The Southerners lost the
Civil War in 1865 which led to hatred, scandalous acts of murder and a loss of
their honor. Six Confederate veterans in their twenties started the Ku Klux
Klan (KKK), the first American terrorist group, after the end of the Civil War.
In the beginning the group provided entertainment at parties and attempted to
scare the black population when they claimed to be dead confederate soldiers. Jobs
were scarce, the southern countryside and plantations destroyed by battles and
southerners upset and ready to put up a fight against the Reconstruction
sanctions. The pranks turned to deadly nightly raids, killing and sending many running
for their lives. Black Americans served as the first targets. After the
reconstruction efforts began, the targets expanded to Republicans, and the
teachers of black students. Interest in the KKK dwindled and came back with a vengeance
during the 1920s. Lynching served as the main method of murder. The KKK and
other white supremacist groups that followed the KKK belief system added
bombing, poisoning and shooting to its murderous repertoire. The Klansmen
struck against anyone, black or white, who they felt violated racial boundaries.
The KKK represented a tremendous level of
violence because of race, nationality, religion and lifestyle. The atrocities
went beyond what most could even imagine. Throughout many years a multitude of
other groups followed in the KKK’s footsteps. Some sported swastika tattoos and
called themselves Skinheads, while others wore camouflage fatigues and trained
in guerrilla warfare maneuvers. They dressed as professionals sworn to deny the
Nazi Holocaust ever happened. Many believed the federal government happened to
be an illegal entity and all governmental power needed to rest with county
sheriffs. To this day, murders, arsons,
bombings and attacks have been committed based on common beliefs of racism and
prejudice which sustained the KKK for over 150 years.
The white people, who started the slave
trade, did not hate black people. They did not care about them at all until
they learned they could make money by selling and using them for free labor. It
was when the black people arrived in America the hating began. To justify
having slaves, the slave owners had to convince themselves that black people
were not fully human and undeserving of respect. The slave owners had to
believe they were inferior. After many years of treating black people in
horrible, inhumane ways, they became freedmen and the white people feared
retaliation. The slave trade was behind the building of the South and its
strong economy. Slavery has been outlawed in the U.S. for over 150 years. The
scars from the brutality of slavery still permeate with African Americans. Many
Africans jumped off the ships to avoid the terror of a unknown future when they
were being transported to America. The heritage of these people gone forever
(Gregory, 2018).
After the Civil War, the Confederacy lay in a smoldering ruin. The South was leveled to the condition of a frontier. Geographical devastation and economic collapse caused psychological trauma and the institution of Southern contentment and prosperity had been eradicated. The benefits, which elevated white Southerners above their true standing, had been removed by the Thirteenth Amendment. A Texas newspaper announced that another crop would not be planted by a race of people who were impossible to govern except with a whip and were placed in charge of their own destiny (Wade, 1987). The freedom of slaves meant defeat for the Southerners. They suffered economically and their way of life met its demise when they lost the Civil War. It was a nightmare come true and when the freed slaves lived among them, the plantation owners in particular, they viewed the large number of freed slaves a threat to their property and their lives. Many Southerners suffered from poverty and were often hungry. The Reconstruction government reminded them that their white ruling authority was severely diminished.
In February of 1865, General Sherman declared a Special Field Order #15 which secured 400,000 acres in the Sea Islands area for the settlement of the freed people in which they were promised forty-acres plots, mules and titles of ownership. President Johnson vetoed the order and the freed people were ordered to leave and the land returned to its original owners.
On March 3, 1865, Congress created the
Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees and Abandoned Lands which was known as the
Freedman’s Bureau. The Bureau constructed 3,695 schools, three universities and
approximately 100 hospitals and provided over 21 million rations and free
transportation to approximately thirty thousand people relocated due to war.
Without the Freedmen’s Bureau the survival of the blacks would have been
dependent on their former masters. Southern whites detested the Bureau. According
to Southerners, the Bureau was administered by “carpetbaggers.” The term meant
a Southern-based Northerner who did not buy into Confederate views. Southerners
were concerned they filled the minds of Negroes with new ideas. Records proved
whites benefitted from the Bureau more than blacks. As a result of the Bureau,
around 5,000 Northern teachers traveled south to educate blacks. Most of the
teaching staff were members of the American Missionary Association. They maintained
a goal that involved damage control to undo slavery’s legacies.
In April of the same year, the Civil
War ended, and President Lincoln was assassinated. Andrew Johnson became the
president, and he began more lenient presidential Reconstruction efforts. Under
Johnson the Southern state governments reorganized and Confederate leaders
regained power in governmental positions.
The new Southern government reelected the former vice-president of the Confederacy, six of its cabinet members, 58 Confederate congressmen, four Confederate generals and five Confederate colonels. The same men who were responsible for the secession of the South had been put back in charge. December of that year Congress reconvened and refused to seat Southern government representatives. During the same month the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified which abolished slavery everywhere in the United States which did not sit well with southern whites (Bartoletti, 2010).
After President Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson became the 17th president and proclaimed amnesty for former Confederates which gave them ability to regain U.S. citizenship. Approximately 14,000 military and political leaders of the defeated Confederacy received Johnson’s pardon. President Johnson introduced a simple plan for the defiant southern states to rejoin the union. Ten percent of each state’s electorate from 1860 had to abolish slavery, repeal secession ordinances, and retract any Confederate war debts. By 1865, every state except Texas complied with the terms. Newly elected senators and representatives prepared to take their seats on Capitol Hill when Congress reconvened on December 4, 1865 (Newton, 2005).
