The book opens in 1866 in Middle Tennessee, where six defeated Confederate soldiers met to form the Ku Klux Klan, a clandestine terrorist organization meant to uphold white supremacy in the post-Civil War landscape. While they distributed pamphlets of hate and destroyed property, their most vicious ventures included the harassment, assault, and lynching of newly freed Black men and women. This organization spread throughout the South and the West Coast, including New Orleans, Memphis, Arkansas, and Mississippi. It was only put to a stop with the election of Ulysses S. Grant, who vowed to crush the Klan and obtained success by 1870. He also ratified the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave Black people the right to vote.