After the Civil War, three groups of the Ku Klux Klan arose in the county: in Starkville, at Choctaw Agency (Sturgis), and in Double Springs. They used violence against blacks to try to suppress their vote and maintain white supremacy. Freedmen had largely joined the Republican Party, headed by President Abraham Lincoln, who had gained their emancipation and supported constitutional amendments to grant them citizenship and the franchise. Every election cycle was accompanied by violence of white Democrats against the mostly black Republicans.