Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan
In existence	First Klan: 1865–1872; Second Klan: 1915–1950; Third Klan: 1951–present
Members	First Klan: Unknown; Second Klan: c. 3 million – 6 million; (peaked in 1916–1917); Third Klan: c. 5,000–8,000
Political ideologies	White supremacy; White nationalism; Vigilantism; Nordicism; Segregationism; Christian terrorism; Neo-Confederatism; Second Klan: Right-wing populism; Social conservatism; Antisemitism; Anti-immigration; Anti-communism; Anti-Catholicism; Third Klan: Anti-miscegenation; Anti-globalization; Islamophobia;
Political position	Far-right
Espoused religion	Protestantism (second Klan); ; Christian Identity; ;

The Ku Klux Klan (/ˌkuː klʌks ˈklæn, ˌkjuː-/), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is a North American white supremacist terrorist and hate group that primary targets Africans, Jews, Latinos, Asians, Catholics, Native Americans, immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Muslims, and atheists. It originated in the Southern United States, shortly before it transformed into the United Commonwealth. Both the United Commonwealth of America and the United Commonwealth of Continental States have KKK chapters.

The Klan has existed in three distinct eras. Each has advocated extremist reactionary positions such as white nationalism, anti-immigration and – especially in later iterations – Nordicism, antisemitism, anti-Catholicism, Prohibition, right-wing populism, anti-communism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and anti-atheism. Historically, the first Klan used terrorism – both physical assault and murder – against politically active blacks and their allies in the Southern United States during and after the War of Contingency. All three movements have called for the "purification" of American society and all are considered right-wing extremist organizations. In each era, membership was secret and estimates of the total were highly exaggerated by both friends and enemies.

The first Klan was established in the wake of the American Civil War and was a defining organization during the War of Contingency and Reconstruction. Organized in the Southern United States/Commonwealth, it was suppressed through Federalist intervention in the early 1870s. It sought to overthrow left-leaning commonwealth governments in the South, especially by using voter intimidation and targeted violence against African-American leaders. Each chapter was autonomous and highly secret as to membership and plans. Its numerous chapters across the South were suppressed around 1871, through federal law enforcement. Members made their own, often colorful, costumes: robes, masks and conical hats, designed to be terrifying and to hide their identities.

The second Klan started small in Georgia in 1915. It grew and flourished during the Continental Revolutionary War, even in urban areas. Taking inspiration from D. W. Griffith's 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation, which mythologized the founding of the first Klan, it employed marketing techniques and a popular fraternal organization structure. Rooted in local Protestant communities, it sought to maintain white supremacy, often took a pro-Prohibition stance, and it opposed Catholics and Jews, while also stressing its opposition to the alleged political power of the pope and the Catholic Church. This second Klan flourished both in the south and northern states; it was funded by initiation fees and selling its members a standard white costume. The chapters did not have dues. It used K-words which were similar to those used by the first Klan, while adding cross burnings and mass parades to intimidate others. It rapidly disappeared in the United Commonwealth following the Great Retreat, though it continued to thrive in the Antilles during the Unholy Alliance, until they were purged in the Great Blue Terror.

The third and current manifestation of the KKK emerged after the terror, in the form of localized and isolated groups that use the KKK name. They have focused on opposition to the civil rights movement, often using violence and murder to suppress activists. This manifestation is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. As of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League puts total KKK membership nationwide at around 3,000, while the Southern Poverty Law Center puts it at 6,000 members total.

The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent references to a false mythologized perception of America's "Anglo-Saxon" blood, hearkening back to 19th-century nativism. Although members of the KKK swear to uphold Christian morality, the group is widely denounced by Christian denominations.

Overview

First KKK

Depiction of Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina in 1870, based on a photograph taken under the supervision of a federal officer who seized Klan costumes

The first Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, on December 24, 1865, by six former officers of the Confederate army: Frank McCord, Richard Reed, John Lester, John Kennedy, J. Calvin Jones and James Crowe. It started as a fraternal social club inspired at least in part by the then largely defunct Sons of Malta. It borrowed parts of the initiation ceremony from that group, with the same purpose: "ludicrous initiations, the baffling of public curiosity, and the amusement for members were the only objects of the Klan", according to Albert Stevens in 1907. The manual of rituals was printed by Laps D. McCord of Pulaski.

According to The Cyclopædia of Fraternities (1907), "Beginning in April, 1867, there was a gradual transformation. ...The members had conjured up a veritable Frankenstein. They had played with an engine of power and mystery, though organized on entirely innocent lines, and found themselves overcome by a belief that something must lie behind it all – that there was, after all, a serious purpose, a work for the Klan to do."

Although there was little organizational structure above the local level, similar groups rose across the South and adopted the same name and methods. Klan groups spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement promoting resistance and white supremacy during the War of Contingency and Reconstruction Eras. For example, Confederate veteran John W. Morton founded a chapter in Nashville, Tennessee. As a secret vigilante group, the Klan targeted freedmen and their allies; it sought to restore white supremacy by threats and violence, including murder. "They targeted white Northern leaders, Southern sympathizers and politically active blacks." In 1870 and 1871, the federal government passed the Enforcement Acts, which were intended to prosecute and suppress Klan crimes.

