Among the most prominent Red Shirts were the supporters of Democratic Party candidate Wade Hampton during the campaigns for the South Carolina gubernatorial elections of 1876 and 1878.

They used organization, intimidation and force to achieve political purposes of restoring the Democrats to power, overturning Republicans, and repressing civil and voting rights of freedmen.

According to E. Merton Coulter in The South During Reconstruction (1947), the red shirt was adopted in Mississippi in 1875 by "southern brigadiers" of the Democratic Party who were opposed to black Republicans.

Suspects accused in the Hamburg Massacre wore red shirts as they marched on September 5 to their arraignment in Aiken, South Carolina.

Martin Gary, the organizer in South Carolina of the Democratic campaign in 1876, mandated that his supporters were to wear red shirts at all party rallies and functions.

[citation needed] Hampton positioned himself as a statesman, promising support for education, and offering protection from violence that Governor Daniel Henry Chamberlain did not seem able to provide.

As a result of a national political compromise, President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered the removal of the Union Army from the state on April 3, 1877.

Future South Carolina Democratic politicians, such as Benjamin Tillman and Ellison D. Smith, proudly claimed their association in their youth with the Red Shirts as a bona fide for white supremacy.

To break up the coalition, white Democrats used intimidation and outright violence to reduce black Republican voting and regained control of the state legislature in 1896.

On November 4, 1898, the Raleigh News & Observer noted,[12][full citation needed] The first Red Shirt parade on horseback ever witnessed in Wilmington electrified the people today.

But local white Democrats wanted power and took it six days after the election in the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, the largest recognized coup d'état in United States history.

[16] The North Carolina Red Shirts were a conglomerate of all social classes, including teachers, farmers, merchants and some elite members of the Democratic Party.

This increase in the number of black officials forced the "frightened and desperate Democratic Party" to initiate the white supremacy campaign in which the Red Shirts would become integral partners.

Pritchard noted in his letter that the Red Shirts were most active "in counties where colored people predominate", and the paramilitary group targeted blacks.

Daniel L. Russell (R) said that along the southern edge of the state, "armed and lawless" men had taken over due to the increase in crimes and violent activities.

Russell issued a proclamation on October 26, 1898, asking all "Ill-disposed persons ... to immediately desist from all unlawful practices ... Turbulent conduct, and to preserve peace."

[16] A few days before the election on November 2, 1898, the Morning Star newspaper of Wilmington reported a large rally with the Red Shirt affiliate Claude Kitchin as the fiery speaker.

The rally involved 1,000 men with red shirts who marched for 10 miles in the predominantly black areas of Richmond County, North Carolina.

"[19] During the November 8, 1898, election, Red Shirts enforced their previous activities by riding around the voting precincts on their horses, with rifles and shotguns ready, to deter all Republicans, Fusionists and African Americans from the polls.

The intimidation activities of the Red Shirts were so successful that many African Americans abandoned their homes, some seeking refuge in swamps, as recounted by Dave Kennedy, a black voter of Duplin County.

The New York Times, in an August 2, 1900, article, noted that the day before the election, the Red Shirts disrupted the speech of Mr. Teague and demolished the platform on which he spoke.

Due to the increasingly disruptive activities of the Red Shirts, the Republican Party chairman of Johnson County sent a request for troops to Gov.

The success of the disfranchisement of black votes in the August 1900 election, ultimately resulted in the November Democratic gubernatorial win of Charles Brantley Aycock over Adams, the Republican.

[21] The Red Shirts have organized demonstrations in support of the Confederate flag,[22] against the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and against politicians they regard as "scalawags" and "carpetbaggers" such as Lindsey Graham, Bob Inglis, John McCain, and attorney Morris Dees.

They supported the congressional candidacy of the far-right libertarian John Cobin against the more moderate Inglis [23] and conducted mock trials of Abraham Lincoln and William Tecumseh Sherman.

[24] According to their membership application form, Red Shirt goals include conservative ideals such as implementing "God's laws as the acceptable standard of behavior"; eliminating all federal "control and influence in South Carolina"; reducing the size and scope of government at all levels; and promoting and instituting "Southern culture relying on Biblical truth".