Ku Klux Klan In The 1920's Analysis

Topic: In 1866, the Ku Klux Klan was founded by many former confederate veterans in retaliation to their current Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. The Reconstruction era sparked by President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation clearly defined that the days of white superiority were in dissolution. Through a willful ignorance and an insecurity of what might postlude the civil rights movement, the KKK rose, using terror in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Lieutenant general in the Civil war, became the KKK's first Grand Wizard. Now with a steady leader the klan became a persistent political party aimed at dismantling the increasingly

To understand the Klan, then, it is necessary to understand the character and present mind of the mass of old-stock Americans. The mass, it must be remembered, as distinguished from the intellectually mongrelized "Liberals.'

YES: Shawn Lay rejects the view of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) as a radical fringe group comprised of marginal men and instead characterizes the KKK of the 1920s as a mainstream, grassroots organization that promotes traditional values of law, order, and social morality that appealed to Americans across the nation.

The goal of this investigation is to delve into the question of: to what extent was the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s a reflection of societal change? In order to assess this question from multiple perspectives on the topic, research is needed to further look into the Klan’s motives both prior to their revival as well as after. Events in the 1870s, when the Klan ended, as well as events in the 1920s, when the klan was reborn, will be considered in this investigation in order to make connections between the KKK and why their revival in the 1920s reflected societal change. Among these events include the end of Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, increase of immigration to the United States, as well as the “red scare” of communism.

The Reconstruction-era Klan, the 1920s Klan, and the modern Klan are three Ku Klux Klans in the United States history. Just as any terrorism group throughout human history, The Ku Klux Klans have often used scare tactics to enforce their power and scare minorities. No terrorist regime has lasted over the decades. They usually take the limelight for a small period of time. They are centered in newspapers, magazines, photos, journals, and broadcast media for the duration of their time and then they usually fade away. The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s is no exception. The 1920s Klan was founded by William J. Simmons in 1915 and then was disbanded. It was a powerful organization and had a huge political and social influence in the United States for a time. The 1920s Klan aims was against equal rights for African Americans, and resisted Catholics, Jews and foreigners. The 1920s Klan’s members always tried to control, oppress, and prevent the newly freed slaves from entering the mainstream of American life. The 1920s Klan took the spotlight into fame and media for their message of hate and anti-white American idealism. Was the Klan of the 1920s a mainstream organization?

The second Ku Klux Klan lasted between 1915 to 1944 but predominantly rose and fell during the 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan was a white supremacist group with millions of members who brutally tortured and killed anyone who was not a white American. The Ku Klux Klan were known for their white robes, cone hats, and covered faces that disguised their identities. The second Ku Klux Klan’s most important part of it’s history was it’s dramatic rise and fall. The Ku Klux Klan rapidly gained popularity during the 1920s due to political encouragement and immigration, then fell due to political corruption.

David Chalmers has written many books in the political science genre, but Hooded Americanism was the first book that he wrote that was meant to be a reference. Anyone that wants to travel into one of the darkest areas of our nation’s history would enjoy reading this book. Readers that want the facts and truth behind the Klan, and are not satisfied with only seeing the negative image that the media has portrayed of the Klan, should read this book. The book was clearly written for an adult audience. Towards the end of the book, David Chalmers goes into detail when describing various acts of violence that the KKK performed. For example, in chapter forty-five, the author describes floggings of African Americans, and burning of Jewish synagogues. Without these detailed accounts though, the author would have been unsuccessful in his purpose for writing. When reading, it became apparent that Chalmers

“By the summer of 1964,” David Cunningham writes in “Klansville, U.S.A.,” “the Carolina Klan established a demanding schedule of nightly rallies across the state, where they enlisted thousands of dues-paying members.” More than that, “at its mid-1960s peak the Klan’s presence in North Carolina eclipsed klan membership in all other southern states combined.” (Cunningham most likely put “klan” in lowercase because of the groups’ disorganization.)

