The Ku Klux Klan trials began in the Federal District Court in Columbia, South Carolina, marking one of the earliest large-scale federal attempts to protect the civil rights of African Americans after the Civil War. These trials were part of President Ulysses S. Grant’s Enforcement Acts, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Acts, designed to curb racial terrorism by white supremacist groups in the South.

Hundreds of Klansmen were indicted for crimes including murder, assault, intimidation, and conspiracy to deny Black citizens their right to vote and participate in civic life. The trials exposed the widespread, violent backlash against Black political and social progress during Reconstruction and underscored the federal government’s willingness—at least temporarily—to intervene.