Ku Klux Klan
In the 1920s, the KKK was a secret society of WASPs (White Anglo Saxon
Protestants) that targeted blacks, Catholics and minority groups. Their main aim was to put off these people from voting so that the people the KKK wanted in positions of power stayed there. It was first formed in 1865 as a social group for ex-confederate (southern) troops. It became more sinister after 1867 when it directed itself towards preventing former black slaves from voting. After the war the slaves had been given the right to vote, but the KKK thought that blacks were an inferior race and giving them political power was a bad idea. The robes, hoods and rituals of the Klan terrified African Americans in the south which appealed to white racists, and this cumulated in the Klansmen being involved in flogging, mutilating and killing African Americans.
Between June of 1920 through October of 1921, it is estimated at much as 85,000 men joined the Ku Klux Klan. Although the Klan was the strongest in the midwest and the midsouth, it was a nation wide epidemic. Klan members fed off of Xenophobic, a fear of foreigners. Klan members believed that every Catholic in public life, no matter what position they held in society, must be watched carefully. “The modern Klan added an anti-Semitic element.” Klan theoreticians believed that the Jews were not only unproductive, there were also un-American. “Jew Movies Urge Sex and Vice,” the Klan title screamed like an echo from Ford’s Dearborn Independent. The position of woman in the humanities of the Klan was expressly conventional. The Klan believed in protection of women because they thought women could help in the “shaping of America”. Even though they believed so strongly in woman protection, this came at a costly price: violence.
In the southern states of America, the Ku Klux Klan was involved innumerous violent attacks against African Americans. Klan intimidation was often targeted at schoolteachers and operatives of the federal Freedmen's Bureau. African American members of the Loyal Leagues were also the frequent targets of Klan raids. In a typical episode in Mississippi, according to the Congressional inquiry, “One of these teachers (Miss Allen of Illinois), whose school was at Cotton Gin Port in Monroe County, was visited ... between one and two o'clock in the morning on March, 1871, by about fifty men mounted and disguised. Each man wore a long white robe and his face was covered by a loose mask with scarlet stripes.
On November 9, 1920, Byron de la Beckwith, an only child, was born to Byron De La Beckwith, Sr. and Susie Yerger in Sacramento, California. One of Beckwith’s early childhood memories was of the Ku Klux Klan marching through town, fully clad in their long white robes. During the twenties, there were over two million known members of the Klan and at least two were U.S. Senators. Needless to say, this left quite an impression on the young boy. Beckwith’s father died in 1926, his debts exceeding the value of his estate, leaving Susie and Byron Jr., whom they had nicknamed “Delay”, destitute. Susie left California, along with her son, for her native Greenwood, Mississippi. Beckwith’s mother passed away a few short years later, leaving Beckwith rearing to one of her cousins.
The Moore’s Ford lynching shows that the Ku Klux Klan was still very powerful in Georgia just after the Second World War. Blacks who lived in these areas which were overwhelmingly rural and contained large plantations owned by white men were regularly browbeaten into submission by the white minority and sporadic outbreaks of violence were not uncommon. There was a wealth of evidence against several white men who were prominent citizens of the county, but no prosecution was ever conducted and the murderers went to their graves without having paid for their crime....
A few years ago, my mother told me something thought provoking: we had once lived on the same block as the leader of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. That had been in Charlotte, North Carolina, around 1994. The Ku Klux Klan, according to Blaine Varney in Lynching in the 1890’s, used to “…set out on nightly ‘terror rides’ to harass ‘uppity Negroes’….” They are far more infamous, however, for their “lynching”—nightly “terror rides” that included murder—of African Americans. Varney tells us lynching levels reached their pinnacle in 1892, with 161 recorded murders that year. In modern times, most Americans would agree that the Klan, along with any form of white supremacy, has no place in society—and pointing out its survival is a good way to imply that we, as a people, are still not perfect.
