ipl-logo

The Ku Klux Klan Analysis

1447 Words6 Pages

Within his work, The Ku Klux Klan, W.D. Wood’s argument for the Ku Klux Klan depicts the Klan as a sort of superhero, acting as a vigilante, its primary function being to free the Confederate states from the humiliation of African American influence and the Reconstructive legislation placed upon them. The Klan, composed in playfulness and made up of schoolboys, spent their evenings terrorizing African Americans. The Klan, once again, capitalized on the superstitious beliefs of African Americans, using their ghostly costumes and extreme pageantry to evoke panic. However, the author states that the Klan never acted in blood or violence, but rather used silent and obscure maneuvers to instill fear in the African Americans. The Klan sometimes stopping …show more content…

The evidence provided is an outlier, meaning it is the only one of its kind. However, the perspective offers a differing view which allows for the reader to establish an understanding of the evolving perspectives of the Ku Klux Klan as an organization. Michael W. Fitzgerald, a historian in Reconstruction and agricultural history, makes an argument in his article, “The Ku Klux Klan: Property Crime and the Plantation System in Reconstruction Alabama”, that the Klan originally emerged as a result of labor turmoil following the Emancipation Proclamation. Fitzgerald describes the Klan as an organization focused on working towards the goals and desires of the planter class and the individuals that resided within it. Fitzgerald uses an argument from Foner which states “the struggle over the plantation class and the restoration of labor discipline was equally as important as the other motives of the Klan.” The planter class controlled many of the objectives and motives of the Klan. Because the Klan was being controlled by the planter class and its societal systems, the Klan’s primary focus began to point towards the restoration of labor discipline and regulation of theft within the plantation system. Because the Klan was being used as a means of controlling the freedmen labor force, the author argues that the violence of the Klan was never racially-motivated, but rather only a means of stopping petty theft on plantations. Much like the first perspective, Fitzgerald believes that the Klan was not racially motivated. It was also acting as a law-enforcer, but for a different group of individuals. That group being the planter

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Redemption By Nicholas Lemann

    244 Words  | 1 Pages

    Nicholas Lemann begins his book “Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War” with the 1873 Colfax, Louisiana massacre where a White League militia comprised of former Confederate soldiers killed black Republican voters. The Colfax massacre was perhaps the bloodiest event of Reconstruction. Lemann views this event as a startup of what would happen later in Mississippi if Federal troops did not defend black voters. Lemann blames Ulysses S. Grant’s Secretary of War, William W. Belknap, for not stopping the White Line activity in Louisiana and Mississippi. Grant had worked hard to stop the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1870s with Congress passing legislation and Federal troops putting down Klan activity.

    Read More

  • Who Killed Reconstruction Dbq Analysis

    540 Words  | 3 Pages

    “ On the 29th of October 1869, [the Klansmen] broke my door open, took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead.” “ About two days before they whipped me they offered me $5,000 to go with them and said they would pay me $2,500 in cash if I would let another man go to the legislature in my place.”. The KKK tried to silence a former slave who ended up becoming a Georgia State Legislature to drain the support of Reconstruction policies and to attack the empowerment of the African-American community he represented. As political violence was still a thing in the South the North started to become weary of fighting for equal rights.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Strategies In Freakonomics

    1658 Words  | 7 Pages

    Uniquely, they ask questions, and then provide strong evidence to support their opinions on the matter or the claim. The tone of this book is mainly critical, the author introduces possible arguments to answer the questions at hand, and continues by refuting them and explaining why they are incorrect. In chapter 3, “How Is the Ku Klux Klan like a Giant Group Of Real-Estate Agents?” Levitt and Dubner mainly use the rhetorical strategy, pathos, when talking about the Ku Klux Klan because what person can disagree with someone proving how terrible a multi-state terrorist organization who’s purpose was to frighten and kill black people in the United States was? The answer is simple, no one, because most people have morals and are disgusted by what the Ku Klux Klan did.

    Read More

  • The Crop-Lien System Analysis

    747 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a result of this, racist organizations were founded to wreaked havoc on former slaves. Secret societies in the southern united states, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camellia used violence against the blacks. Their goal was often to keep blacks out of politics. Our textbook states, “In other states, where blacks were a majority or where the populations of the two races were almost equal, whites used outright intimidation and violence to undermine the Reconstruction regimes” (Brinkley 368). The people involved in such organizations were using violence to take away the fifteenth amendment right from the former slaves.

