Genealogy blogger Robyn N. Smith published a column in April, 2023, entitled The Tough Stuff of History for Genealogists.  In that column, Ms. Smith described the wealth of genealogical details and historical background information available in Congress’ 1872 report of its investigation into the Ku Klux Klan.

The 13-volume set is entitled collectively Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States by United States. Congress. Joint Select Committee on the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States.

Ms. Smith provides an excellent description of the records and a tutorial on how to use them to discover information contained in the reports.  Click here to view the blog post.

Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky are not included in the report.  Nonetheless these volumes present valuable, contemporaneous historical background for those researching People of Color in Tennessee History.

An inventory of the 13 digitized volumes is available at the Online Books Page from the University of Pennsylvania, which is responsible for content and availability of the digitized material.

Click here to view the volumes.

Description from From the linked page:

Published in 1872, the volumes contain reports and testimonies from a Congressional committee that investigated the Ku Klux Klan and other insurrectionary movements in the former Confederacy after the close of the Civil War. The report proper is in the first volume; the other volumes contain testimonies and miscellaneous documents.

The Internet Archive has all 13 volumes of this set, as does the Making of America Project at Michigan.