C. P. Ellis: Why I Quit the Klan

Mangal Rai
AJ Arena
English 1100
23 September 2013

C. P. Ellis, “Why I Quit the Klan”
I personally believe that C.P. Ellis was a great person, who deserved honor. The changing state of his mind and heart against segregation was beyond imagination. I really enjoyed reading about his background, starting with his family background and childhood. It is interesting that how his story and my parents’ stories match. They didn’t have the clothes of their desire, nor got higher education due to hard work. Despite the fact, my parents didn’t even get to see schools, getting education was far beyond. I really admire him for the sacrifice he had done to end the school segregation. He quit Klan, forgot about being that somebody. It is really important that he realized between right and wrong. I give him round of applause for leaving KKK and thinking about the future generations. I am shocked that the president of KKK wanting to end fights between blacks and whites. I admire him for that. I honor his choice and thinking to bring peace in the schools and end the segregation by working with a black lady, Ann Atwater. He claimed several different claims in his interview. I want to focus on him joining the KKK. Since we know his family background and his family’s financial problems, he did want to get out of that fight against survival. He said “All my life, I had work, never a day without work, worked all the overtime I could get and still could not survive financially.” It shows that he was really frustrated with his work and the amount of money he got after all the hard work he did. It doesn’t make any sense when you work hard, troubling your body, but at the end of the day you end up getting less than you actually worked. I would definitely get tired if I was him. Due to his frustration, he started feeling bitter and arose some kind of hatred. “I really began to get bitter. I didn’t know who to blame………….. to look at to hate.” This shows his hatred of blacks arose as the frustration of financial problems arose. So he started blaming blacks and took his father’s advice of KKK, as the savior of the white people. His father’s concern became his role model to admire the Klan. They thought that it was the only organization in the world that would take care of the white people. The frustration and the admiration of the KKK made him join the Klan. However, his getting ignored in the public by a city council member was the major turning point, where he got the idea of people in control using the low-income whites, to fight against the blacks. That fortunate situation made him think of his kid’s future, just like Ann’s concern about her children’s future. After getting into a committee, and working together as co-chairmen in the school, they got to lay their common ideas about the future. They worked together to end school segregation, which was favorable thing for the future generations. From his history, I learned a good lesson as well. I learned how to sacrifice our wants for the sake of future goodness. It is not important to be somebody by doing or going against something which would have bad consequences in the community or nation. We have a lot of different ways to be somebody in good ways. We have to think differently and change the world. The best way to keep humanity, we have to think good about the people and their future. Which I believe C.P. Ellis did. He and Ann thought about their kids’ future. They didn’t want to fight anymore. We could learn these things from them. No matter who are against us, we have to do the things that are good for us.