Life of a Klansman : a family history in white supremacy
by
 
Ball, Edward, 1958- author.

Title
Life of a Klansman : a family history in white supremacy

Alternate title
Family history in white supremacy

Author
Ball, Edward, 1958- author.

Summary
Life of a Klansman tells the story of a warrior in the Ku Klux Klan, a carpenter in Louisiana who took up the cause of fanatical racism during the years after the Civil War. Edward Ball, a descendant of the Klansman, paints a portrait of his family's anti-black militant past that is part history, part memoir rich in personal detail. Sifting through family lore about 'our Klansman' as well as public and private records, Ball reconstructs the story of his great-great grandfather, Constant Lecorgne. A white French Creole, father of five, and working class ship carpenter, Lecorgne had a career in white terror of notable and bloody completeness: massacres, night riding, masked marches, street rampages--all part of a tireless effort that he and other Klansmen made to restore white power when it was threatened by the emancipation of four million enslaved African Americans. To offer a non-white view of the Ku-klux, Ball seeks out descendants of African Americans who were once victimized by 'our Klansman' and his comrades, and shares their stories. For whites, to have a Klansman in the family tree is no rare thing: Demographic estimates suggest that fifty percent of whites in the United States have at least one ancestor who belonged to the Ku Klux Klan at some point in its history. That is, one-half of white Americans could write a Klan family memoir, if they wished. In an era when racist ideology and violence are again loose in the public square, Life of a Klansman offers a personal origin story of white supremacy. Ball's family memoir traces the vines that have grown from militant roots in the Old South into the bitter fruit of the present, when whiteness is again a cause that can veer into hate and domestic terror.

Edition
First edition.

Contents
Prologue: Our Klansman -- The Ku-Klux Act -- Grands blancs / Big Whites -- Tribes -- Introduction to an Atrocity -- White Terror -- Petits blancs / Little Whites -- Redemption.

Physical Description
395 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Genre
Biographies.

Personal Subject
Lecorgne, Constant, 1832-1886.
 
Lecorgne family.

Corporate Subject
White League (La.) -- Biography.
 
Ku Klux KLan -- Biography.

Subject Term
Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)
 
Racism -- History -- 19th century.
 
White supremacy movements -- History -- 19th century.
 
Creoles -- History -- 19th century.

Geographic Term
New Orleans (La.) -- Race relations -- 19th century.
 
New Orleans (La.) -- Biography.

Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

Publication Date
2020

ISBN
9780374186326

Publication Information
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.

Call Number
305.8 BALL


Item BarcodeCollectionCall NumberStatus
33607003499517Adult Nonfiction305.8 BALLChecked In