During the election campaign in 1866,
Johnson stopped at many Northern industrial cities. Many Americans got a first-hand
view of him and his lack of tact and narrow-mindedness. He argued
unprofessionally with hecklers. Johnson’s tactics during the campaign helped
win both houses by two-thirds for the Republicans.
During the spring of 1866, a private social club became America’s most tenacious terrorist group. The founders were six young Confederate veterans who resided at Pulaski, Tennessee: James Crowe, Richard Reed, Calvin Jones, John Lester, Frank McCord, and John Kennedy. In their twenties and well-educated sons of good families with promising careers such as lawyers, one elected to the Tennessee state legislature and another an editor of the Pulaski Citizen. They strived for entertainment after four long years of war and only wanted to have fun and play pranks on the public (Wade, 1987).
The secret society were familiar with the Kuklos Adelphon Fraternity which led them to choose ku klux, a distortion of the Greek word for “circle.” They added klan with a “k” for uniformity. Thus, the name Ku Klux Klan became the name for their social club. The founding fathers made up strange names for themselves such as Grand Cyclops (president), Grand Magi (vice president), Grand Turk (sergeant-at-arms), Grand Exchequer (treasurer), and Lictor (guardian at the meeting place, or Den). Costumes were left up to the individual members but they were requested to be weird and ghastly. They aimed at scaring superstitious former slaves by terrorizing them while professing to be zombies or Confederate dead soldiers. Shortly after the Klan’s inception they enticed more initiates and expanded to other surrounding districts (Newton, 2005).
A series of slave revolts in Virginia and
other parts of the South led to the practice of authorized night patrols of
white men who were deputized to carry out patrols. Night patrols were
considered their civic duty similar to serving on a jury or the military. The
regulators (night patrollers) traveled throughout the south to enforce curfew
for freed slaves and they guarded against further uprisings. The regulators
were given permission to give a specific number of lashes to any violators they
caught. The outcome of the Civil War and the Reconstruction efforts served as
the impetus for the Klansmen’s peak in power. Northerners referred to the Klan
as a form of terrorism and rebellion since they did not win on the battlefield.
Many Confederate veterans donned hoods and sheets to serve for the Invisible
Empire (Wade, 1987).
The African people who were abducted and forced to board ships to come to America lived normal lives when they resided at their home country. They lived in villages, with governments and means of providing for their villages. They fought to secure their land holdings which resembled the Europeans’ way of life. Many of the African people spoke the Swahili language which was foreign to the language spoken by their kidnappers. Many of these people happened to be intelligent, were strong willed and confident before their kidnapping. Their personalities and other abilities were passed down to future generations. Some of the slaves were beaten into submission while others maintained their hatred towards their abductors. In order for slave owners to own and control slaves they had to view them as less than human. Animals toiling in fields like the beast who pulled the plows (Gregory, 2018).
The Old South continued to amass sins which
infuriated the Republicans. To make a mockery out of the 13th
Amendment they implemented Black Codes. Black people were not permitted to own
land or weapons, break work contracts with white employers or establish any
independent business, use rude gestures or mutinous speeches. South Carolina
went as far as only allowing black people to only work as farmers and house
servants. Florida ordered 39 lashes for blacks who tried to attend white
assemblies and the same punishment occurred when black people were caught
publicly smoking cigars in Alabama. Insolent servants were fined $50 under
Alabama’s Black Code. Black children over two years of age were torn from their
families and apprenticed to whites until maturity if their parents did not
teach them white-approved “habits of industry and honesty” (Newton, 2005, pg. 4).
The Congressional Republicans, livid at the
obstinate Southerners, passed America’s first Civil Rights Bill. They surpassed
President Johnson’s veto. The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was
approved again over Johnson’s veto which guaranteed freedmen full citizenship. To
further the Southerners’ anguish, Congress passed a law overriding Johnson’s
veto which granted blacks the right to vote. Southern whites reacted to the
news from Washington with violence towards blacks.
Law enforcement joined in the Southerners
efforts to destroy the black people. May of 1866 the Memphis police led white
rioters and killed 46 freedmen, and two white Republicans. Approximately 80
blacks were wounded and 90 black homes, 12 schools and four churches were
burned to the ground. In July of 1866 New Orleans police led another massacre
in which 34 blacks were killed and 200 wounded. Throughout the Dixie area
individual lynchings, murders and assaults upon freedmen increased
dramatically.
By 1866, laws were introduced to protect all citizens and violence against blacks and Republicans escalated. In April, Congress overrode Johnson’s veto and passed a Civil Rights Bill. The Fourteenth Amendment was passed on June 8, 1866 which included provisions that entitled all people born or naturalized in the U.S. to citizenship and equal protection under the laws of the U.S. The aforementioned laws did not stop the violence. Southern states predominantly rejected the Fourteenth Amendment which placed black people in a precarious position. In November, the Republican election victories took over two third majorities of the House and Senate.
March 1867 served as a turning point when
Congress took over Reconstruction efforts from President Johnson and passed several
Reconstruction Acts which divided the Confederacy into military districts governed
by Union generals. The new governing sanctions ordered new elections for state
constitutional conventions and blacks voted for the first time in Southern
history. Soon after, the KKK’s Pulaski den held a meeting at the same time as the
Tennessee’s Democratic convention. The meeting’s purpose, announced in secret
circulars, made specific plans (Newton, 2005).
