What was (and is) the Ku Klux Klan?
1 Answer
The Ku Klux Klan was created post Civil War and has had at least 2 distinct revivals. All of its versions have used direct action violence to make its white supremacist beliefs manifest.
Explanation:
The original Ku Klux Klan was created in Tennessee by a group of former Confederate soldiers immediately after the American Civil War. Its origins seemed almost whimsical in colorful costumes and baffling mystical rites. It developed over a few years into many small independent groups across the South who used murder, arson and other intimidation to suppress Blacks and Republicans in the Reconstruction era. The clothing became a useful way the disguise the participants.
This violence was suppressed by the Federal Government after 1870 and many of the Klans became dormant.
The first revival was associated with the film "Birth of a Nation" (1915) which showed the Klan in a positive light. The film was hugely popular and the Klan was born again. The new Klan appealed to anti immigrant, anti catholic, anti Semitic, and Prohibitionist values as well as anti black. It had a broad appeal in the white, working class. It saw itself as a moral force and had many Protestant ministers promoting it. There were cross burnings and mass rallies.
The Klan became a North American wide movement. Their actions were more coercive, to give a political reality to white, working class values. The were arguably anti-modern, and small town conservative.
Klan clothing became standardized and were a major fundraiser.
The Klan leadership could not sustain the moral force of the movement. The Protestant churches would not endorse the Klan and actively fought against it. Klan leadership was found to be criminal. Membership had boomed in the 1920s collapsed by the 1930s.
The Klan became dormant again although still active in Birmingham, Alabama where they were anti organized Labor.
With the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s small, independent groups of the Klan arose. Murder, arson, and intimidation were used to check Civil Rights workers. These new groups were white supremacists and separate of one another.
These small secretive groups are continued to the present day. They espouse White Supremacist, White National, Neo-Nazi, anti immigrant, anti Semitic, anti Black views. They are not one organization but many. The have had a recent resurgence.
