The Ku Klux Klan
- Founded in Tennessee after the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) evolved from a secret society into a violent vigilante group aiming to undermine Reconstruction.
- The KKK terrorized African Americans and their allies through intimidation, lynchings, assaults, and church burnings.
- Many members of the KKK held positions of power in government and law enforcement.
- Lynching during the 1915-1930 period was extrajudicial murder, primarily by hanging, carried out by white mobs, often KKK members, to terrorize Black Americans and enforce racial hierarchy.
- It was used as a tool of social control to punish alleged crimes, especially those involving accusations of sexual assault against white women.
- According to the NAACP records, between 1915 and 1930, over 1,300 African Americans were lynched in the United States, with the Klan either directly participating or tacitly supporting these acts.
- This period marked the height of Klan influence, coinciding with a surge in racial violence and intimidation nationwide.
Enforcement Acts
- The Enforcement Acts of 1870–71 and local policing efforts curtailed early Klan violence.
- As Jim Crow laws disenfranchised Black Americans and entrenched white supremacy, the Klan’s influence declined by the late 19th century.
- In 1915, the Klan resurged, fueled by anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, and anti-Black sentiment.
- The film The Birth of a Nation glorified the Klan, serving as propaganda and winning President Wilson’s praise.
- By 1925, membership peaked at around 4 million, including elected officials, before infighting and public backlash led to decline.
- The Klan also drew strength from the “Myth of Redemption”, a Southern narrative that reframed the violent overthrow of Reconstruction governments as a noble and justified “redemption” of the South.
- Redeemers (white Southern Democrats) claimed they had “rescued” the South from corrupt, incompetent, and illegitimate rule by Northern Republicans and African Americans.
- This narrative cast Reconstruction as a tragic mistake, portraying Black political participation as chaotic, criminal, or dangerous.
- White violence and voter suppression were justified as acts of self-defense to restore order, tradition, and “civilization.”
- The new Klan built directly on the Myth of Redemption, presenting itself as a moral guardian of white supremacy and traditional values against modernity, immigrants, and Black progress.
- The KKK of 1915 borrowed symbolic language, rituals, and historical justification from the Redeemers, arguing that America needed to be “redeemed” again.
- Why did the KKK resurgence in 1915?
- For historians like John Higham (1955), in Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, argues that the Klan’s resurgence was part of a broader wave of nativism in response to rising immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.
- The new Klan expanded its hate beyond African Americans to target Catholics, Jews, and immigrants, reflecting anxieties about cultural change and national identity.
- However, Nancy MacLean (1994), in Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, and others interpret the Klan as a reactionary movement fueled by Protestant middle-class anxiety over modernism, secularism, feminism, and the perceived breakdown of traditional values.
- The Klan, she shows, was not a fringe movement but one embedded in mainstream white Protestant society, especially in small-town America.
- From a Marxist perspective like the one presented by Leonard Moore, economic instability and fears about the loss of white social and political dominance played a significant role.
- This would be supported by the fact that post-WWI economic disruptions and the rise of labor unions created fertile ground for reactionary movements.
- The Klan framed itself as defending American workers and democracy from perceived threats (both racial and ideological).
- In some areas, the Klan operated as a semi-legitimate political force, participating in elections and local governance.
- Moore argues that the Klan in the 1920s functioned as a political movement in many communities and attracted middle-class citizens more than the disaffected poor.
Race Riots and Massacres
- The KKK was central to major race riots and massacres (1898–1921) across the U.S., often triggered by fabricated Black-on-white crimes or fears of Black political gains.
- Wilmington (1898):
- White supremacists in North Carolina overthrew a legally elected biracial government in what is considered the only successful coup d’état in U.S. history.
- The insurrection, led by white Democrats, businessmen, and former Confederates, aimed to reverse Black political and economic gains during Reconstruction.
- At least 25 Black residents were killed (with higher estimates possible). Black-owned businesses and the Black press, including The Daily Record, were destroyed.
