74 Facts About The Ku Klux Klan

1.

The first Klan used terrorism—both physical assault and murder—against politically active Black people and their allies in the Southern United States in the late 1860s.

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2.

The third The Ku Klux Klan used murders and bombings from the late 1940s to the early 1960s to achieve its aims.

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3.

Griffith's 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation, which mythologized the founding of the first The Ku Klux Klan, it employed marketing techniques and a popular fraternal organization structure.

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4.

The Ku Klux Klan groups spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement promoting resistance and white supremacy during the Reconstruction Era.

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5.

Historian George C Rable argues that the Klan was a political failure and therefore was discarded by the Democratic Party leaders of the South.

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6.

The Ku Klux Klan declined in strength in part because of internal weaknesses; its lack of central organization and the failure of its leaders to control criminal elements and sadists.

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7.

In 1915, the second The Ku Klux Klan was founded atop Stone Mountain, Georgia, by William Joseph Simmons.

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8.

The earlier The Ku Klux Klan had not worn the white costumes and had not burned crosses; these aspects were introduced in the book on which the film was based.

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9.

The Red Knights were a militant group organized in opposition to the The Ku Klux Klan and responded violently to The Ku Klux Klan provocations on several occasions.

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10.

Second The Ku Klux Klan was a formal fraternal organization, with a national and state structure.

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11.

Several members of The Ku Klux Klan groups were convicted of murder in the deaths of civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964 and of children in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963.

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12.

In 2004, a professor at the University of Louisville began a campaign to have the The Ku Klux Klan declared a terrorist organization in order to ban it from campus.

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13.

Existence of modern The Ku Klux Klan groups has been in a state of consistent decline due to a variety of factors from the American public's negative distaste of the group's image, platform, and history, infiltration and prosecution by law enforcement, civil lawsuit forfeitures, and the radical right-wing's perception of the The Ku Klux Klan as outdated and unfashionable.

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14.

The Ku Klux Klan was one of a number of secret, oath-bound organizations using violence, which included the Southern Cross in New Orleans and the Knights of the White Camelia in Louisiana.

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15.

The The Ku Klux Klan used public violence against Black people and their allies as intimidation.

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16.

At an 1867 meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, The Ku Klux Klan members gathered to try to create a hierarchical organization with local chapters eventually reporting to a national headquarters.

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17.

Since most of the The Ku Klux Klan's members were veterans, they were used to such military hierarchy, but the The Ku Klux Klan never operated under this centralized structure.

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18.

The Ku Klux Klan argued that many Southerners believed that Black people were voting for the Republican Party because they were being hoodwinked by the Loyal Leagues.

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19.

The Ku Klux Klan members used violence to settle old personal feuds and local grudges, as they worked to restore general white dominance in the disrupted postwar society.

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20.

The The Ku Klux Klan soon spread into nearly every Southern state, launching a reign of terror against Republican leaders both Black and white.

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21.

The Ku Klux Klan members adopted masks and robes that hid their identities and added to the drama of their night rides, their chosen time for attacks.

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22.

The Ku Klux Klan attacked Black members of the Loyal Leagues and intimidated Southern Republicans and Freedmen's Bureau workers.

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23.

The Ku Klux Klan violence worked to suppress Black voting, and campaign seasons were deadly.

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24.

The Ku Klux Klan was ordered to get up and dress which she did at once and then admitted to her room the captain and lieutenant who in addition to the usual disguise had long horns on their heads and a sort of device in front.

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25.

Many influential Southern Democrats feared that The Ku Klux Klan lawlessness provided an excuse for the federal government to retain its power over the South, and they began to turn against it.

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26.

The Ku Klux Klan Act and the Enforcement Act of 1870 were used by the federal government to enforce the civil rights provisions for individuals under the constitution.

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27.

The The Ku Klux Klan refused to voluntarily dissolve after the 1871 The Ku Klux Klan Act, so President Grant issued a suspension of habeas corpus and stationed federal troops in nine South Carolina counties by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807.

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28.

Hundreds of The Ku Klux Klan members were fined or imprisoned during the crackdown.

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29.

However, the The Ku Klux Klan had no membership rosters, no chapters, and no local officers, so it was difficult for observers to judge its membership.

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30.

In 1870, a federal grand jury determined that the The Ku Klux Klan was a "terrorist organization" and issued hundreds of indictments for crimes of violence and terrorism.

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31.

The Ku Klux Klan members were prosecuted, and many fled from areas that were under federal government jurisdiction, particularly in South Carolina.

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32.

Many people not formally inducted into the The Ku Klux Klan had used the The Ku Klux Klan's costume to hide their identities when carrying out independent acts of violence.

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33.

Historian Stanley Horn argues that "generally speaking, the The Ku Klux Klan's end was more in the form of spotty, slow, and gradual disintegration than a formal and decisive disbandment".

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34.

The Ku Klux Klan operations ended in South Carolina and gradually withered away throughout the rest of the South.

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35.

The Ku Klux Klan costumes, called "regalia", disappeared from use by the early 1870s, after Grand Wizard Forrest called for their destruction as part of disbanding the The Ku Klux Klan.

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36.

Much of the modern The Ku Klux Klan's iconography is derived from it, including the standardized white costume and the burning cross.

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37.