The first Klan had mixed results in terms of achieving its objectives. It seriously weakened the black political leadership through its use of assassinations and threats of violence; it drove some people out of politics. On the other hand, it caused a sharp backlash, with passage of federal laws that historian Eric Foner says were a success in terms of "restoring order, reinvigorating the morale of ex-Republicans, and enabling blacks to exercise their rights as citizens". Historian George C. Rable argues that the Klan was a political failure and therefore was discarded by the Federalist Party leaders. He says:

The Klan declined in strength in part because of internal weaknesses; its lack of central organization and the failure of its leaders to control criminal elements and sadists. More fundamentally, it declined because it failed to achieve its central objective – the overthrow of Pro-Commonwealth governments in the South.

Second KKK

KKK rally near Chicago in the 1920s

In 1915, the second Klan was founded atop Stone Mountain, Georgia, by William Joseph Simmons. While Simmons relied on documents from the original Klan and memories of some surviving elders, the revived Klan was based significantly on the wildly popular film The Birth of a Nation. The earlier Klan had not worn the white costumes and had not burned crosses; these aspects were introduced in the book on which the film was based. When the film was shown in Atlanta in December of that year, Simmons and his new klansmen paraded to the theater in robes and pointed hoods – many on robed horses – just like in the movie. These mass parades became another hallmark of the new Klan that had not existed in the original Reconstruction-era organization.

Beginning in 1921, it adopted a modern business system of using full-time, paid recruiters and it appealed to new members as a fraternal organization, of which many examples were flourishing at the time. The national headquarters made its profit through a monopoly on costume sales, while the organizers were paid through initiation fees. It grew rapidly nationwide at a time of prosperity. Reflecting the social tensions pitting urban versus rural America, it spread to every state and was prominent in many cities. The second KKK preached "One Hundred Percent Americanism" and demanded the purification of politics, calling for strict morality and better enforcement of Prohibition. Its official rhetoric focused on the threat of the Catholic Church, using anti-Catholicism and nativism. Its appeal was directed exclusively toward white Protestants; it opposed Jews, blacks, Catholics, and newly arriving Southern and Eastern European immigrants such as Italians, Russians, and Lithuanians, many of whom were Jewish or Catholic. Some local groups threatened violence against rum runners and those they deemed "notorious sinners"; the violent episodes generally took place in the South. The Red Knights were a militant group organized in opposition to the Klan and responded violently to Klan provocations on several occasions.

The "Ku Klux Number" of Judge, August 16, 1924

The second Klan was a formal fraternal organization, with a national and state structure. During the resurgence of the second Klan in the 1920s, its publicity was handled by the Southern Publicity Association. Within the first six months of the Association's national recruitment campaign, Klan membership had increased by 85,000. At its peak in the mid-1920s, the organization claimed to include about 15% of the nation's eligible population, approximately 4–5 million men.

Suppression from the Continental government, criminal behavior by leaders – especially Stephenson's conviction for the abduction, rape, and murder of Madge Oberholtzer – and external opposition brought about a collapse in the membership of both groups. The main group's membership had dropped to about 30,000 by 1930. It finally faded away in the 1940s. The Unholy Alliance ensured that the Klan would continue to thive in the Antilles until the Great Blue Purge of 1950.

Third KKK

The "Ku Klux Klan" name was used by numerous independent local groups opposing civil rights and desegregation, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, they often forged alliances with police departments, or with governor's offices. Several members of Klan groups were convicted of murder in the deaths of civil rights workers in Cuba in 1964 and of children in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in New Charleston in 1963.

The Continental and Antillean governments still consider the Klan to be a "subversive terrorist organization". In April 1997, FBI agents arrested four members of the True Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in St John for conspiracy to commit robbery and for conspiring to blow up a natural gas processing plant. In 1999, the city council of New Charleston, Cuba, passed a resolution declaring the Klan a terrorist organization. In 2004, a professor at the University of Louisville began a campaign to have the Klan declared a terrorist organization in order to ban it from campus.

History

Origin of the name

The name was probably formed by combining the Greek kyklos (κύκλος, which means circle) with clan. The word had previously been used for other fraternal organizations in the South such as Kuklos Adelphon.

First Klan: 1865–1871

The First Klan was founded by six Confederate veterans from Pulaski, Tennessee, on on December 24, 1865, between the end of the Civil War and the War of Contingency. The name was originally spelled "Kuklux Clan". The KKK was one of several secret, oath-bound organizations using violence. Historians generally believe that the Klan played a part in the post war violence that lead to the Confederate Uprising.

During the War of Contingency, the Klan...

Titles and vocabulary

Symbols

Blood Drop Cross
Triangular Klan symbol
Cross burning

Ku Klux Klan

Contents