“To reorganize the Klan on a plan corresponding to its size and present purposes; to bind the isolated Dens together; to secure unity of purpose and concert of action; to hedge the members up by such limitations and regulations as are best adapted to restrain them within proper limits; to distribute the authority among prudent men at local centers and exact from them a close supervision of those under their charge” (Newton, 2005, pg. 5).
The Klan’s renewed purpose involved
guerilla warfare against blacks, Republicans and any other groups that
threatened the “southern way of life” and was encased in the creed of white
supremacy. A command government was formalized which included Provinces
(counties), Dominions (congressional districts) and Realms (states). Each state
ruled by a Grand Dragon and supervised by a Grand Wizard who served like the
president of the United States, placed in charge of the entire domain of the
“Invisible Empire.” The Klan chose Nathan Bedford Forrest who happened to be a
former slave trader and Confederate cavalry leader, known for his combat
prowess and insubordination towards his superiors in uniform. His cavalry
massacred black prisoners of war at Fort Pillow, Tennessee in which victims
included a number of children and women. Forrest was appointed the Grand Wizard
in May of 1867 and he ensured by his style of command of the reorganized KKK
that he would demonstrate extreme facets of violence and carelessness. His
authority was what young ghouls respected. His connections as a railroad
entrepreneur and insurance representative granted him the connections and
associations necessary to complete his duties as the most prominent member of
the Klan as the Grand Wizard.
In Tennessee the Klan increased their
visibility through announcements, parades and meetings which gave them the
image of brotherhood. Tennessee ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and as a
result did not have to be subjected to the Radical Reconstruction. Many of the
southern states continued to struggle with the Reconstruction efforts (Newton,
2005).
“One historian summed up the radical
governments this way: Granting all their mistakes, the radical governments were
by far the most democratic the South had ever known. They were the only
governments in Southern history to extend to Negroes complete civil and
political equality, and to try to protect them in the enjoyment of the rights
they were granted. And when this government was replaced by all-white
conservative governments, most of these rights were stripped away from blacks
and in some cases from poor whites as well.
“The restoration of white government in the South was called ‘redemption,’ and although there are many historical reasons for the change, it was a development for which the Klan claimed credit, thereby placing the secret society in what it viewed as a heroic role in Southern history” (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2011, pg. 13).
In April of 1867, the order went out to all
KKK chapters and dens to send representatives to Nashville, Tennessee for a
meeting to plan a response to the federal Reconstruction policy. Into the fall
of that year the Klan became more violent. Thousands of white people of all
walks of life from doctors to farmers joined the Klan from Tennessee, northern
Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Many of the Klan members became alarmed at
the level of violence, not because of sympathy for the victims, but because the
night riding activities were getting out of their control. Many white men wore
a sheet and a mask and rode into the night to commit assault, rape, robbery,
arson and murder. The Klan was being used as a cover up for common crime and personal
revenge.
The aforementioned meeting gave birth to
the fundamental creed of the Ku Klux Klan
entrenched in white supremacy. They delivered threats to blacks,
radicals and other enemies warning them to leave town. The night raids on
individuals they singled out received harsher treatment. The mass
demonstrations of masked and robed Klansmen casted an imminent fear over already
distressed communities. By 1868 stories of Klan activities appeared in
newspapers throughout the nation and reconstruction governors realized they
faced an insurrection by a terrorist organization. Orders went out from state
capitols and Union army headquarters to suppress the KKK (Newton, 2005).
By the late 1860s white Southern voices
against the Klan were a minority. The Klan’s greatest strength came from the
support they received from a large number of ministers, former Confederate
officers and political leaders who hid behind sheets and guided the Klan’s
actions. “Were all the Ku-Klux arrested and brought to trial, among them would
be found sheriffs, magistrates, jurors, legislators, clerks and judges. In some
counties the Ku-Klux and their friends comprised more than half of the
influential and voting populations” (Wade, 1987, pg. 57). Forrest fed the admiration
for the “invisible empire” by traveling all over the South establishing new
chapters and advising new members.
As the violence intensified, it quickly turned
to anarchy, and some Klan groups began fighting each other. Tennessee became
plagued with guerilla warfare between official and fake Klans. The KKK was
under constant attack by Congress and Reconstruction governments. Klan dens in
many of the Southern states descended on unsuspecting white Republicans,
teachers of black students and black people. Voting for Republicans served as a
reason to suffer severe abuse. Black people, who were self-employed and owned
property, infuriated Klans and many were severely beatened, murdered and chased
off their lands. They were also drowned and threatened horribly.
They also stripped their victims and put
them through extremely sick sexual acts. The KKK members raped black women and
at the same time blamed black men for doing the same thing concerning white
women in which in most cases they were falsely accused. The black women who
resisted the sexual advances of whites ended up raped and often shot, some were
scalped and had their ears cut off. Since
white southern men have been having sex with black women, their slaves, for a
very long time, they believed freedmen would do the same to their women. All a
black man had to do was smile at a white woman and he was considered dangerous.
The KKK members told the people they harassed harshly to leave the area they
resided (Wade, 1987). What happened to the property and homes of their victims
if they ran from their treacherous oppressors?