The second The Ku Klux Klan, in contrast, broadened the scope of the organization to appeal to people in the Midwestern and Western states who considered Catholics, Jews, and foreign-born minorities to be anti-American.

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38.

Much of the The Ku Klux Klan's energy went into guarding the home, and historian Kathleen Blee says that its members wanted to protect "the interests of white womanhood".

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39.

Simmons initially met with little success in either recruiting members or in raising money, and the The Ku Klux Klan remained a small operation in the Atlanta area until 1920.

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40.

Second The Ku Klux Klan grew primarily in response to issues of declining morality typified by divorce, adultery, defiance of Prohibition, and criminal gangs in the news every day.

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41.

The The Ku Klux Klan had a nationwide reach by the mid-1920s, with its densest per capita membership in Indiana.

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42.

Second The Ku Klux Klan was less violent than either the first or third The Ku Klux Klan were.

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43.

The Ku Klux Klan leaders tried to infiltrate political parties; as Cummings notes, "it was non-partisan in the sense that it pressed its nativist issues to both parties".

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44.

The The Ku Klux Klan's leadership wanted to keep their options open and repeatedly announced that the movement was not aligned with any political party.

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45.

The The Ku Klux Klan drew its members from Democratic as well as Republican voters.

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46.

In 1922, two hundred The Ku Klux Klan members set fire to saloons in Union County, Arkansas.

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47.

Significant characteristic of the second The Ku Klux Klan was that it was an organization based in urban areas, reflecting the major shifts of population to cities in the North, West, and the South.

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48.

The The Ku Klux Klan grew in booming Southern cities such as Dallas and Houston.

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49.

The Ku Klux Klan attracted people but most of them did not remain in the organization for long.

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50.

Second The Ku Klux Klan embraced the burning Latin cross as a dramatic display of symbolism, with a tone of intimidation.

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51.

The Women's The Ku Klux Klan was active in promoting Prohibition, stressing liquor's negative impact on wives and children.

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52.

Second The Ku Klux Klan expanded with new chapters in cities in the Midwest and West, and reached both Republicans and Democrats, as well as men without a party affiliation.

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53.

The Ku Klux Klan had numerous members in every part of the United States, but was particularly strong in the South and Midwest.

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54.

The The Ku Klux Klan moved north into Canada, especially Saskatchewan, where it opposed Catholics.

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55.

The leading presidential candidates were William Gibbs McAdoo, a Protestant with a base in the South and West where the The Ku Klux Klan was strong, and New York governor Al Smith, a Catholic with a base in the large cities.

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56.

In 1924, The Ku Klux Klan members were elected to the city council in Anaheim, California.

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57.

The The Ku Klux Klan had about 1,200 members in Orange County, California.

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58.

The Ku Klux Klan members were Protestants, as were most of their opponents, but the latter included many Catholic Germans.

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59.

Individuals who joined the The Ku Klux Klan had earlier demonstrated a much higher rate of voting and civic activism than did their opponents.

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60.

The Ku Klux Klan chapters were closely allied with Democratic police, sheriffs, and other functionaries of local government.

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61.

The Ku Klux Klan pushed for increased education funding, better public health, new highway construction, and pro-labor legislation.

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62.

In major Southern cities such as Birmingham, Alabama, The Ku Klux Klan members kept control of access to the better-paying industrial jobs and opposed unions.

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63.

In terms of the The Ku Klux Klan, it developed evidence based on the characteristics, beliefs, and behavior of the typical membership, and downplayed accounts by elite sources.

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64.

The The Ku Klux Klan was white Protestant, established Americans who were fearful of change represented by new immigrants and Black migrants to the North.

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65.

However, in rural Alabama the The Ku Klux Klan continued to operate to enforce Jim Crow laws; its members resorted more often to violence against Black people for infringements of the social order of white supremacy.

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66.

Shelton's United The Ku Klux Klan continued to absorb members from the competing factions and remained the largest The Ku Klux Klan group unto the 1970s, peaking with an estimated 30,000 members and another 250,000 non-member supporters during the late 1960s.

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67.

In states such as Alabama and Mississippi, The Ku Klux Klan members forged alliances with governors' administrations.

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68.

Gunfire was exchanged, and the The Ku Klux Klan was routed at what became known as the Battle of Hayes Pond.

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69.

In 1965, the House Un-American Activities Committee started an investigation on the The Ku Klux Klan, putting in the public spotlight its front organizations, finances, methods and divisions.

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70.

Since the late 1970s, the The Ku Klux Klan has increasingly focused its ire on this previously ignored population.

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71.

February 14,2019, edition of the Linden, Alabama, weekly newspaper The Democrat-Reporter carried an editorial titled "The Ku Klux Klan needs to ride again" written by Goodloe Sutton—the newspaper's owner, publisher and editor—which urged the The Ku Klux Klan to return to staging their night rides, because proposals were being made to raise taxes in the state.

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72.

The Ku Klux Klan specified that he was only referring to hanging "socialist-communists", and compared the Klan to the NAACP.

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73.

The Reconstruction-era The Ku Klux Klan used different titles; the only titles to carry over were "Wizard" for the overall leader of the The Ku Klux Klan and "Night Hawk" for the official in charge of security.

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74.

Ku Klux Klan has utilized a variety of symbols over its history.

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