The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist group that ruined the lives of millions of African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan founded in 1915 by a William J. Simmons, who was a Methodist preacher, who had groups, or “klaverns”, in Alabama plus Georgia. In American history there has been three waves of the Ku Klux Klan. First was the Reconstruction-era Klan. They started in the South towards the conclusion of the Civil War that had a few thousand members. Their main goal was to manufacture it impossible for emancipated African Americans to have the ability to vote in addition to becoming in any way equal with whites. Second was the 1920s Klan, which was liked by people all around the country also included somewhere between 3-5 million members. This Klan was a result of World War I which caused a change in cultural, economic, as well as social values thanks to the Industrial Revolution. They were against those changes in values. Third, and the most recent Klan, showed up after World War II. They came from the Deep South. They didn’t allow African Americans to attain citizenship rights after it became an official right. Now, after the background details are over, the question is, was the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s a Mainstream Organization? By that question, I am referring, was the Ku Klux Klan a family organization such as Boy Scouts. …show more content…
Does America choose to own up to letting a white supremacy group influence the lives of people all of America? Either way it happened. It’s just the matter of Americans accepting it or
Define 1. Scalawags: Southerners who wanted to be more like the northerners and other southerners believed they only wanted to join in the northerners’ evil money making plans 2. KKK: The Ku Klux Klan was a secret hate group in the South that formed after the Civil War to suppress the rights of the freed slaves and oppose the carpetbaggers coming down from the North. They committed many violent acts.
The Ku Klux Klan, with its long history of violence, is the most infamous and oldest of American hate groups. Although black Americans have typically been the Klan's primary target, it also has attacked Jews, immigrants, gays and lesbians and, until recently, Catholics. The Ku Klux Klan, they believed, they were protecting in Traditional American values. They treated blacks by Lynched, raped and beat blacks for petty crimes. The Klan was not only anti-black but also took a stand against Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners and organized labor.
In the South, there was a group called the Ku Klux Klan, or the KKK. They would run rampant killing whoever they pleased, and no one would stop them. The KKK would kill political figures who supported Reconstruction or freedman. In a testimony to the Senate, Abram Colby states, “On the 29th of October 1869, [the Klansmen] broke my door open , took me out of my bed, took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead” (Colby 513). The KKK targeted African Americans and tortured them to death.
Due to the ratification of the amendments, many southern elites could not stand the fact that African Americans were freed. One solution that was developed was to destroy reconstruction by murdering Black Americans. The Ku Klux Klan was then formed, this group consisted of vindictive Confederate Army veterans. Sought out to be heros to many southern democrats, but a nightmare for African American families. The Ku Klux Klan terrorized many African American families, burned down churches, drove thousands of families out of their homes, and caused great mayhem.
”We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment.” -Nathan Bedford Forrest said in July 1875 during his speech to the black southerners of the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association. This was his last public appearance before his death and was considered a “friendly speech. This turned out to be one of the more controversial quotes Nathan Bedford Forrest ever stated.
The KKK was a white nationalized group that included former veterans, which created the first branch of the group. The Klansmen founded in 1865, in Pulaski, Tennessee, is now known as the birthplace of the KKK. This group dedicated themselves to a campaign of violence to Republican leaders and voters. The KKK targeted many people based on their race or sexuality , including, Gays, Immigrants, African Americans, and Catholics(KKK history). Jim Crow laws,
When Confederate leaders rose back to power, this encouraged white southerners to become more open about their white supremacy, which created the KKK. The Ku Klux Klan mainly targeted blacks and the republicans who supported them. According to class notes on the KKK, they raided Freedman schools, invaded towns, tortured and murdered black families. African-Americans have tried to take a stand against this, but with involvement by the authorities and government make it challenging. “We find their deeds are perpetrated only upon colored men and white republicans...
The KKK was a group of white southerners who did not want the policies establishing political and economic equality for blacks to be successful. The KKK engaged in underground campaigns of intimidation and violence directed at Republican leaders, both white and black. One of the most notorious areas of the Klan was South Carolina. In January 1871, five hundred masked men attacked a Union county jail and lynched eight black prisoners. Acts like these would go “unnoticed” by officials and other influential citizens in the area because of the fear of how the Klan would retaliate and also by the lack of care for what the Klan was doing.
Through white supremacy, the Klu Klux Klan was born. During the 1920s, cultural conflict and modernization helped resuscitate the Ku Klux Klan. Whereas the original KKK was a violent, racist organization born in the post-Civil War South, the modern Klan was driven by somewhat different concerns. Many white, lower-middle-class, Protestant Americans in the North and Midwest were fearful that immigrants were changing traditional American
Since then much has changed, now right and wrong are matters for debate. How do you exactly determine what is right and wrong? Members of the Ku Klux Klan truly believe that whites are superior. Are they wrong for that? Think of a football team that you adore, is it wrong for you to think of that team as the best? No doubt, they are racist.
They tore up parties and barbecues They Klan would put letters in the newspaper inviting people to come to the meetings and join the Klan. The KKK is ran by the ‘Grand Cyclops’ The people became scared of the ‘hooded Lictors’ standing outside, because when they were asked who they were they would respond with “A spirit from the other world.
The 1920s, and all of the events that accompanied it, provoked the KKK to rise up once again. This revitalized Klan is often referred to as the second wave of the Klan.5 It was established in 1915 by William J. Simmons. Simmons, a minister, claimed that he had been given a vision by God. In this vision, God told him to gather white, native-born Protestant men in battle against forces of evil and immorality that were consuming the nation.6 So, Simmons gathered 33 men, climbed to the top of Stone Mountain in Georgia, and set a cross on fire, signifying the beginning of a movement.7 While the first Klan had just been a phenomenon, the 1920s Klan was a legitimate organization, with over 6 million members joining in between 1920 and
As the Ku Klux Klan’s membership grew, organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which fought to end racial discrimination and segregation, grew as well. With these two growing groups pushing for opposite ideals, tensions continued to increase. The NAACP pushed for reform and rights for African Americans and the Ku Klux Klan combated their progress with lynching and
The Ku Klux Klan first emerged in Pulaski, Tennessee following the Civil War. As we know today, the mere mention of the Klan triggers fear as the KKK is known for its various tactics of violence that came in the form if lynchings, murders, and mutilations. Following their emergence, the KKK were quickly symbolized and portrayed as the protectors of the South, following the defeat of the Southern states in the Civil War and the beginning of the period of Reconstruction by the federal government (Gurr, 1989, p. 132). During the 1920s, the KKK achieved its greatest political success and growth outside of the South. During this period, the membership of the Klan heavily expanded to the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Oregon, to which the KKK obtained two to two and one-half million members at its apex.
The Ku Klux Klan or KKK has created centuries of fear. They originated in Pulaski, Tennessee. The famous hate group was out to re establish white supremacy. The KKK has influenced local governments and people in power. It has also had an impact on American people and specifically black minorities.