The population of African Americans from 1865 to 1900 had limited social freedom. Social limitations are limitations that relate “…to society and the way people interact with each other,” as defined by the lesson. One example of a social limitation African Americans experienced at the time is the white supremacy terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan or the KKK. The KKK started as a social club formed by former confederate soldiers, which rapidly became a domestic terrorist organization. The KKK members were white supremacists who’s objective was to ward off African Americans from using their new political power. In an attempts to achieve their objective, Klansmen would burn African American schools, scare and threaten voters, destroy the homes of African Americans and also the homes of whites who supported African American rights. The greatest terror the KKK imposed was that of lynching. Lynching may be defined via the lesson as, “…public hanging for an alleged offense without benefit of trial.” As one can imagine these tactics struck fear into African Americans and the KKK was achiev...
Hooded Americanism: The First Century of the Ku Klux Klan: 1865 to the Present by David Chalmers records the history of the Ku Klux Klan quite bluntly, all the way from its creation following the civil war, to the early 1960’s. The author starts the book quite strongly by discussing in detail many acts of violence and displays of hatred throughout the United States. He makes a point to show that the Klan rode robustly throughout all of the country, not just in the southern states. The first several chapters of the book focus on the Klan’s creation in 1865. He goes on to discuss the attitude of many Americans following the United State’s Civil War and how the war shaped a new nation. The bulk of the book is used to go through many of the states, and express the Klan’s political influence on both the local and state governments. The author starts with Texas and Oklahoma, and goes through the history of the Klan geographically, finishing with New Jersey and Washington. The author stresses that the KKK did not just commit acts of violence towards minorities, but also carried political power. He continues to discuss the impact of the Klan on Civil Rights movements in the 1960’s, and various other important political controversies between the 1920’s and 1970’s. Towards the middle of the book, David M. Chalmers focuses on portraying the feelings of governments and state legislatures, as well as normal citizens towards the Klan. To do this more effectively, the author uses excerpts and quotes from editorials and newspapers, along with several dozen pictures. The conclusion of the book was used mainly as an overview of all of the major incidents and deaths involving the Klan, and how their persistence has allowed them to still exist today despite a lack of resources and support.
(Niblack 192-193) Although Klan groups were most present between 1865 and 1965, and most active in Indiana in the 1920’s, isolated pockets of Klansmen remain today. Unfortunately, prejudices, fear, intolerance, racism, labeling, discrimination, feelings of superiority, white supremacy, and judging of others all continue to exist in our world. The attitude of John Lewis Niblack and other Indiana residents like him is what helps to keep organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan dormant in our state. Why can we not just live in peace and harmony with one another and respect each other's differences?
Black Scare in the 1920’s was the movement of southern blacks into northern cities during the early 1920’s which caused fear in many whites. The Ku Klux Klan (or the KKK) was a secret society created by white southerners that used terror and violence to keep African Americans from obtaining their rights. Throughout history, this secret organization have used acts of terrorism including murder, rape, and bombing. They wore masks, white cardboard hats, and white sheets.
We study the beginning of America and the movement of settlers into a new land. Then we look at the formation of the United States through the Revolutionary War. But nothing has ever changed this country from the inside as much as the Ku Klux Klan invasion into the country. The Klan’s influence and ability to cause destruction within a society inspired leaders and dictators such as Adolf Hitler. During the height of the Klan’s power and influence, it was doing many things right. It had attracted mass amounts of people with a simple message and used them to complete a secret agenda. Had the KKK continued to find new ways of bringing people to their cause and working to achieve superiority first, they may have caused an unforeseen amount of damage to the United States. Mistakes that were made by the members grew attention to them and caused society to see them as they were. The Ku Klux Klan of the modern day is still alive. It is barely breathing but growing and changing everyday. The hate will live on through the young, but the good people in the world are the key to truly changing the world for the
The 'Standard' of the 'Standard' The "Ku Klux Klan." UXL Encyclopedia of U.S. History. Sonia Benson, Daniel E. Brannen, Jr., and Rebecca Valentine. Vol. 5.
