How did Southern whites respond to new African American rights?

Many Southern whites were resistant to new African American rights. Some chose to respond with violence and hostility with any African American who they came into contact with. Beatings, killings, and lynchings took place at the hands of mobs, the Ku Klux Klan, and individual southern whites. Others tried to find ways to keep African Americans ignorant, subservient, and fearful through techniques such as disenfranchisement.