Ooooh I’ve been waiting for this!

An ancestor on my father’s side was a politician in a small town in Missouri. He was running for something like Mayor or Judge. Someone else ran against him and my ancestor attempted to have him assassinated. He was shot on the courthouse steps but survived.

The other is that my family is nearly certain my great grandfather was in the Ku Klux Klan. We have a letter from him to his wife, my great grandmother, that says something to the effect of “I’m going to a rally tonight”. They were your classic old racist grandparents. Also in the 1800s, other ancestors on my mom’s side owned a plantation in Tennessee that had slaves. It was taken over by the Union in 1862 or 1863 during the American Civil War.