    Read More

  • Who Killed Reconstruction North Or South Essay

    435 Words  | 2 Pages

    Who killed Reconstruction: The North or South? Following the civil war, the south killed the reconstruction of the United States. (Reconstruction was putting the country back together after the Civil War) There are many reasons why, the south slowed down the reconstruction of the United States, the main reason was freedmen were not seen as equals to the white.

    Read More

  • Reconstruction After The Civil War Essay

    645 Words  | 3 Pages

    Former slaves who “tried to vote or participate in politics [were] likely to be singled out for “punishment”” by a terrorist organization named as the Ku Klux Klan, until the Congress passed the Force Bill in 1871 that gave the federal authorities the right to arrest and pursue active members of the KKK. But, the bill appeared to be only figurative as not really much of the Klan’s members were prosecuted (Hazen

    Read More

  • Women's Role In The Reconstruction Era

    1035 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Reconstruction Era occurred in 1865, it was was a period after the Civil War in which America was focused on rebuilding the broken South. In 1867, the Radical reconstruction gave former slaves a voice in government. During this era, formers slaves gained a platform in the government, with some blacks as Congressmen. However, not everyone supported the idea of Reconstruction. Less than a decade after the Reconstruction period, a small group composed of democratic ex-confederate veterans, white farmers and white southerners sympathetic to white supremacy joined forces together to form the Ku Klux Klan.

    Read More

  • Reconstruction Political Spectrum Essay

    770 Words  | 4 Pages

    The KKK used violence against Black Freedmen and others who opposed them to show dominance over them. The KKK used violence the stop Black Freedmen from voting so the Democrats could win more elections. After the Civil War the South elected ex-Confederate leaders to office. They denied freedmen the right to vote and passed “Black Codes” to restrict freedmen.

    Read More

  • Segregation During The Gilded Age

    752 Words  | 4 Pages

    Its main goal was to overthrow the Republican state governments during the Reconstruction era, it accomplished this goal by perpetuating violence against African American leaders in the South. The Second group was brought together in the mid 1910s, this version of the “Klan” flourished nationwide. This was especially true in the urban areas of the Midwest and West. It opposed not only African Americans but also those of the Catholic and Jewish faiths.

    Read More

  • Impact Of Racism On Reconstruction

    1533 Words  | 7 Pages

    Frederickson argues African Americans simply did not have the time or preparation to oppose racist forces. Using paramilitary forces, southern redeemers easily made threats to reconstruction forces as seen through the emergence of the violent Ku Klux Klan during the election of 1866. The opportunity for African Americans to gain a stance in society was short lived by the racist efforts of democrats in the south and impartial ideals from

    Read More

  • The Ku Klux Klan During The Reconstruction Era

    715 Words  | 3 Pages

    Founded during the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877), The Ku Klux Klan was an extremist hate group that violently challenged social and political laws which protected certain minority groups. The Klan’s deliberate use of terror and violence reflected the passion held for a racial hierarchy, with whites at the top of the social structure. The presence of KKK was seen not only during the Reconstruction Era, but also during the post–World War I era (1920s). There are distinct similarities and differences that define the motives of the 1860s Klan and the reincarnated 1920s Klan; however, I believe these characteristics hide the true representation of the intolerance of American citizens.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Ku Klux Klan And The Anti-War Protests Of 1960s

    496 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Dorothy Sterling We Are Your Sisters Analysis

    878 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the reading from We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century, Dorothy Sterling explores the many experiences of mainly African American women during the period of the Reconstruction era. Sterling states “whites put aside random acts of violence in favor of organized terror.” She focuses a lot on those experiences that involves the Ku Klux Klan (who were the organization responsible for these organized terror) and in a way, it seems fair because they were the main perpetrators of hate crimes against the African American community. The first few examples provided in the reading offer accounts of African American women whose husbands are often targets of the Ku Klux Klan because they were politicians or high-profile radicals in the South.

    Read More

  • How Did The Ku Klux Klan Influence People

    407 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Ku Klux Klan Vs Black Panther Party

    2333 Words  | 10 Pages

    This paper will discuss the difference between the Ku Klux Klan and The Black Panther Party two extremist groups. The historical foundation of these two groups along with the comparison of their extremist activities, and the motivating factors which fueled and heighten their motivational actions. The movement of these two groups were prompted by the two different beliefs with the Ku Klux Klan motives being from racism, and the Black Panther forming for the protection of their communities from racial tension. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in Tennessee by veteran confederate soldiers lead by General Nathan Bedford in 1865 during the time of the Reconstruction Era as a result of resistance to the Republican Party’s support of the Reconstruction

    Read More

More about The Ku Klux Klan Analysis

Open Document