Life of a Klansman

A Family History in White Supremacy

By: Edward Ball

Narrated by: Edward Ball

Named a best book of the summer by Literary Hub

The life and times of a militant white supremacist, written by one of his offspring, National Book Award–winner Edward Ball

Life of a Klansman tells the story of a warrior in the Ku Klux Klan, a carpenter in Louisiana who took up the cause of fanatical racism during the years after the Civil War. Edward Ball, a descendant of the Klansman, paints a portrait of his family’s anti-black militant that is part history, part memoir rich in personal detail.

Sifting through family lore about “our Klansman” as well as public and private records, Ball reconstructs the story of his great-great grandfather, Constant Lecorgne. A white French Creole, father of five, and working class ship carpenter, Lecorgne had a career in white terror of notable and bloody completeness: massacres, night riding, masked marches, street rampages—all part of a tireless effort that he and other Klansmen made to restore white power when it was threatened by the emancipation of four million enslaved African Americans. To offer a non-white view of the Ku-klux, Ball seeks out descendants of African Americans who were once victimized by “our Klansman” and his comrades, and shares their stories.

For whites, to have a Klansman in the family tree is no rare thing: Demographic estimates suggest that fifty percent of whites in the United States have at least one ancestor who belonged to the Ku Klux Klan at some point in its history. That is, one-half of white Americans could write a Klan family memoir, if they wished.

In an era when racist ideology and violence are again loose in the public square, Life of a Klansman offers a personal origin story of white supremacy. Ball’s family memoir traces the vines that have grown from militant roots in the Old South into the bitter fruit of the present, when whiteness is again a cause that can veer into hate and domestic terror.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Fabulous!

While the topic is difficult, or horrifying at times, I found this read so compelling and insightful. It brought the history of the south into stark and unforgiving light. Highly recommend.

How we got to where we are!

This is such a thorough work of history that I finding myself ever more convinced that many families of long standing in the USA have something hidden in the deepest reaches of their own family story.
I was totally engrossed and happy to have the details filled in.

A must read

if you want to understand racisms roots all the way to today, you have to read this personalized account of family history.

a story told with brutal integrity

This is a family history told with brutal integrity, all researched, all true, all the gaps filled in with imagined depictions of how life was lived during America’s first full century following its enlightened revolution by the privileged New Orleanians who possessed slave laborers. Edward Ball follows the life of his most controversial not-so-distant relative. His in-depth research is convincing. This narrative is a necessity chapter in anyone’s understanding of America’s real history - the ugly truth that has been hidden away from youngsters and truth seekers. If truth is what you seek here it is.

Thought Provoking, But . . .

I found this to be a very good book overall. The author traces the history of his family back through a direct line that includes a member of the KKK. He provides a comprehensive history of the family - professions, associations, political activities, children, residences, etc. All in all, very thoroughly researched.

At the same time, Ball can't know for certain what these relatives were thinking at any point. He does tend to speculate about what certain people were thinking based on the what he knows about them today, For example, knowing that his grandmother's grandfather became a member of the Ku Klux Klan after the war, he speculates about what the man was thinking as a young adult. Ball may or may not be right. But he makes an educated guess, and the reader is free to accept or question Ball's belief.

Ball has an agenda. He carries the guilt as the direct descendant of a KKK member. He talks about how his relative opposed black equality not only for himself and his children, but also for us today. I can't imagine carrying that guilt or believing that he is somehow marred by his someone four generations earlier in the family tree. That agenda tends to shape Ball's narrative and the thoughts that he pulls from his relative's head.

What I appreciated most about the book was its unveiling of history of this era in New Orleans. It led me to wonder: "If I had been alive then, would I have been a Klansman?" I don't think so.

But then I wondered, "Would I have been sympathetic to slavery?" That one's really, really hard to answer. If I were brought up in early 19th century New Orleans . . . and my home included servants of color (and perhaps my uncles farm had people of color doing manual chores . . . and leading professors concluded that blacks' brains were inferior to whites' . . . and my pastor advanced the theory of polygenesis (that different races came from different origins, rather than from a common ancestor) and talked about how it was the duty of the white man to take care of those who don't have the intelligence or discipline to care for themselves, might I have judged slavery to be morally justified?

Quite possibly.

And nearly everyone living today would have to answer similarly if answering the question honestly. When we apply 21st century (or even 20th century) values and norms to slavery, the institution is abhorrent. But people living more than a century and a half ago don't have that perspective. In the South, everyone whom they trusted - family, church, business leaders, education leaders - provided a very different perspective, more in line with the humaneness of caring for these less-fortunate-by-birth black people . And there was no Internet from which to gather competing thoughts.

Thank you, Mr. Ball, for writing a book that has forced me to come to grips with my own thoughts on the subject and has enlightened me with its very personal and meticulous history of a man and a family of the era.