Klans were under attack by Congress and the
Reconstruction state governments concerning its unlawful actions. Forrest
ordered the Klan to disband in January of 1869 but the way things looked he did
that so he could deny any connection to the Klan’s atrocities. His orders did
not end the violence and the carnages became more extensive. Martial law was
imposed in KKK dominated counties and Klan leaders were actively hunted. Congress
passed an anti-Klan law which followed the North Carolina mandates set forth
when that state was under martial law. Under the new federal law, Southerners
lost control over crimes of assault, robbery and murder and the president was
given authority to declare martial law. The government forbade night riding and
the wearing of masks. Hundreds were arrested but few faced prison time.
Violence was particularly stark during the
election years in Louisiana in which a large black electorate resided. Before
the presidential election of 1868, white Louisianans murdered approximately
seven hundred Republicans. William R. Meadows, a black leader, was drug from
his home, shot and beheaded in front of his family. As the election campaign
proceeded, white mobs meandered through the streets of New Orleans, assaulting black
people and breaking up Republican rallies. The hostility made a serious impact
on the Republican vote in the state of Louisiana (Goldfield, Abbott, et. al., 2004)
During the 1868 presential campaign, the
Democratic Party ran on a platform in support of white supremacists and stated
white men must run the country. They maintained that former slaves lacked the
ability to handle the responsibilities of citizenship and voting. They believed
black people were incapable of self-government. Black suffrage became a reality
in the Southern states. The Democratic candidates who ran for local offices
realized they needed votes from former slaves and believed their past slaves would
vote for them, the men who clothed and fed them. They were wrong. As former
slave owners watched the freedmen think for themselves, they resented them and
their Union Leagues. Despite the Klan’s terror tactics, freedmen voted in
extraordinary numbers. After the 1868 election, the Democrats’ disappointment
turned to anger when they realized the impact of black voters. White supremacy
was under attack by black political power when Ulysses Grant was elected the 18th
president (Bartoletti, 2010).
Grant did not support the goals of the KKK
which led to its expansion when he took a different approach and aligned
himself with what was considered radical Republicans. He was a prominent Union
general who led the Union army to victory against the Confederates which did
not set well with the Southern Democrats. He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1871
better known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. Because of Ku Klux Klan Act it was a
federal offense to interfere in a person’s right to vote, hold office, serve on
a jury, and enjoy equal protection of the law. The act also made it illegal for
anyone to conspire together or wear disguises to scare or cause harm to
individuals or thwart state authorities from protecting citizens. Individuals accused
of disobeying any of the above laws were
to be tried in federal court, not in state or local courts. Democrats called
the new laws a threat to individual freedom. With the Ku Klux Klan acts in
place, President Grant and the federal government had the authority to protect
citizens from the unlawful actions of the KKK.
As a result of Grant’s efforts things took
a turn for the worse for Black people. Southerners put into effect massive “Jim
Crow” segregation ordinances. Black people were barred from using and visiting railroads,
streetcars, theaters, water fountains, public parks and residential
neighborhoods. Their right to vote blocked by literacy tests, poll taxes, and
strict interpretation of obscure state laws (Newton, 2005).
Further hatred rose for many KKK members.
School teachers for colored students received whippings and other forms of
torture. Other carpetbaggers targeted by the Klan included Republican sheriffs,
election managers and revenue officers. Klansmen despised being charged taxes
by the Reconstruction government. Collectors of school taxes were the most
hated. The vast majority of black victims happened to be voting Republicans
which the Klan felt pertinent to receive a visit and a whipping by the Klan.
“In his third annual message of 1870, Governor
William Holden presented a grim analysis of the Invisible Empire in North
Carolina. Holden found it impossible to say how many people had fallen victim
to the Klan, but their number include state legislators, sheriffs, schoolteachers,
and countless black voters. ‘Some of these victims were shot,’ he said. ‘some
were whipped, some of them were hanged, some of them were drowned, some of them
were tortured, some had their mouths lacerated with gags; one of them had his
ears cropped; and others, of both sexes, were subjected to indignities which
were disgraceful not merely to civilization but to humanity itself.’ Holden
claimed that nearly forty thousand Klansmen were active in the state of North
Carolina alone – all of them united by an infernal bond of loyalty. ‘Consequently,’
he continued, ‘grand juries in many counties frequently refused to find bills
against the members of this Klan for the gravest and most flagrant violations
of law’” (Wade, 1987, pg. 84).
“The Confederate veterans who made up the
bulk of Klan membership were encouraged to whip, maim, and murder – to do as
Rebel soldiers to achieve their goals, which were now aimed at the overthrow of
Reconstruction and the complete disfranchisement of blacks” (Wade, 1987, pg. 86).
Fear instilled the need to avoid any form of incitement towards the Klan. A
joint investigation was held by members of the House and Senate to come up with
a plan of action against the Klan. Matters sat for a while because they felt
the problem was somewhat insurmountable.
In April of 1871, Congressman Richard
Butler addressed the House and told them that Americans were safe everywhere but
in their own country. Butler selected cases for review which happened to be
appalling. The Democrats could not leave the chamber quick enough. One of the
cases he presented involved a member of the American Missionary Association,
William Luke, who was murdered by the Alabama Klan. Before he was hanged, the
Klansmen allowed him to prepare a note for his wife which Butler read to the
present House members (Wade, 1987).
“My Dear Wife: I die tonight. It has been
so determined by those who think I deserve it. God knows I feel myself
innocent. I have only sought to educate the Negro.
“I little thought when leaving you so far
away that we should then part forever.
“God’s will be done! He will be to you a
better husband than I have been, and a father to our six little ones.
