Radical Reconstruction

One of the single most powerful forces ever used by domestic terrorists to cause death, destruction, and create horrific psychological effects on others was the invention and use of explosives. As early as the 1800’s, explosives were used by workers in labor disputes in America. However, terrorism was also used by major corporations’ security forces in an extremely violent manner, often involving many deaths and injuries to control the unions and their workers. Even as settlers moved west to find their fortunes, vigilantes and their forms of “justice” were used to control others. At the end of the Civil War, in an effort to control radical reconstruction efforts giving freed Afro-Americans more rights, the Ku Klux Klan was formed to resist these reconstruction efforts which included violently terrorizing Blacks, Whites, or anyone in
Black Muslims, the Death Angels) and Black nationalists, such as the Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army ( BLA), wreaked violence against Blacks, Whites, and police officers who represented the repressive establishment spreading their ideological messages of terrorism. Additionally, leftist terrorist groups such as the independent Puerto Rican extremist groups Fuerza Armadas de Liberacion National (Armed Forces of National Liberation, FALN), and the Macherteros also wanting to send their “message” began bombing military installations and large corporate targets, desiring independence from the United States. Joining in these extremists efforts were members of the Jewish Defense League and its splinter groups (e.g., Jewish Armed Resistance, Thunder of Zion) which primarily targeted Soviet diplomatic targets, Arab embassies, Arab-American organizations, and alleged Nazi war criminals.(White,2012)
Key Learning Point: The social context, in large part, defines the particular causes, beliefs, and ideologies, both political and religious, that extremists and terrorists