Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan By George Dolak Founders: Confederate veterans in Pulaski, TN. Important Dates: Founded in 1865, notable resurgences around 1915 and 1956. Organizational Structure: Historically, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) has had periods of strong organization, with a hierarchical structure headed by a Grand or Imperial Wizard. Now the KKK has fragmented into many small groups with no visible organization between them. Key Leaders: Nathan Bedford Forrest, William J. Simmons, Hiram Wesley Evans, Eldon Edwards, Robert M. Shelton, David Duke, Bill Wilkinson, Thom Robb. HISTORY The Ku Klux Klan has waxed and waned in influence over the years, with three distinct periods of high influence.1 The first iteration of the KKK was founded as a social club in 1865 by Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee.2 The group derived its name from the Greek word “kuklos,” meaning “circle.”3 The group adopted its own titles and initiation rituals similar to that of a college fraternity.4 They also began riding through Pulaski wearing white sheets, and this created such a stir that they adopted white sheets and grotesque masks as their uniform.5 Their activities began with harassment and quickly grew more sinister, including whippings and violent confrontations with blacks and other groups.6 With the passage of the Reconstruction Acts in 1867, the Klan found its purpose. The Reconstruction Acts were intended to reorganize the southern states and ensure the enfranchisement of blacks. During the summer of 1867, the Klan gathered in Nashville, Tennessee, for a nation-wide convention.7 At the Nashville convention, the Klan organized itself by officially adopting the philosophy of white supremacy, establishing a hierarchy of leadership, and determining its strategy for combatting Reconstruction. The Klan, now led by former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, continued its mass demonstrations, violent night raids, and harassment of black people and others who supported Reconstruction.8 Their goal was to defeat Reconstruction by intimidating black voters and gaining control of the government.9 They experienced remarkable success, having the tacit or even outright support of the majority of white southerners, including editors, ministers, and political leaders.10 By 1869 the KKK had effectively restored white rule in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia.11 Two key factors led to the decline of the first wave of the KKK. First, the ever-increasing violence of the Klan drew acute opposition from the federal government. Forrest officially “disbanded” the Klan in 1869, though this did nothing to stop local chapters of the Klan from continuing their work.12 Consequently, Congress passed the Force Act in 1870 and the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871, which attempted to suppress the Klan through the use of martial law.13 The second key factor that led to the Klan’s first decline was its success in its goal of opposing reconstruction. By the mid-1870s, white southerners had regained control of most of their state governments and had reestablished white supremacy.14 The KKK had served its purpose. The KKK resurrected in the early 20th Century. This period witnessed great anxiety among white Protestants over the substantial influx of immigrants, as well as the threat of Communism suggested by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Against this background, the 1915 film, “Birth of a Nation,” greatly popularized a fictitious and romanticized vision of the Civil War, its aftermath, and importantly, the Reconstruction-Era KKK.15 That same year, a man named William J. Simmons founded the KKK anew.16 By 1920, bolstered by the help of professional publicists Edward Young Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler, the new KKK was poised to grow exponentially.17 The new KKK capitalized on the rampant xenophobia of its day. It adopted a radically “pro- America” stance that appealed to many. For the KKK, however, “pro-America” meant opposition to Ku Klux Klan, page 2 blacks, Jews, Catholics, Mexicans, and other immigrants.18 It also supported prohibition and attempted to impose a form of Protestant sexual morality by force.19 The new KKK accomplished its goals largely through violence. This period witnessed lynchings, shootings, and whippings, as well as the introduction of cross-burning, an act which became synonymous with the Klan.20 The KKK reached its zenith of popularity in 1925, boasting more than 4 million members, 40,000 of which marched on Washington in a mass demonstration that same year.21 Time, however, took its toll on the second wave of the KKK. The organization experienced internal power struggles in 1922 and again in 1927.22 In spite of the vast number of members the KKK enjoyed in 1925, it began to lose popularity due to vocal opposition from clergy, the press, and politicians.23 By 1928 membership had waned to several hundred thousand.24 The Great Depression of the 1930s ultimately sent the KKK back into obscurity for another