“There is in the company’s hands about
two-hundred dollars of my money; also my trunk and clothes are here. You can
send for them or let Henry come for them as you think best.
“God of mercy bless and keep you, my dear, dear wife and children” (Wade, 1987, pg. 93).
President Grant ran for a second term and
won in 1872. The following summer, he pardoned Klansmen serving sentences,
acknowledging the pardons necessary to restore peace for the South. The pardons
permitted all convicted Klansmen to return home. Within four years almost all
convicted Klansmen had either completed serving their sentences or were
pardoned. Despite the generous moves, each state and local election introduced
a new wave of violence. A flood of new white supremacist groups emerged under
different names: Rifle Clubs; the Red Shirts; the White League; the White
Liners; and the White Caps. These newly established groups intimidated black
voters openly and violently.
In 1874, Democrats won the majority in the
House of Representatives.
The violence continued. In September of
1875, white supremacists killed thirty black church leaders and teachers, and
white Republican officials in Clinton, Mississippi.
By 1876, the majority of the white public
grew tired of the long battle to protect the rights and lives of Southern
blacks. Northern whites sought normalcy. They wanted peace and a reunion with
Southern whites. The Supreme Court went along with public demands and ruled the
Fourteenth Amendment did not give the federal government the power to enforce
laws protecting citizens from white supremacists. The duty of protecting
citizens’ equal rights was turned over to the states.
The presidential election held in 1876 appointed Rutherford B. Hayes as the next president. He promised to leave the South alone and soon after he withdrew the last of the federal troops. Reconstruction efforts were eliminated.
Meanwhile freedmen made attempts to be self-sufficient. For most freed slaves farming was the work they knew best. Many freedmen ended up renting the land from white landowners. Some white landowners refused to rent to black people. Other whites realized they were land rich and money poor, so they found sharecropping suited them. This form of farming eased their labor problems and provided them with a dependable work force. Some of the freedmen registered as Democrats to provide themselves with a layer of protection which did not end up saving many black men who appeared to be doing well on their farms. Klansmen abducted a multitude of them during the night hours and they were beaten and many threatened with their lives if they did not leave their land (Bartoletti, 2010).
During the 1870s a number of Republicans decided to take a
different approach. Corruption appeared in many of the Southern governments.
Evidence demonstrated that greed was bipartisan in which both Republicans and
Democrats succumbed. Many Republicans pulled away from their efforts to protect
the rights of all citizens which included black people and focused more on
making money. The Republicans’ abandonment of the blacks in the South gained
further support by the U.S. Supreme Court. Between 1876 and 1898 the court eradicated
human protections of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court struck down clauses of
the Enforcement and Ku-Klux acts. The court declared the Civil Rights Act as
unconstitutional and removed it completely. As a result of Plessy v.
Ferguson case of 1896, the court imparted racial segregation. Southern
Democrats took these court rulings as permission to eliminate black voting
altogether. They enforced voting tests, poll taxes and the ability to understand
state constitutions as part of the barriers for black voters. Blacks were also
barred from train depots, restaurants, circuses, pool halls, drinking
fountains, bathrooms, beaches, parks, pools, and recreational centers. To add
insult to injury, the North vindicated the South’s actions with literary works
that acclaimed black inferiority posed as scientific anthropology. Any progress
made for equality for black people suffered immensely (Wade, 1987).
In 1890, an agrarian Populist movement
built a coalition of blacks and poor whites which went against mill owners,
large landowners, and elite. White supremacy raised its ugly head and resisted
the movement to the point in which the newly established group was turned away
in every southern state except for Georgia and North Carolina. As a result, the
privileged and poor whites decided the blacks needed to be erased (Southern
Poverty Law Center, 2011).
Fueled by hatred and exhilarated by legislation against blacks, a wave of racist violence occurred in the South. Approximately 2,880 Blacks faced lynching by white mobs between 1883 and 1907 without a single indictment. Rioting by whites with the help of police on occasion, was common during this time period (Newton, 2005).
The producer D.W. Griffith in 1915 transformed
Baptist Minister Thomas Dixon’s novel “The Clansman,” into a silent motion
pictured called “The Birth of a Nation.” The movie was a box office success. Motivated
by the movie, a group of white Southern men burned a wooden cross on the top of
Stone Mountain in Georgia where the first cross was burned. The Ku Klux Klan,
reborn again, became a pro-Christian, pro-American brotherhood. They added to
their list of hates which included Catholics, Jews, immigrants, liberals,
welfare recipients, and labor unions. Their membership grew exponentially in
the 1920s with at least five million men who dedicated their lives to white
supremacy, conservative family values, and old time religion. The Klan murdered
at least 718 black women, men and children and eight white people (Bartoletti,
2010).
The KKK burning of crosses originated from the aforementioned movie. The practice dates back to medieval times in Europe in which the Klan views as morally pure and racially homogenous. Scottish clans set hillside crosses on fire as a symbol of defiance against military rivals and/or to gather troops when a battle may be imminent. The original Klan copied many of its rituals from the Scottish fraternal practices. Cross burning was not originally a part of its reign of terror.
War World I also served as a renewal of KKK chapters.
