Preview

Ku Klux Klan Influence

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
482 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Ku Klux Klan Influence
After dying out in the late 1870s, the Ku Klux Klan, also known as the KKK has risen again, stronger than it was before. Starting in Stone Mountains, Georgia, William Simmons was able to resurrect the klan completely. The Ku Klux Klan has already gained total membership of four million members, and is growing rapidly in the South. They have already taken control over members serving in state legislatures and Congress, and were elected to the governorship in several states. Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Oregon saw significant Klan influence. Although the klan has increased to over 4 million members and is growing more by the day, joining the requires you to be a white male protestant, all others including Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants …show more content…
W. Griffith's film Birth of A Nation, which portrayed the Klansmen as great heroes. Simmons made his living by selling memberships in fraternal organizations such as the Woodmen of the World, and looked to the Klan as a new source of membership sales. In his first official act, he climbed to the top of a local mountain and set a cross on fire to mark the rebirth of the Klan. As the people might think, the Ku Klux Klan is not filled with only poor and uneducated Americans, It also includes middle-class American, Doctors, lawyers and ministers. In Ohio alone their ranks surged have surged to 300,000. Even the northern states contained a large amount of Ku Klux Klan members. In Pennsylvania, membership has reached 200,000. The Klan remains a private society, but it is by no means isolated. the Klan has moved in many states to dominate local and state politics. The Klan has devised a strategy called the "decade," it means that every member of the Klan is responsible for recruiting people to vote for Klan candidates in elections. So far,the Klan succeeded in engineering the elections of officials from coast to coast, including the mayors of Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon. In some states, such as Colorado and Indiana, they have placed enough Klansmen in positions of power to effectively control the state government. Known as the "Invisible Empire," the KKK's presence is felt across the country. Although it

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Ku Klux Klan (also known as KKK) is the name of a number of different secret Caucasian organizations in the United States mainly because of their violent racist activities. The Ku Klux Klan was formed in 1865 or 1866 in Pulaski as a local club by six former members of the Confederate army. They dressed up as ghosts on horseback to terrorize slavery black population. Soon, large parts of Tennessee followed KKK and set them as example. Many departments of the KKK are established. On May, 1865, president Andrew Johnson pardoned Southern leaders of the defeated former confederacy. After that, the Southern States highly discriminatory laws against blacks were proclaimed. The liberation of the slaves was almost reversed. The US Congress declared these laws to be void and decided to reconstruct of most Southern States on…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Klan first originated from a group of Confederate veterans in 1866 (Moore). The KKK leaders were called “grand wizards” (“Rise of the”). The first grand wizard of the Klan was Nathan Bedford Forrest (“Rise if the”). He was a Confederate general during the Civil War (“Ku Klux Klan and”). His terrifying Klan activities may have even started before the KKK was formed. During the final part of the Civil War, he led a massacre on hundreds of black soldiers (“Ku Klux Klan”). The lower leaders of the Klan were called “grand dragons”, “grand titans”, or “grand cyclopes” (History.com Staff). Similarly, many of the other leaders were also Confederate generals or colonels (“Ku Klux Klan and”). Later on it was more than former Confederates who were joining the Klan. Almost all white members of society were recruited and joined into the KKK (“Rise of the”). These new members did not all share common interest about everything (“Ku Klux Klan and”). The one common belief that they all did share was either white or democratic supremacy (Moore). Later on the Klan spread out and took control of more of the south (“About the…

    • 1936 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Ku Klux Klan was formed during the end of the Civil War in order to deny the civil rights of Southern African Americans. They are one of the oldest hate groups in America with a violent history that opposed everyone that wasn’t a white, protestant, Christian American. This includes Jewish, lesbian, gay, and immigrant individuals. Only recently do they allow Catholics into their numbers. They are infamous in popular culture as wearing white robes and hoods, burning crosses, lynching people of other races, and lobbying for sympathetic politicians. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the KKK currently estimates 5,000 to 8,000 members in various chapters. The Loyal White Knights and The Knights Party of the KKK have websites that post propaganda, news, faqs, events calendars, and applications for membership. They use these websites as ways to get potential members to come out to their functions. For instance, the Loyal White Kinghts Realm of Texas is having a meet and greet in Temple, TX on November 2, 2013. The KKK chapters in Texas include Empire Knights of the KKK, Lone Wolf Brigade Knights of the KKK, Loyal White Knights of the KKK, Southern Kalvary Knights of the KKK, United Klans of America, United White Knights of the KKK, and the White Camelia Knights of the KKK.…

    • 519 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    By 1924 the Ku Klux Klan gained up to four million members, many of whom had powerful positions in their communities. It became the largest organization in Indiana, and for quiet some time the majority of the Republican Party members of that state were part of the Ku Klux Klan. During the 1920s the organization target a wider variety of individuals than in Reconstruction.…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hiram W. Evans' "The Klan's Fight for Americanism" tries to enlighten audiences to his view point. That view point being the Klan's feeling that America is being lost to liberal ideologies and cold intellectualistic direction. He emphasizes the ‘de-Americanizing' issues facing the country such as the reason World War I occurred and why the Jews hold such control over financial institutions. He states the problem with the Klan's credibility lies in their lack of ability in public speaking, and current poverty conditions afflicting his infamous group. I plan to summarize this article in my opinion in what follows.…

