| The Ku Klux Klan 2 Essay, Research Paper
The Ku Klux Klan The KU KLUX KLAN is a group of white
secret societies who oppose the advancement of blacks, Jews, Gays and
other Minority groups. The Ku KLux Klan also known as the KKK or the
Klan, Is active in The United States of America and Canada. It often
uses violence to achieve its goal in society. The KKK members wear robes
and hoods, and burn crosses at their outdoor meetings. They will also
burn crosses to scare non-members. The KKK was formed as a social club
by a group of confederate army veterans in Pulaski, Tenn., in 1866, but
still goes on today. A former confederate general , was the first Klan
Leader , called the Grand Wizard. The group took its name from the Greek
word kyklos, meaning circle, and the English word clan. Klan members,
who believed in the superiority of whites, soon began to terrorize
blacks to keep them from voting or exercising the other rights they had
gained during Reconstruction, the period following the end of the
American Civil War in 1865. The Klan threatened, beat, and murdered many
blacks in the South. To hide their identity, Klan terrorists wore robes
and hoods, draped sheets over their horses, and rode at night. The KKK
spread rapidly throughout the Southern United States and became known #
as the Invisible Empire. Its attacks helped drive blacks out of Southern
political life. In 1871, Congress passed the Force Bill, which gave the
President the authority to use federal troops against the Klan. The KKK
soon disappeared. They then returned to Society in the early 1900’s. In
1915, William J. Simmons, a former Methodist clergyman, organized a new
Klan in Atlanta, Ga., as a patriotic, society. The Klan directed its
activities against groups it considered un-American, including blacks,
immigrants, Jews, and particularly Roman Catholics. The KKK grew rapidly
and by the mid-1920’s had more than 2 million members throughout the
country. The Invisible Empire of the 1920’s was neither centered in the
southern and rural areas, and wasn’t all about white supremacists,
violence. It was lead by an Atlanta fraternal organizer and first gained
popularity on the national scene in the wild years after the end of
World War I. The Ku Klux Klan then presented themselves as the defender
of Americanism and the savior of Christian ideals. It received a charter
in 1916 as a “patriotic secret, social , benevolent order,” but found
many occasions to abuse Catholicism, integration, Judaism, immigration,
and internationalism as threats to traditional American values.
Enrolling over two million members between 1920 and 1926, the Klan
commanded almost as much support as organized labor and was described
with great accuracy by journalist Stanley Frost as “the most vigorous,
active, and # effective force in American life outside business.” The
first nationwide notice of the Ku Klux Klan came in the fall of 1921. On
September 6, after months of research by Rowland Thomas, the New York
World began a three-week exposure of the secret order, with great
concern on its more violent aspects. Carried by eighteen leading
newspapers, the articles documented Klan purposes ideals, and practices.
The World estimated its combined strength in forty-five states as five
hundred thousand and, on September 19, 1921, it listed 152 separate
outrages connected to the Invisible Empire, including four murders,
forty-one floggings and twenty-seven tar-and-feather parties. White
supremacy was a basic part of the Klan in the South, but urban klan
members took up the club even more violently towards the Roman
Catholics. In 1922, the Klan attempted to intimidate the Atlanta Board
of Education into dismissing Catholics from teaching assignments and
threatened the lives of board members. Local employers were urged to
fire Catholic workers, while merchants with ” Roman” sympathies were
boycotted. Even the city council was infected with the fever, passing in
September 1921, a resolution denouncing the Knights of Columbus as an
un-American order. Some Klan members burned crosses and whipped,
tortured, and murdered people whose activities angered them, but most
relied on peaceful means. By electing public officials, the Klan became
a powerful # political force throughout the South and also in many
Northern and Western states, including Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Maine,
Ohio, and Oregon. However, public outbursts of Klan violence and
conflicts among Klan leaders weakened the organization. During the Great
Depression of the 1930’s, the Klan’s membership dropped dramatically,
and after a federal suit for income tax delinquency in 1944, the Klan
went bankrupt. However, in the mid-1960s, as civil rights workers
attempted to promote compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the
Klan briefly revived once again. It faded rapidly after President Lyndon
Johnson denounced the organization in 1965. Beginning in the mid-1970’s,
new leaders tried to give a more respectable image to competing Klan
groups. Some accepted women as members and set up youth groups. The KKK
especially appealed to whites who hated special programs designed to
help blacks and job competition from blacks and recent immigrants. Also
in the 1970’s, it largely abandoned its dislike towards Roman Catholics.
Klan membership rose to about 10,000 by 1980. The KKK still attracted
people with extreme views who often used violence. In 1979, Klan members
and their supporters killed five anti-Klan demonstrators in Greensboro,
N.C. Klan members murdered a black youth in Mobile, Ala., in 1981. Since
then, declining interest in the Klan and some prosecutions for illegal
activities have reduced KKK membership to about 6,000. # The Ideals of
the Ku Klux Klan: 1.The White Race is the irreplaceable hub of the
nation, the Christian faith, and the high levels of Western Culture and
technology. 2.America should come first before any foreign or alien
influence of interest. 3.The Constitution, as originally written and
intended, is the finest system of government ever conceived by man.
4.There should be an end to high-finance. 5.Americans have a right to
practice their Christian faith-including prayer in schools. 6.The family
unit, is one of the most important ingredients in the preservation of
White Christian civilization
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