Why did the Ku Klux Klan target scalawags with violence?

Scalawags were white Southerners who supported Reconstruction and the Republican-led governments that followed the Civil War. The Ku Klux Klan used violence to intimidate people who supported those changes. Scalawags were not Northerners who moved south—that description fits carpetbaggers—and opposing secession alone does not define them.

AI-written and checked against the verified answer.