The Ku Klux Klan were in almost every southern state by 1870 and became the driving force for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies. Their main goal was the reestablishment of white supremacy through Democratic victories in state legislatures. The first leader of the KKK was the Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest who was called the “grand wizard”. At its peak in the 1920’s, Klan membership exceeded 4 million people nationwide. They worked to curb the economic advancement,

It’s hard to imagine people dying and having crosses burn on their lawns becoming society’s new normality, but for some reason it mixed in. In 1871 the constitution passed a law saying that the Government could act agent’s terrorist groups, but by 1882 the law was declared unconstitutional and targeting. This is yet another way that the KKK normalized itself into society, it was tolerated and the government made it easy to target black people with not laws to stop them. The violets did exactly what they wanted it too; it gained the ability to have the Demarcate party represent the United States. Another one of the ways the KKK made them self’s normal is that there acts would say for days. The hanging of black men would be in trees for four days at a time, with notes on the bodies saying that if a black citizen took them down them would be next to die. Walking around in town and it becoming a normal thing for a black man to be lynched in a tree and seeing that day in and day out and going nothing became something people became accustom too. The South simply seemed to work around the carouse and went about daily life. . (Note to self: Talk about document B and the normality that the Klan had with hanging people in a town and not having people speak agents them/ getting free rope from stores) yet another example of the KKK mixing into society in 1868 on December 3rd in central Alabama Klan members came to a town to lynch a man. They

The Ku Klux Klan was formed after the Civil War aimed at promoting white supremacy. The Klan focused its attacks first against African Americans, and later against African americans and other races. The Ku Klux Klan throughout the ages has always emphasized racism, secrecy and distinctive costumes. The Chapter shows us the importance of having knowledge and information. The supremacy and the fear of the general public towards the Ku Klux Klan were mainly because of the secrecy the group had and also due to the lack of knowledge by the people. As per the book, after an individual was able to infiltrate the Klan and make their secrets, code words, rituals and ideas public, The Klan started to lose the command it had on the American people. This was accomplished by broadcasting the secrets of

The Hooded Truth: The 1920s Ku Klux Klan (1) Introduction Whether you call it a hate organisation or a terrorist movement, the Ku Klux Klan was one of the most influential groups of American history. More specifically, was the second Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, with its extreme atrocities and passionate philosophy. In understanding its revival, the report will dwell on the ideologies that sparked the Klan’s evolution. The evolution of the 1920s, with which began with the former Imperial Wizard, Mr. William J. Simmons. This report will focus on how Simmons revived the Ku Klux Klan and what role did Edward Young Clarke as well as Mrs. Elizabeth Tyler have in its successful reign.

Simmons after watching a black and white movie called “Birth Of A Nation”, which was about the KKK. The movie showed the KKK as a needed and important part of the United States and was a needed group to keep the United States of America from creating a “Black empire” in the south. By the nineteen fifteen, William and others brought back the Klu Klux Klan to a much higher level gaining about one hundred thousand members by the end of World War One. This is the point when the KKK used the white sheets and cone shaped hats that made them famous. The Klu Klux Klan stepped up their attacks not only on the African American population, but to catholics, jews, immigrants, and alcohol. The end of World War One brought numerous members because skepticism of immigrants and the loss of jobs for the people who went to go fight after World War One. The Klu Klux Klan’s members swelled from a few thousands in the eighteen hundreds to a massive one hundred thousand members after World War One. The Klansmen stepped up their attacks by lynching and burning crosses. This mayhem continued until around the nineteen twenties when the KKK’s members were at its peak with over five million. The KKK also had people in office and had control over part of the government. Their numbers were so large that the president could not put any restrictions on them or riots might occur. This all changed when the media and press attacked the KKK. With the help of the media, public opinion started to change. This continued on until the nineteen forties when the member count dropped to thirty thousand, a far cry from the five million it had acquired. The Klu Klux Klan then broke into small groups and disappeared. The prime of the KKK is over but it is not dead

From the beginning there has been three different itera-tions of the Ku Klux Klan, each of them with their own way of expressing their belief. The “first” Ku Klux Klan, or the “Or-der”, self-described themselves as the “Invisible Empire of the South”, they were an underground resistance movement. They were trying to preserve its old way of life. Then there was the second Ku Klux Klan, or the “Knights of the Ku Klux Klan“. This division had been the most famous of the three Klan’s. The

No group symbolized the way in which these different strands of cultural reaction came together as much as the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK was prevalent in the Southwest and Midwest, where few African-Americans lived. While the Klan was profoundly racist, in the 1920’s, it was better known for its protests against Catholic and Jewish immigrants and the threat to traditional Protestant morality which Catholics and Jews represented. Aside from being racist, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Semitic, the Klan also