Americans lived with suspicion, hatred and distrust of anything alien. This
sentiment caused the refusal of President Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations. William
J. Simmons, a Spanish war veteran who became a preacher and salesmen, belonged
to several clubs and two churches. He wanted to start a fraternal group of his
own and in 1915 he put his plans into action. On the eve of Thanksgiving,
Simmons hired a bus and enticed 15 fraternity members onto the bus which
traveled from Atlanta to Stone Mountain. Simmons erected a cross made of pine
boards and lit a match. The Ku Klux Klan of the 20th Century rose into
existence after that ceremony. His ultimate goal was to make money. The goal of
the newly established Klan involved defending the country from aliens, blacks, who
they considered lazy and union leaders.
In 1920 Simmons met with Edward Young
Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler, two publicists who had a business in Atlanta. By
June of 1920 the Klan’s membership was only a few thousand. Clarke and Tyler used
a forceful advertising approach which promoted the Klan’s pro-American approach
against black people, Jewish people and Catholics. By the summer of 1921
approximately 100,000 enrolled in the “Invisible Empire” at $10 a person. Clarke
expanded the treasury, launched Klan publishing and manufacturing firms and
invested in real estate with a promising future.
Violence consisted of lynching, whippings, tar-and-feathers raids and the use of acid to mark the letters “KKK” on the foreheads of their victims, anyone they felt were anti-American. All walks of life such as police, ministers, mayors and judges ignored or secretly participated with the Klan. Few were arrested and less convicted.
Power struggles existed within the KKK. A
Texas dentist by the name of Hiram Wesley Evans led the way to dethroning
Simmons with six other conspirators. Clarke, convicted on a morals charge,
could not fight the conspirators and Tyler resigned to get married. A
full-scale war ensued between Simmons and Evans with lawsuits, countersuits,
and injunctions. Simmons finally gave in and accepted a cash settlement. The
Klan continued to grow during the power struggles.
Evans launched a campaign of terrorism in
the early and mid 1920s. Lynchings, shootings, and whippings served as the
methods employed by the Klan against Blacks, Jews, Catholics, Mexicans and
other immigrants. Sometimes the targets happened to be whites, Protestants and
females considered immoral or traitors to their race or gender. A divorcee with
two children was flogged for remarrying. In Georgia a woman suffered 60 lashes
for a vague charge of immorality and failure to go to church. When her 15-year-old
son came to her rescue, he received the same punishment. In both cases,
ministers led the Klansmen responsible for the violence. Many women fought to
vote, for a place in the job market and for personal and cultural freedom. The
Klan stood for what they thought was “pure womanhood” and attacked women who fought
for their independence.
The Klan sported two million members with
new recruits joining daily. Evans had his eye on the presidential election of
1924, so he moved his headquarters to Washington. The Klan continued to pursue
political gains and managed to send Klansman Earl Mayfield to the U.S. Senate
in 1922. Klan campaigns defeated two Jewish congressmen. Klan efforts helped
elect governors to 12 states in the early 1920s. Deep South members happened to
be Democrats but Klan members who lived in the West and North ended up being
Republicans. When the Democratic convention opened in New York surprisingly the
Democrats adopted a platform condemning the Ku Klux Klan. A fight resulted and
tore the convention apart.
Evans boasted strong support in 1924 when
40,000 Klansmen marched down Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue. Evans bragged
about his role concerning the reelection of Coolidge and passing strict
anti-immigration laws. The ambitions of Catholics and others who threatened the
white supremacists’ goals became the targets of the Klan. The Klan rode high
during this time.
The Klan started to suffer counter attacks
by clergy, the press and a number of politicians. Dark days approached for the
Pennsylvania Klansmen which exposed the “Invisible Empire.” Evans filed a
$100,000 damage suit against their enemies thinking he would make an example of
them. To his surprise, they fought back and a multitude of witnesses reported
Klan horrors of terrorism and violence. They named members and relayed secrets.
Newspapers supplied reports such as accounts of the kidnapping of a small girl
from her grandparents in Pittsburgh to a Colorado Klansman who was beaten when
he tried to leave the Klan. A horrible account involved a man in Terrell, Texas
who was soaked in oil and burned to death before hundreds of Klansmen. The
incensed judge threw Evans’ case out of court.
The Invisible Empire shrunk from three
million to several hundred thousand. Americans became weary of the masks, robes
and burning crosses. The Klan’s influence diminished with the absence of
supportive politicians who deserted the organization in droves. The national
headquarters had to hoard its shrinking funds. They charged Franklin D.
Roosevelt with bringing in too many Jewish people and Catholics into the
government and referred to the New Deal as a communist effort.
Following War World II, a multitude of
Americans brought about the resurgence of the KKK. Samuel Green, an Atlanta
doctor, became the new Klan leader. He called attention to goals of the newly
reorganized KKK which included anti-Black, anti-union, anti-Jew, anti-Catholic
and anti-Communist efforts. Federal and state bureaus of investigation
prosecuted the Klan’s lawless activities. Green discovered the Klan was surrounded
by enemies such as the press and ministers. Laws were passed against them. Many
Klansmen went to jail. By the early 1950s, the Invisible Empire existed at the
lowest level since its rebirth in 1915 (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2011).
Another resurgence of the KKK occurred when white Supremacists under the name of Mississippi Citizens’ Council in 1954 and the leadership of Tom Brady mounted mob violence against black people. Klansmen discovered dynamite as a form of terror and destruction. The use of bombs became evident when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s home in Montgomery was blown up in January 1956. The Klan was held predominantly responsible for 138 bombings.
