A murder of some black men was regarded by many as the work of the Klu Klux Klan in Shelbyville, Kentucky. According to the Daily Dispatch, “masked men set fire to the cabin of some negroes, compelling the inmates to come out and call aloud their names;.and as he uttered his name they literally riddled his body with buckshot.' Reaction to this event and other like it stirred varied reactions...
The Brothers of the Christian Schools had tried to establish Catholic education in Memphis in 1864 but were unsuccessful because epidemics of yellow fever had killed much of its clergy in Galveston and New Orleans. In 1871, the Chicago fire made it possible for a college to be established in Memphis because the fire destroyed the Brother's Academy in Chicago. The Memphis order now had enough men...