generation, and its remaining members disbanded in 1944.25 The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s sparked the third and most significant surge of KKK activity. The Supreme Court had in 1954 struck down the “separate but equal” policy of segregation as unconstitutional, resulting in increased membership among recently reformed KKK chapters.26 By 1965 these groups had roughly coalesced under the leadership of Robert M. Shelton, and had achieved 35,000–50,000 members.27 This period witnessed a great deal of violence carried out by the Klan against Civil Rights leaders. Arson, beatings, mutilation, murders, and bombings took place.28 Between January of 1956, when the home of Martin Luther King, Jr. was bombed, and June 1 of 1963, about 138 bombings were reported, many suspected to be Klan related.29 As in the days of the original Klan during Reconstruction, often the Klan received tacit approval from authorities who did not make a serious effort to bring the criminals behind these acts to justice.20 Yet as it had done in the past, the Klan’s violence eventually drew the ire of the Federal government and the nation as a whole. President Johnson publicly condemned the Klan.31 Klan leaders, including Shelton, were arrested and imprisoned. Pressure from the Federal government, along with the success of the Civil Rights Movement, forced the Klan into obscurity once again.32 In the decades since the Civil Rights Movement, the Klan has remained a fringe group with little national influence. In the late 70s, the KKK gradually became militant. Under influence from neo- Nazi groups, they trained their members as a paramilitary force.33 But the Klan never successfully reorganized to its former levels. In 1987, a lawsuit resulting from the Klan murder of Michael Donald caused the bankruptcy and disbandment of the United Klans of America.34 Today, the KKK is a fractured shell of its former self. Many of those still holding to white supremacist views have joined neo-Nazi organizations.35 BELIEFS Three interwoven threads form the fabric of the worldview of the KKK: white supremacy, Americanism, and an aberrant form of Protestant Christianity. From the outset, white supremacy has informed the rhetoric and actions of the KKK as a “core organizing belief.”36 White supremacy refers to the belief that white people are biologically superior and that they are therefore entitled to greater social and political power than those of other “races.”37 One important Klan document from 1916, astonishingly called the “Kloran,” states that: We avow the distinction between the races of mankind as same has been decreed by the Creator, and we shall ever be true in the faithful maintenance of White Supremacy and will strenuously oppose any compromise thereof in any and all things.38 The Klan believed that non-white people were inferior, immoral, unfit for equality with whites, and even downright evil.39 Some white supremacist groups, including the KKK, attempted to ground their views in biology. One Klan newspaper stated that “Caucasian blood cannot be mixed with that of any other and survive.”40 During the Klan’s heyday in the early 20th Century, the pseudoscience of eugenics found broad acceptance among wealthy, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, including certain scientists.41 The eugenics movement posited that certain “races” were superior to others, and that these should be encouraged to reproduce at greater rates.42 Eugenicists also believed that the other, less desirable races ought to reproduce less to prevent them from “contaminating” the superior races.43 Though the eugenicists, desiring to maintain an appearance of academic credibility, distanced themselves from the KKK, it is no coincidence that both groups experienced a surge in popularity around the same time.44 White supremacy informed the KKK’s repeated efforts throughout its history to disenfranchise non-white people and oppose racial equality. The Klan added to white supremacy a unique form of Americanism. Ku Klux Klan, page 3 The KKK of the 1920’s became a rallying position for those anxious about the social changes which took place in the early 20th Century. These changes included the women’s suffrage movement and increased immigration into America.45 The Klan felt that these changes threatened their traditional way of life, which focused on God, family, hard work, and community.46 Accordingly, the KKK adopted what they thought of as an “America first” attitude. However, the Klan’s understanding of what was truly “American” went beyond ordinary patriotism. They defined true America as exclusively white and Protestant.47 They portrayed immigrants as dangerous outsiders, drunkards who threatened true Americans’ wholesome way of life.48 Consequently, the Klan aligned themselves with the prohibition movement, and even partnered with the United States government in its efforts to combat alcohol consumption.49 Part and parcel with the Klan’s form of Americanism was opposition to those they viewed as their religious rivals, namely Roman Catholics and Jews.

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