When
the Supreme Court threw out the creed “separate but equal” many whites were
determined to oppose the law and maintain segregation. The South during the
early 1960s experienced tensions concerning those who favored integration and
those who opposed. In April of 1960, a group mobbed blacks at a segregated
beach. Civil Rights leaders’ homes and churches were bombed. Several months
later a ministerial college for blacks in Union was attacked. They beat a white
pastor and chased away other workers. In May of 1961, white gangsters tied a
nine-year-old black girl to the back of car and dragged her through the
streets. No arrests occurred for the guilty parties.
Civil rights activists realized in order to seek racial equality in Mississippi it was imperative to seek political power. Few Mississippi blacks were registered to vote in 1961. For example, in Pike County only 250 of 6,939 black constituents were registered to vote. Continuous violence deterred local blacks from exercising their legal voting rights.
The KKK secured a connection with the American Nazi Party (ANP). The Grand Dragon in Pennsylvania, Roy Frankhouser, became a member of the ANP along with heavily armed Minutemen. Other KKK members joined the ANP. White supremacist ideology of both groups bought into the belief that the white race was in danger of extinction, overwhelmed by the rising amount of non-white people who have been controlled and manipulated by Jewish people. They believed almost any action was justified if it helped save the white race (Newton, 2005).
Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was killed
by Klansman Byron De La Beckwith in 1963 and was convicted of murder in 1994. In
1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his speech “I Have a Dream” speech to
hundreds of thousands during a march in Washington, D.C. During the same year,
a church bombing killed four young black girls and injured 20 in Birmingham,
Alabama. It took until 1977 for Klansman Robert Chamblis to be found guilty of
first degree murder and then in 2001 and 2002 two more Klansmen, Thomas Blanton
Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry, faced first degree murder and sentenced to life in
prison for the aforementioned bombing. Violence and murder occurred in 1964
when three civil rights workers disappeared after a routine traffic stop for
speeding. The victims were found buried six weeks later and Edgar Ray Killen, a
Klan leader, faced sixty years in prison for organizing the murder.
In
1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl
Ray was convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Congress continued to conduct efforts to protect the citizens of this country when they passed the Federal Hate Crimes Law which made it a federal offense for willingly injuring, intimidating, or interfering with a person’s attempt to participate in federally protected activities on the basis of the victim’s color, race, religion, or national origin. The law was broadened to encompass ethnicity and gender. The law was altered again in 2008 to include sexual orientation and disability and dropped the prerequisite that the victim had to be engaging in federally protected activity (Bartoletti, 2010).
David Duke, Grand Wizard of New Orleans,
recruited Elbert Claude Wilkinson, a native of Galvez, to lead the mother state
of Louisiana. In August of 1978, a group of Klansmen shot at a car driven by
Dr. Howard Gunn, a United League leader of Okolona. Wilkinson held a rally two
weeks later that received national television attention. He bragged about
hurting some black people and about shooting at Gunn’s car. Two Klansmen at the
rally removed their robes, revealing sheriffs’ uniforms. He boasted that they
are only a small fraction of the number of Klansmen who work in law enforcement.
Shortly afterwards, civil rights activists joined the United League in an anti-Klan rally held in Tupelo. The forty Klansmen decided not to confront the four thousand demonstrators. The Klansmen happened to be armed with a bazooka and automatic weapons. After the rally, the United League bus, had been tampered with during the demonstration, and the forty passengers were in danger when its steering failed. The Klansmen followed a caravan of demonstrators returning home, and shot at a car and forced it off the road. A Klansman held a shotgun to the driver’s head threatening to shoot him if he moved the car. The other Klansmen dragged the occupants out of the car and beat them with clubs and chains (Wade, 1987).
By the 1980s the KKK went from robes to
combat boots. More than 1,000 members learned advanced guerrilla warfare
techniques at a paramilitary training camp put on by the Christian Patriots
Defense League in Louisville, Illinois, a white supremacist group. At a Posse
Comitatus survival school in 1982 members were given instruction in the
destruction of roadways, dams and bridges. At a Covenant, Sword and Arm of the
Lord survivalist compound members amassed weapons and explosives. Stringent law
enforcement and new legislation in many states put an end to the paramilitary
training in the early 1980s. However, many white supremacists continued to
advocate arms training and preparation for a possible race war.
The Klan experienced competition from other
extremist groups. Racism and bigotry ran rampant in the latter part of the 20th
century. The Klan appeared to not be the only way to express their white
supremacist beliefs. The nation went through a resurgence of neo-Nazi
organizations surpassing the Klan in numbers, influence and militant activism. Many
joined the anti-government Patriot movement. The ideology of the Patriot
movement and its commitment to armed paramilitary training came to attention of
many white supremacists.
The Klans’ numbers dropped but their
ideology carried over to the other extremist movements. The leaders of the
neo-Nazi and Patriot organizations may have started in the Klan but continued
in the new organizations. The legacy of hate has been a testament to the Klans’
influence for over 150 years. When the Klan failed in recruiting and keeping
its members, the neo-Nazi groups and other white supremacist groups focused on
the one thing for long-term survival, enlisting the next generation (Southern
Poverty Law Center, 2011).
Patriotic Terror resonated throughout the
United States during the 1990s. In January 1991, Knights of the New Order faced
indictment for stealing weapons and explosives from Fort Bragg. In May of 1991,
a minister of the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator killed a black naval
veteran of the Gulf War in Florida. In August 4, 1994 two members of the Minnesota
Patriots Council were arrested for manufacturing ricin, a deadly poison. On
November 9, 1995 an Oklahoma Constitutional Militia leader Willie Lampley, his
wife and a follower were found guilty of preparing bombs for the use against
the Southern Poverty Law Center, abortion clinics, welfare offices and gay bars
(Newton, 2005). Lampley said “God won’t be mad at us if we drop four or five
buildings. He will probably reward us” (Newton, 2005, pg. 203). The list can go
on and on concerning bombings, poison and robberies. The worst of the worst
happened at Oklahoma City.
