You need to reread the secession declaration of Alexander Stephens, the Confederacy’s VP and the other declarations of secession. To say the KKK and the systemic theft of black-owned land was not about race equals saying the Shoah was not about anti-semitism. The violent 1898 Wilmington coup by the local white business class was all about preventing an interracial coalition based on social class. Racism in America, like anti-semitism in Europe, was what the German social democrat August Bebel called “the socialism of fools”. LBJ said it best: “”If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”