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Ku Klux Klan

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The Ku Klux Klan (abbreviated "KKK"[1]) is an American Christian, racist, white supremacist organization, known for their lynching activities (at least historically), their sinister robes and pointy hoods (to hide identity), and other trademarks such as burning crosses.

Contents

[edit] Origins

The first Klan was started after the American Civil War, to frighten any Southern African Americans who decided to exercise their newly-won rights, as well as Northern "carpetbaggers" who were seen as exploiting the Civil War victory. A number of similar movements sprang up in the South during this era, adopting Klan tactics and sometimes insignia. Even the Jesse James gang, bandits who regarded themselves as Confederate loyalist guerrillas, wore Klan robes and hoods during a train robbery in 1873.

In Margaret Mitchell's epic Civil War novel Gone With the Wind, some of the story's heroes participate in the Ku Klux Klan after the war, even riding out in Klan robes to take retaliation on a Yankee shantytown. In the movie adaptation, all mention of the Klan was omitted and the raid was made in plain clothes.

During the 1870s, the Klan and its allies spearheaded the insurrection that helped to end Reconstruction. After Reconstruction ended, so did the Ku Klux Klan.

[edit] Revivals of the KKK

From the end of Reconstruction until the 1920s, the KKK was mostly dormant. Older members would occasionally don the costume in an effort to get together a lynch mob, but it did not act as an organized force.

However, around 1915 some leaders, at least partly inspired by the epic film The Birth of a Nation, came together and launched the second Klan. They expanded their ambitions and became a force across the United States. (In fact, many of the most important chapters were in the Midwest rather than the South.) In many states, one could not be elected to the state house or the governor's mansion without at least the tacit endorsement of the KKK. On top of this, they also expanded the targets of their hate. Rather than focusing on African-Americans, as they had in the past, they also targeted Catholics, immigrants, Jews and feminists.

After the 1929 stock market crash and several public scandals involving the KKK, membership imploded and the Klan was near defunct by 1930. They finally disbanded in 1944.

The third Klan started up in the 1950s in response to the civil rights movement. This iteration of the Klan, while nowhere near as large as the 1920s version, carried out many lynchings and other acts in opposition to desegregation and voting rights in the South. This version also became fodder for the FBI's COINTELPRO program and for the Superman radio show when moles within the organization began to submit private information to the FBI (as well as leaking the most ridiculous information to the media). By the late 1960s the Klan was again on life support and probably would have disappeared entirely if not for one David Duke, who together with a few other Klan leaders tried reviving the Klan during the 1970s by shedding the white sheets and putting on suits and ties.

[edit] More recently

The KKK imagines this is meaningful

The era of the organized Klan is over. There are many smaller groups who now claim to be the "true" KKK, but few have any power. Occasionally, members of these smaller groups will engage in either hate-spewing or even violence, but this is nothing like the hold that the KKK held on the South in the late 1800s or the whole nation in the early 1900s.

The small groups today sometimes use the term "fifth era Klan", which is dubious at best. This is in reference to the first era (Reconstruction), second era (1920s), and third era (1950s-60s), but whether there is an actual "fourth" and "fifth" era (as distinct from merely the pathetic remains of the third era limping along on life support) is questionable. Usually their claim is the period when David Duke tried resuscitating the Klan during the 1970s is the "fourth era", and the "fifth era" started in the early 1980s when the Klan adopted Christian Identity and became part of the extreme right aligned with neo-Nazi groups like the Aryan Nations. To give some idea: Klan membership in 1926 at the peak of the second era stood at about 6,000,000. In 1980 ("fourth era"), it stood at about 5,000. Today it is about 3,000.

Some Klan groups are now claiming a "sixth era" which presumably has something to do with the Internet ("OMGlookzorz U can join teh Klan right here on our website just give us ur kredit kard number heah heah") and which they think will revive it again, but hopefully it will prove to be that the Klan ceases to exist entirely. They should get a Klue and Klose their doors for good, because anyone at this point who still thinks parading around in funny white sheets and burning crosses is meaningful activity needs to seriously get a real life.

[edit] Public officials and the Klan

There has been one Klan member on the Supreme Court. Justice Hugo Black was both a member and appointed during the heyday of the Second Klan. However, he later came to regret his association and became a consistent voice for civil rights.

Also, one former Klan member has been elected to the Senate, Democrat Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Even more so than Black, however, Byrd publicly and repeatedly repented, sponsored a great deal of civil rights legislation, and even publicly endorsed a black man for United States President. He was also the longest serving Senator ever, beating Ted Kennedy.

A well-known member is David Duke, who won a seat on the Louisiana state legislature back in the 1989, even though the Republican Party's biggest names threw their support to his opponent[2] (which doesn't really enhance Louisiana's reputation).

[edit] The Klan and pop culture

Most often in pop culture, the Klan is depicted as generic villains, of the sort that few people could really identify with. However, there are several appearances of the Klan in pop culture that are more interesting.

[edit] The serious

[edit] The humorous

[edit] KKK and religion

The early KKK, up until around the 1930s, adhered to a nationalist brand of Protestantism.[8] Thus, the Klan also targeted Jews and Catholics. It was during the Depression-era that Christian Identity, a fringe sect derived from British Israelism that uses Biblical quotes to justify segregation or extermination of so-called "lesser races," began to be imported into the US. The Klan has been heavily entangled with Christian Identity since this period and has put more emphasis on anti-Semitism due to Identity's obsession with a supposed race war.[9] Fundamentalist Christians (including Christian Reconstructionists) call them a cult, which is odd, since they are as racist as can be without openly advocating segregation. They are American men who enjoy dressing up in costumes and doing things together. A lot like the Masons and Shriners in this respect, but different. Dressing up doesn't excuse racism and murder.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Not to be konfused with the German turbine manufacturer.
  2. GOP Condemns Duke" Newsday. Long Island, N.Y.: Feb 25, 1989. pg. 09
  3. Arthur S. Link, Papers of Woodrow Wilson 68:298
  4. Nearly all of which came from Warner Bros.
  5. i.e., the white robes of the Klan became the black robes of the legion
  6. For example, the secret book of rituals was called a Kloran. Seriously.
  7. Nathan Bedford Forrest?
  8. Remembering When the Klan Tried to March Through Town: Kelly J. Baker's Gospel According to the Klan, Michael J. Altman
  9. See Michael Barkun's Religion and the Racist Right
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