At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a truck with 4,800 pounds of homemade explosives detonated outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 169 persons and injuring 850. 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh, a past KKK member who gravitated to the Michigan Militia and the Arizona Patriots set off the explosives. McVeigh was arrested soon after the bombing and indicted on 160 state offenses and 11 federal offenses, including the use of a weapon of mass destruction, found guilty on all counts in 1997 and sentenced to death (Newton, 2005).
When Barack Obama served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017, many white supremacists celebrated. An assortment of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, anti-Semites and other white nationalists, all white supremacists, believed having an African American in the oval office would spark white America which could possibly drive millions to their cause. Perhaps a race war they hoped would ultimately end in Aryan victory (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2008).
The
white supremacist resurrection received its power by the rise of the alt right,
the newest portion of the white supremacist movement. Youth and predominantly
male domination has provided new found energy for the movement. They have been
influenced by a variety of sources: paleoconservatism, neo-Nazism and fascism,
renegade conservatives and right-wing conspiracy theorists. They existed in
their own subculture derived from rogue discussion forums. Aspects of the alt
right date back to 2008, however, it was energized and highly active in support
of President Trump. They relayed Trump’s success at the polls in November 2016
as support for their movement. After Trump’s election, the alt right moved from
online activism to the real world, forming real world organizations and groups
and targeting places like college campuses.
Violence
and crime represented serious problems that emanated from the white supremacist
movement. White supremacists have killed more people from 2018 and before than
any other type of domestic extremist. Not only were they responsible for
murders and terror plots, other dangerous activities included attempted
murders, assaults, weapons and explosive violations, violence against women and
drug-related crimes.
A
culmination of white supremacist groups gathered in August 11, 2017 at
Charlottesville, Virginia and assembled with tiki torches on the campus of the
University of Virginia. They chanted racist and anti-Semitic slogans and fought
with a group of anti-racist counter-protestors.
On August 12, they reassembled with the largest
public rally of white supremacists in more than a decade, more than 500 of
them. The variety of groups represented at the rally: Neo-Nazis from the
National Socialist Movement; Vanguard America and the Traditionalist Worker
Party; Klan members from the Rebel Brigade Knights; the Global Crusader
Knights; the Confederate White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; racists skinheads
from the Hammerskins; Christian Identity adherents from Christogenea; neo-Confederates
from the League of the South; Odinists from the Asatru Folk Assembly; and many
others. Many segments of the white supremacist movement was represented at
Charlottesville.
Eventually,
the violence and disorder escalated to a point in which authorities called the
gathering unlawful. Some made their way to their cars and motels while others
headed towards an alternate rally location. The violence of the day was not
over with, in the afternoon, a young alt right white supremacist from Ohio,
James Alex Fields, Jr., drove his vehicle into a crowd of counter-protestors
and killed one woman, Heather Heyer, who was protesting the white supremacists.
He also injured 19 other people. He was charged with first-degree murder and
other state and federal charges which included federal hate crime charges
(Center on Extremism, 2018).
FBI
statistics have demonstrated that hate crimes increased 30 percent in the three-year
period ending in 2017 during Trump’s presidency. The increase followed a three-year
period in which hate crimes fell by about 12 percent during Obama’s presidency.
“The numbers tell a striking story – that this president is not simply a
polarizing figure but a radicalizing one… Rather than trying to tamp down hate,
as presidents of both parties have done, President Trump elevates it – with
both his rhetoric and his policies. In doing so, he’s given people across
America the go-ahead to act on their worst instincts” (Southern Poverty Law
Center, 2019, para. 6). In other words, the vast majority of hate groups became
electrified by Trump’s presidency.
A white
supremacist world encouraged and disappointed by Trump has become deadly. White
supremacist Robert Bowers decided to take matters into his own hands against
the migrant caravan referred to as invaders as he and Trump called them.
Obsessed over his fear of white genocide. Ten days before the mid-term
elections, he killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh
because according to him the Jewish people have been responsible for the threat
of white genocide. Hate has dominated the social fabric of the United States
which was made worse by Trump who was linked to planning genocide for black
people (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2019). Many white supremacists have added
fuel to the fire concerning hate crimes.
The Ku Klux Klan has served as a reminder of the danger of white supremacy and many other groups with similar agendas have followed in their footsteps since 1866. Many people have lost their lives to these hate groups. The attacks went from tar and feathering, whipping and lynching to shooting and bombing. The right to vote for black people was taken from them by the use of terror and other acts of corruption. Various events spurred the growth of white supremacy groups from the Reconstruction era to civil right efforts. By early 1997, 380 militias and 478 Patriot Support Groups have been identified (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2011). These groups have one thing in common, they feel threatened by the number of non-white people in this country. They have gone from being anti-black and added anti-Jewish, anti-communist, anti-Catholic and any other group they felt were non-American which included immigrants from Mexico and other countries. World War I and II inspired the resurgence of white supremacist groups. Great social upheaval has occurred when the dominant white culture feels threatened. The Klan’s message of hatred has been supported by violence and terror unmatched in the history of American extremist groups.
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