges of the 1960s
laissez-faire, violence &
confusion after the school decision
Bombingham
friends in high places - George Wallace
freedom riding
the long hot summer
Mississippi
Selma
making the justice system work
Klansmen on trial &
the Klan's campaign of terror against the Jews of Mississippi
decline
Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church and the Black Jesus
confrontation, poor-boy politics &
revival in the late 70s death in Greensboro
David Duke steps forward
Klan hunters - Morris Dees &
The Southern Poverty Law Center
yesterday, today, forever - Klansmen, Klanswomen, terrorists &
loose cannons
the fifth era - an explosion on the right
coda - Patrick J. Buchanan.