AtDDtA1: An Unresolved "Piece of Business"

[Dave Monroe]

   "Two weeks previous, beside a black-water river of the Deep South,
with the Chums attempting to negotiate a bitter and unresolved 'piece
of business' from the Rebellion of thirty years previous--one still
not advisable to set on one's page--Chick had appeared one night at
their encampment, pursued by a band of night-riders in white robes and
sinister pointed hoods, whom the boys recognized immediately as the
dreaded 'Ku Klux Klan.'" (AtD, Pt. I, Ch. 1, p. 7)


"beside a black-water river of the Deep South"

Blackwater River is in lower central Florida, pretty deep south; but
there are numerous rivers in swampy areas that run black with organic
matter.

"the Rebellion of thirty years previous"

The Civil War was not called such during the time it was occurring;
the South called it "the war between the states" to emphasize both
their right to secede from the union and that this was a war between
sovereign states; the North called it "the Rebellion of 1861" or,
after termination of hostilities, "the Rebellion of 1861-1865,"
appellations that did not recognize the South's right to secede.

"one still not advisable to set upon one's page"

The American Civil War, that "rebellion of thirty years previous," has
not yet become a suitable subject for an adventure tale such as the
Chums'.


http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_7


"the dreaded 'Ku Klux Klan'"

Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is the name of a number of past and present
fraternal organizations in the United States that have advocated white
supremacy, anti-Semitism, racism, anti-Catholicism, homophobia, and
nativism. These organizations have often used terrorism, violence and
acts of intimidation such as cross burning to oppress African
Americans and others.

The Klan's first incarnation was in 1866. Founded by veterans of the
Confederate Army, its main purpose was to resist Reconstruction, and
it focused as much on intimidating "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" as
on putting down the freed slaves. It quickly adopted violent methods.
A rapid reaction set in, with the Klan's leadership disowning
violence, and Southern elites seeing the Klan as an excuse for federal
troops to continue their activities in the South. The organization was
in decline from 1868 to 1870 and was destroyed in the early 1870s by
President Ulysses S. Grant's vigorous action under the Civil Rights
Act of 1871 (also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act)....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

Ku Klux Klan

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/KKK.asp?xpicked=4&item=18

The Ku Klux Klan Act

http://education.harpweek.com/KKKHearings/AppendixA.htm

Ku Klux Klan in the Reconstruction Era

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-694