Social justice and impeachment: Thaddeus Stevens was a trailblazer for both
Ornery, witty and devoted to Black equality, Stevens was a real ally.
Rep. Thaddeus Stevens fought for equality after the Civil War.Anjali Nair / MSNBC; Getty Images
Jan. 18, 2021, 10:32 AM UTC
Thaddeus Stevens is a name that not nearly enough Americans have heard. It never popped up when I was learning history in school, using textbooks that still described the carpetbaggers of Reconstruction-era America as sly Northern villains. Stevens, an early Republican member of the House of Representatives, served in an era when his clear moral stance was often shunned. He was a civil rights icon and the exact kind of ally Black Americans need again today.
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N APRIL 13TH 1873 a group of armed white men rode into Colfax, Louisiana, a town around 200 miles north-west of New Orleans. Included in their number were members of the Ku Klux Klan and Knights of the White Camelia, both terrorist groups devoted to maintaining white rule across the American South. They were coming to seize the courthouse, then occupied by black and white Republicans who claimed victory in a disputed election the year before (Republicans were the party of Abraham Lincoln and emancipation). Republicans called on their supporters, most of whom in Colfax were black, to defend them.
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