The Ku Klux Klan During The Reconstruction Era

The Gilded Age was an age that was directly dependent on the end of the Civil War. Jazz was a major parts of what the 1920s and it helped African Americans realize the where they are at that moment was not what they had to stay at. The end of the Civil War made most of the American populace believe that the lives of slaves would change drastically. American slaves were granted freedom by order of the President and the Congress.

The early 1900s were a time of widespread social and political change in America. During this time, many Americans adopted new, more modern ideas about labor, cultural diversity and city life. Some of these Progressive ideas were brought about by the need for reform in the workplace due to the grown of large companies and rapid industrialization. Not everyone supported the ideas of the Progressive Movement, however. Anti-Progressives, especially in the South, preferred traditional, rural lifestyles, and a slower, simpler way of living.

The Klu Klux Klan was very significant and important for many reasons. The organizations primary goal of the Klan was to destroy the Republican Party as revenge for the abolition of slavery and for having a hand in the federal occupation and restructuring of the South. This was achieved by harassing and, if necessary, murdering registered Republican voters. Political murders by the Klan numbered in the thousands, many of the victims being black. Klan members often murdered black political leaders, heads of black religious institutions and any other black individual who had ties to a political organization.

In 1934 ,November 14 an ordinary child was conceived with a soon to be world changing child. This child would grow up under harsh conditions that created a monster out of him. Experiencing life as abandoned and alone the young boy found crime to be his only way of expressing himself. Beginning a life filled with petty crimes the boy spent time incarcerated. The petty crimes soon proved to not be enough as the boy and his group conducted acts of pure hatred.

Separate But Not Equal - How Brown v. Board of Education Changed America Brown v. Board of Education was a court case to desegregate schools. During this time over one-third of states, mostly in the south, segregated their schools by law. Most people don’t know that the lawsuit actually started off as five, in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. Unfortunately all the lower court cases resulted in defeat (Greenspan 1). The bigger issue was still at hand though, it wasn’t only the schools being segregated, it was everywhere.

Since their establishment after the Civil War, in 1865, the Ku Klux Klan is known as one of the most famous hate groups in America. The white cloaked Knights use lynching, riots, and demonstrations, to spread their hate filled messages toward any ethnic or religious groups who are not white, nor Christians. But despite their actions, the Klan still promoted themselves as “100% American” to gain support from United States citizens. Although they promoted themselves as “100% American”, the knights of the Ku Klux Klan sought to deprecate the rights of those whose views differed from theirs, through violent actions.

The role racism played in the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan included the rise of southern whites through violence to prevent African Americans from gaining social, political, and economic equality. Socially the Klan prevented African Americans from religious practices by burning down churches blacks went to. One of the most well known church burnings in American history happened on September 15, 1963 at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama, four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted dynamite in the church and the dynamite ended up killing 4 girls and injuring over 20 people. After the bombing, thousands of black protesters went to the scene of the bombing demanding justice and being emotionally tired of the racism that was happening.

The Ku Klux Klan, the most prominent group of white supremacists in the United States with over four million members, began losing a vast majority of their followers throughout the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. The Ku Klux Klan’s losses of influence contributed to the tolerance of African Americans and other minorities in U.S. society. The Ku Klux Klan, most prevalent in the south, with “Klan membership exceed[ing] 4 million people nationwide [in the 1920’s].” (Ku Klux Klan 86-87) was responsible for the lynching of at least 4,733 people according to Tuskegee University.

The decade of the 1960s is remembered as one of the most turbulent times of Americanhistory. The decade, from riots to assassinations, was filled with violent disorder and confusion. Even with opposition and disagreement all over the United States, some movements took apeaceful, nonviolent approach with one of the most well-known and successful being the CivilRights Movement. The African American Civil Rights movement was a nonviolent fight for equal rights forAfrican Americans after years of mistreatment and segregation. The ultimate goal of themovement was to gain the rights of an American citizen.

First, in the 1960s there was a variety of political issues. ¨At the beginning of the 1960s, many Americans believed they were standing at the dawn of a Golden Age¨. On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy became president of the United States. During his presidential campaign in 1960, John F. Kennedy had promised the most ambitious domestic agenda since the New Deal, a package of laws and reforms that sought to eliminate injustice and inequality in the United States. But the New Frontier ran into problems instantly. The Democrats Congressional majority depended on a group of Southerners who loathed the plan’s interventionist liberalism and all they tried to block it.

The Civil War was the most destructive battle in American history. The hurricane of a battle lasted for four years and is responsible for 785,000-1,000,000 Union, Confederate, and slave casualties. The battle was fought for the overall emancipation of slaves, and the Union succeeded in fulfilling that goal. You would think that after that war and after slavery was abolished once and for all, everyone would be happy and everyone would join together and sing Kumbaya; however, that's not exactly what happened. The Reconstruction Era was more destructive for slaves than the war itself.

The Reconstruction period was a brutal time period for America in order to fix the things destroyed during the Civil War, but it was overall worth it. There were many good things about Reconstruction, but also bad. I personally believe that there were more good things than bad. One negatives is that the slaves weren’t really free meaning they didn’t have completely equal rights, but this was the start of the Civil Rights movement that shaped our country. One of the things that all started movement towards Civil Rights was the 13th Amendment.