Abstract
The Joint Select Committee Hearings on the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States (sometimes referred to as the Klan hearings but hereafter known as the Joint Committee hearings) during Reconstruction can be considered as part of a greater process for transitional justice. Transitional justice is defined as the formal initiatives a society undertakes to redress massive human rights abuses after a period of conflict. The Committee Hearings—analyzed through the framework of a truth-seeking and truth-telling process—provides insight on how the federal government was addressing the violence and violations caused by the Klan during a period of reconstruction and transition. New conceptions of peace burgeoned as the government, and the survivors of the outrages grappled with these extralegal violences. Many black southerners testified to further force the federal government to hold true to their responsibility to protect their rights and freedoms. From their testimonies, the lasting physical, economic, and psychological ramifications can be demonstrated and the importance of witnessing comes to light. This thesis serves as a foray into understanding past mechanisms of redress to racial injustice in the United States (Chapter 1). More importantly, by centering black witnessing (Chapters 2 and 3), it argues that no attempt at transitional justice in the United States could be complete without understanding black testimonies detailing the racial oppression that made Reconstruction an unfinished revolution.