The KKK is a movement that has been very controversial since the Civil War. The Klan as they call themselves was created as a result of the occupation of Federal troops in the South. The KKK's purpose at the time was to provide the people of the south with the leadership to bring back the values of Western Civilization that was taken from them. In the 1920's the Klan had its most popular era. At this time the KKK was the most active politically then it has ever been in history. The KKK still exists today as a brotherhood and a new White racial community that lives and functions by the ideals it promotes. Today the Klan is in its 5th era and continues to be America's oldest and most effective White Christian Fraternal organization.
White Southerners who hated blacks started the Ku Klux Klan in 1866. It was also called the KKK. They tried to stop black people from voting and having other civil rights. They would wear white sheets and masks with pointed hoods. They would beat up blacks and public officials. They would burn crosses by the houses of people they wanted to scare. The KKK was declared illegal in 1...
Cries ring out in the dead of night from the black people of the southern states in Tennessee, as mysterious figures in white robes with hoods ride on their horses. To most they were thought of as the Confederate soldier’s ghosts riding and terrorizing the blacks. People wanted to know who these mysterious riders are and why they are terrorizing the black people of the south. Since they were wearing all white robes they could not tell their identity leading to more confusion. They became known as the Invisible Empire due to the fact that there were hundreds of them but nobody knew who they really were. Later in the Invisible Empires history we find out that these mysterious ghost riders are a part of the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan was an organization meant to preserve the southern way of life. They use forms of intimidation to scare the black people such as riding through the night on horses. It was first started as something for ex-confederate soldiers to do since they were not fighting the war anymore but soon these small threats and intimidation turned into a violent hate group. Through the Ku Klux Klan’s history we see its practices and beliefs evolve from a fun, social organization to a worldwide feared hate group.
In an article on the Ku Klux Klan and the reconstruction, it is shown that in the 8 months leading up to the election,”1000 people were killed in Louisiana…”It is also suspected that the KKK used,”Fraud and voter intimidation…” to make the African Americans mainly vote against republicans. The KKK was a group that used violence and threats to spread their ideas and force them upon people. The reconstruction was supposed to help bring everyone together and make everyone equal which the KKK went against by hating against anyone of color or anyone who was a republican supporter. Therefore, the KKK resisted the reconstruction by making groups of people lower than others. In a testimony of a former slave named Thomas M. Allen, Thomas describes his experience with the KKK. On the day of the election for the constitution, Thomas M. Allen received a letter from the KKK that told him that,”if [you] do not change your course before the election for the ratification of the infernal constitution, your days are numbered, and they will be but few…”(Grand Cyclops). The Grand Cyclops was the name given to a leader of the basic level of organization called a Den. This threat to Thomas M. Allen was an attempt to get him not to vote with the “radicals”(Republicans). They even threatened to kill him if he didn’t make a change. Just like when Thomas M. Allen was a slave, he was threatened and told what to do which means that the KKK was going against the reconstruction of the southern
Klan supporters saw the group as a protector of a certain way of life and the white race. The original Klan was shut down in 1872. On Thanksgiving Night 1915, the Klan struck again. Sixteen men from Atlanta, Georgia, went to the top of the mountain and set up for a Klan ritual. They built an altar of stones, on which they placed the American Flag, a Bible and a sword.
They wanted to form a brotherhood after their loss in the war. Their leader Forrest was a Confederate General during the Civil War. The name, Ku Klux Klan, was a mix of Greek words specifically the word Kuklos meaning circle, or cycle. The first chapter was created in Tennessee, but the Klan quickly spread to Alabama, Mississippi, the Carolinas, and many other Southern States. The Klan developed in a South devastated by war and threatened with Social upheaval. It offered whites an opportunity to regain political and social control. Originally the KKK were mostly harmless. They became more violent as the abolishment of slavery became real and the idea of reconstructing the South surfaced. They rode around the streets of Pulaski at night in their cloaks scaring anyone who caught sight of them. They wore the white cloaks and hats, made of sheets, to scare the un-educated African Americans into thinking they were ghosts, and it worked. They also wore them to intimidate and scare anyone who supported what they were against. As they were becoming more and more violent they realized their real potential for power and control that they could have over their targets, and they took advantage of it. They began to severely injure or even kill mainly African Americans, Republicans, minorities, and anyone else who crossed them. They terrified