    • 357 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to the law, civil rights are something that everyone is granted. However, history has shown that this has not always been the case. In the United States, civil rights are supposed to be for all people. Throughout history, there have been many disagreements in the Civil Rights Movement. One group who shared a negative opinion about the advancement of black people is the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan opposed equal rights between whites and blacks and used violence to show their opinion.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1915, “Birth of a Nation” was released showing pictures of Klan’s men. This caused violence in the city where the movie was played, and encouraged people to join the Klu Klux Klan. This motion picture also gave northerners insight on racism happening in the south. The media was also used to encourage segregation and Jim Crow laws through advertisements.…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Ku Klux Klan was revived in 1915 by William J. Simmons, a preacher influenced by past records and memoirs of KKK members and historians. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) became the Klan’s biggest opponent in this time period, and following the first world war, they developed a strong hatred for anyone they chose to identify as an outsider to the country. This included but was not limited to socialists, communists, Jews, and Roman Catholics as well. In November of 1922, Hiram W. Evans became the Klan's Imperial Wizard, the CEO or president, more or less.. Under his leadership, the…

    • 583 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    By 1870 the KKK extended into almost every southern state. Black Americans in the southern states constantly lived in fear of being lynched. Lynching was when a black person was tortured, mutilated and murdered by a white mob. The KKK would lynch any black American trying to better themselves or improve their situation because they didn’t want any black to become more powerful than a white person in any way. This led to many black Americans continuing to work on farms or other low paid jobs in fear of being lynched. They didn’t want to draw attention to themselves and become a victim of the KKK. This is important because this resulted in many black Americans not fighting for their rights. They did not try to fight the Jim Crow Laws or voting restrictions as a result of fear of the KKK. This is reflected in the quote “Blacks who tried to vote or gain an education were subjected to name calling, bullying and beatings from white people who supported the aims of the Ku Klux Klan.” (www.historyonthenet.com). Many members of the KKK were policemen, judges, lawyers or other important figures. This meant it was very rare that a member…

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why Was the KKK Accepted? The Ku Klux Klan’s main motive was to prevent black people from having political power, specifically for voting. There were multiple contributing factors that made the Ku Klux Klan’s violence seem possible and acceptable to Americans. The most prominent reason was the instillment of fear.…

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the 1920’s a group called name the Ku Klux Klan that formed in 1865, began gaining and becoming more centralized throughout America. It was three movements that practiced extreme reactionary. The Ku Klux Klan advocated, white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-immigration. The KKK re emerged in the 1920’s, and became a national organization throughout the states. People that joined the KKK were mostly protestant middle class white men. That wanted to make sure that African Americans, immigrants, Catholics, Jews, liberals, and progressives did not gain wealth and power in America.…

    • 604 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the 1920’s, the Ku Klux Klan exceeded over 4 million people nationwide and became a national organization. This revival reflected the American society struggling. The KKK was becoming…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Spreading anti-foreign, anti-Catholic, anti-black, anti-Jewish, anti-pacifist, anti-Communist, anti-internationalist, pro-Anglo-Saxon, pro-native American, and pro-Protestant sentiments, the Klan led an extreme, ultraconservative uprising against many of the forces of diversity and modernity that were transforming American culture. The KKK spread with astonishing rapidity, especially in the Midwest and the Bible Belt South, wielding potent political influence and an attachment of nearly 5 million dues-paying members. As Hiram W. Evans explained in The Klans Fight for Americanism from The North American Review, we are intolerant of everything that strikes at the foundations of our race, our country or our freedom of worship. Evans felt threatened by any attempt to use the privileges and opportunities which aliens hold only as through our generosity as levers to force us to change our civilization. The Klan was indeed an alarming manifestation of the intolerance and prejudice plaguing people anxious about the dizzying pace of social change in the 1920s; the last thing they wanted was unrestricted…

    • 1263 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Hooded Americanism

    • 1674 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Hooded Americanism: The First Century of the Ku Klux Klan: 1865 to the Present by David Chalmers records the history of the Ku Klux Klan quite bluntly, all the way from its creation following the civil war, to the early 1960’s. The author starts the book quite strongly by discussing in detail many acts of violence and displays of hatred throughout the United States. He makes a point to show that the Klan rode robustly throughout all of the country, not just in the southern states. The first several chapters of the book focus on the Klan’s creation in 1865. He goes on to discuss the attitude of many Americans following the United State’s Civil War and how the war shaped a new nation. The bulk of the book is used to go through many of the states, and express the Klan’s political influence on both the local and state governments. The author starts with Texas and Oklahoma, and goes through the history of the Klan geographically, finishing with New Jersey and Washington. The author stresses that the KKK did not just commit acts of violence towards minorities, but also carried political power. He continues to discuss the impact of the Klan on Civil Rights movements in the 1960’s, and various other important political controversies between the 1920’s and 1970’s. Towards the middle of the book, David M. Chalmers focuses on portraying the feelings of governments and state legislatures, as well as normal citizens towards the Klan. To do this more effectively, the author uses excerpts and quotes from editorials and newspapers, along with several dozen pictures. The conclusion of the book was used mainly as an overview of all of the major incidents and deaths involving the Klan, and how their persistence has allowed them to still exist today despite a lack of resources and support.…

    • 1674 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Women, America’s traditional symbol of purity, virtue; the world’s moral compass. The acknowledgment of this depiction was apparent in the first Ku Klux Klan, crusading in the name of protecting not only white supremacy, but white womanhood. These justifications for murder, racism, violence and bigotry emerged from the contradictory belief that men have a responsibility to protect women and their “livelihood,” which consisted of submissive and compliant nature towards men. The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, and creation of the Women’s Ku Klux Klan in 1923 brought the KKK’s inconsistent justifications for their actions to light. The WKKK did hold similar beliefs as the Ku Klux Klan; championing for the white native-born protestants and against everyone else, but their political agenda set them apart.…

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays