Were there equivalents of pogroms perpetrated against Black people in the US? Is there an estimate for number of victims of the KKK? What is the public debate about it at the moment?

by Eldridy

I grew up in Europe, so don't know that much about US history, and from this perspective, when reading US media it seems like that part of history is not really discussed at the moment.

I've been reading about the 20th century pogroms against Jews and other minorities in Eastern Europe including Russia.

In Poland for example we had a 'controversial' public debate about the pogrom in Jedwabne where a town was complicit in killing hundreds of Jews.

Having recently watched Mississippi Burning it seemed like the complicity in ethic violence in part of the US was a pretty widely spread phenomenon.

Can somebody give me more facts/numbers about that please?

-what form did the violence take? was it one off events, or were there events similar to pogroms that took place in Europe?

-what are the approximate numbers of victims of the KKK? Can somebody point me to a study about it?

was there ever an open public debate about it? Were the perpetrators brought to justice and did the victims of the KKK and their families ever receive public apologies?

-can somebody point me towards relevant literature please?

thank you.

The Nadir of Race Relations occurred from about 1877 to 1920. A particular shocking example of things going really badly, with widespread riots against blacks and black neighborhoods (similar to pogroms, in their own way) was the Red Summer of 1919.

Most Americans, however, aren't really aware of the systemic nature of that particular period. They usually will think of "slavery" as the worst time for black people in America, and the lynching era that took place afterwards is not dealt with in depth practically at all, comparatively. Perhaps this is because it occurred within one generation of living people. (Nobody wants to admit that grandpa might have been at a lynching party.)

I learned a lot from James Loewen's Sundown Towns--it deals with the whole whitewashing of the entire backcountry of the United States over this time period, using lynchings and other threats. Also, it explains how ghettos happened, both Chinese and black.

Edit: Also, I don't think it works to focus entirely on the KKK. Most lynchings were perpetrated by ordinary people--they weren't necessarily members of anything but a mob. See here for more.