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| Garfield Webster (left) and a Klansman on horseback (right) |
"If you think Garfield Webster was called 'Garfield The Butcher' for nothing, then you're probably lying to yourself" -Charles Basilica, Chawosaurian historian
Garfield L. Webster Purged The Klan?
The Origin of the Klan
In 1915, back when Garfield Webster was Prime Minister of the Chawosaurian realm under Emperor Santiago, a white supremacist silent black and white film sympathetic to the Confederacy called The Birth Of A Nation was released to the American public in America's theaters, and the President of the United States at the time, Woodrow Wilson, has shown the film at the White House in support of it. The film was so powerful that it emboldened white supremacists in America to re-found the infamous, Reconstruction-era terrorist group that was dedicated to the extinction of the black race, that terrorist group was known as the Ku Klux Klan. The first Ku Klux Klan was founded by Confederates who felt that black people, who were just emancipated from slavery, were to blame for the South hitting rock bottom in the American Civil War, so in retaliation to the U.S. federal government's attempt to transition newly freed blacks to American citizenship with the similar constitutional rights White Americans had been enjoying since America's Independence from the British Crown and the Revolutionary War that went with Independence, the KKK kidnapped and killed black people, even those who were children.
U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant (who was the same war general who defeated Robert E. Lee's Northern Virginia army, which led to the Confederacy's fall) used his executive authority given to him by Congress to aggressively enforce Reconstruction, and that's eventually going to mean the end of the first klan by aggressively using military force to disband the klan. The Grant administration attempted to create an America that was open to its new Black citizens, but that eventually fell apart when Northerners finally had enough of Reconstruction, the Republican Party to move on to other issues by allowing the South to handle its black citizens themselves, and to settle a disputed Presidential Election of 1876, the Republicans sold black southerners to the Democratic Party just so they have the White House all to themselves, while the Democrats can have the south all themselves, and that's eventually going to mean the end of reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow laws (segregation), and the end of Grant's project of a racially diverse America.
By 1880, America becomes a segregated nation, mostly in the south and some states in the west, unbelievably even in California, there was segregation there. But in the north, segregation was invisible compared to segregation in the south. 25-years-later, there was already a pro-confederate historian campaign going on known as The Lost Cause of the Confederacy, and what that simply does is praising the south's role in the civil war, and doing so by downplaying the role of slavery and racism in the war, and then exaggerate the north's role in the war, and thus, by 1915, The Birth Of A Nation was born.
When pro-confederate and (well, let's admit it...racist) movie producers in Hollywood made the movie, The Birth Of A Nation, the movie immediately becomes popular, not just in the south, but many other places across the United States, that President Woodrow Wilson showed the film at the White House in support for Confederate history, America was still a segregated country all the way up to the 1960s, and the movie received the attention from white supremacists for the way black people were depicted in the movie, which the black people in the film weren't really black people in the movie, they were white actors in blackface stereotypically (and insultingly) pretending to be black people.
Emboldened by the movie, white supremacists re-established the Ku Klux Klan in 1915, known as the second klan. Meanwhile, in the Chawosaurian world, even some White Chawosaurians become sympathetic to the Klan and their cause, causing some of them to actually join the klan across the United States and occasionally Canada. Prime Minister Garfield Webster was warned of the klan's second rise, he was also warned of the influence the klan is gaining among White Chawosauria, causing Webster to become concern for the safety of Black Chawosaurians.
Rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Chawosauria
The resurgence of the Klan in the United States in 1915 and the klan's spread to White Chawosauria caught Webster's attention, and even though Webster was too sympathetic to the klan's cause, he was also sympathetic to the fear Black Chawosaurians felt, especially for the safety of their children, Webster knew he could not reconcile his sympathies, so he had to choose one or the other, so he chose to use his executive authority to go after White Chawosaurians who've joined the klan, and put them to death before they possibly end up putting black people to death.
The Ku Klux Klan was gaining influence over White Chawosaurians who held racist and xenophobic beliefs. The Webster administration started monitoring the klan's activities in Chawosauria, and Webster, though a white supremacist himself, saw the klan's operations in Chawosauria as "an invasion" because Chawosauria has black citizens, and he felt that any attack on a black family on Chawosaurian soil would constitute an invasion by an international terrorist group.
Garfield Webster vs the Klan
Webster famously said in a cabinet meeting that if Paris was invaded, Napoleon would never let that stand. Webster decided that the Klan will be treated as an international terrorist enterprise, and decided that since White Chawosaurians are joining that enterprise if these Chawosaurian klansmen starts invading black neighborhoods who live on Chawosaurian soil, that would constitute a foreign invasion, and must be treated as such. Webster proposed capital punishment methods that involves death by burning to punish Chawosaurian klansmen for "living in Chawosauria illegally" though they are Chawosaurian citizens, Webster's KKK policy states that following the Klan's ideology either by thought or deed will be considered as "treason against the empire" and will be put to death.
Webster ordered Chawosaurian forces to use military force to break up Klan rallies and meetings, and have all the klansmen arrested and executed, they were cremated alive, beheaded, shot, and even hung, all under Webster's orders. However, there were some resistance from the klan, klan riots against Chawosaurian forces, but the Chawosaurian Imperial Army have always end up defeating the klansmen. The very last Chawosaurian klansmen were massacred in Texas by Chawosaurian forces on June 8, 1928, by Webster's successor, Theodore McClellan.
A Forgotten Accomplishment
World War I dominated the news in Chawosauria during Webster's Anti-Klan purges, and World War I didn't really made Webster a popular Prime Minister for how many Chawosaurian civilians were losing their lives to the war. The purge of the klan was widely forgotten until modern times of the 21st century, where the walls of systemic racism are on the verge of crumbling down.
Webster, due to the George Floyd Protests, has received a backlash for his racist civil rights record, but there are heavenly lights shining on Webster when it comes to Webster's handling of race just as there is a shadow cast on him. Webster's decision to go after the klan is one of those achievements that rightfully deserves that heavenly light.
Garfield Webster was not a perfect Prime Minister for Black Chawosaurians, but that doesn't mean he does not deserve credit and acknowledgment for some of his achievements that have benefited Black Chawosaurians.
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