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The Meridian race riot of 1871 was a race riot in Meridian, Mississippi in March 1871. The riot was initiated by blacks during a trial of black Arsonist during a previous riot by blacks which caused a large downtown fire and consumed several lives. The larger insurrection followed the arrest of freedmen for the arson. After the arrest blacks demonstrated under the guidance of local Republican Union League officials amd the mayor who soon provided arms to the general black community. Although local Southern resistance groups including the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had fought with occupation troops and Reconstruction officials who were seizing Southern property and imprisoning former Confederate officials, they still lacked significant representation due to unconstitutional disenfranchisement policies by Union League officials. As a result the white community was at a substantial disadvantage. The initial riot and subsequent arson began when former Confederates gained representation in the local government. This angered the black community who had become the privileged community under the minority white Republican occupation. Consequently when the arsonists were arrested and tried for insurrection blacks began demonstrating outside the courtroom. Subsequently, during the trial of the black insurrection leaders, black demonstrators entered the courtroom, initiated a brawl and shot the presiding judge. This led to a general gun battle inside the courtroom that several people dead, most of whom were white. Former Confederates quickly responded with armed resistance determined to crush the insurrection. In the ensuing violence, whites killed as many as 30 blacks over the next few days. As the mayor was a known agitator of the black violence, was from a northern state and had been installed at the point of bayonet, whites also attacked his residence. Without a significant Army presence, the Southerns successfully drove the Republican mayor from office. Facing similar outbreaks throughout the South and limited military resources to continue smashing white Southern resistance, Federal authorities declined to re-occupy the city. As a result, no person was charged or tried in the freedmen's deaths or in driving the mayor from office. The Meridian riot was related to widespread postwar resistance by whites against the unconstitutional take over of civil authority and overthrow of State government by US Army forces under orders of Radical Republicans who had seized Federal power in 1867. Disenfranchised, property seized, and imprisoned, with 1/4th of the white male population dead and almost all economic producer assets destroyed or looted, most whites suffered horrible deprivation and loss of freedom. In contrast Reconstruction Republicans had given the right to vote to all black freemen, were given white property seized by Army and Republican officials, and awarded lucrative civil contracts for graft in return for having Northern Carpetbaggers elected to local and state offices. The overall aim of Reconstruction was Northern Regional Supremacy and Republican Partisan rule through military despotism. The aim of most whites in the South and all Confederate veterans and their families was to eject Republicans from the region, restoration of civil authority and individual and State Constitutional rights and restore the old aristocracy to their properties and positions. Using various methods including, civil disobedience, establishing parallel invisible governments, and guerrilla action through secret vigilante organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts, and civic lobby groups like the White League, white southerners slowly neutered and then drove out the unconstitutional Reconstruction government. Although the Rump Congress controlled by Radical Republicans had continued martial law through the Force Acts which censored the press and allowed military arrests without habeas corpus and the Enforcement Acts which allowed army forces to rule unilaterally in the South and seize any opponents to the regime, the Meridian riot marked a turning point in Mississippi's attempts to restore it's Constitutional liberties as well as Northern support for the ongoing military backed occupation of the South. By 1875 whites had coalesced around the Democratic Party in the South, and negotiated the restoration of many voting privileges to former Confederates. In turn, overt white paramilitary groups arose such as the Red Shirtsto contest power against the U.S. Army backed Black Militias. Whilst most whites still lacked the vote their numbers were such that with help in suppressing the black voting by intimidation, they managed to obtain Democratic Party victory in state elections. In turn, the new Democratic state governments restored all voting privileges to all whites who had them previous to the war as well as all who served in the Confederate Army regardless of class, property, or race. Subsequently freed of Republican colonial control the Southern Democratic Party united with Northern Democrats in winning Federal election. As a result a national political compromise was reached, and the federal government withdrew its military forces from the South in 1877. ==Background== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Meridian race riot of 1871」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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