Essay on the history of Ku Klux Klan
Introduction
Ku Klux Klan also known by its acronym KKK, it is the term that various groups of extreme right in the United States are coined, created for the first time in the nineteenth century, very little time after the American secession war or Civil War.The ideals that represent them are mainly the supremacy of the white race over the rest of races and, therefore, racism, xenophobia and anti -Semitism. Homophobia, Anticatolicism and Anticomunism were included in their values also. Repetitively, these groups have resorted to terrorist practices, acts of violence and hate as well as intimidating ceremonies such as the burning of crosses, to impose their values and oppress those who pursue.
The first organization of the Ku Klux Klan
The first appearance of an organization of the KLAN was at the end of 1865 created by veterans after the civil war, who denied the reconstruction that lasted from 1865 to 1877. The group immediately adopted violent methods to achieve its objectives. However, there was a reaction that practically immediate. The KKK was formally dissolved by Republican President Ulysses Grant, through the publication of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act.
Creation
The original Kux Klan was formed after the Secession War, on December 24, 1865. He was founded by six middle -class and low -class veterans, who did not agree with the current situation in his town, Pulasski, belonging to the state of Tennessee, in the post -war years. In the beginning, it was a humorous organization that was dedicated to performing hobbies and ceremonies in which they watched the victims.The Ku Klux Klan became known as a social entity where young people could find fun and entertainment. Its members performed night excursions by the town, using sheets such as costumes and masks, passing through ghosts that scared the population. In the reconstruction period of the United States, the KKK hardened its actions and dedicated itself to humiliating carpetbaggers (opportunists), the Scalawags (Southern Republicans), and to the newly released slaves.
Objectives and incidents
The Klan expanded quickly by other southern states, triggering terror against Republican leaders. What began as a social club, led to murders, including Congressman James M. Hinds, from Arkansas, that of three legislators of South Carolina and those of various men who worked in constitutionalist conventions. From 1866 to 1867, the KLAN broke into the religious ceremonies of the black collective and invaded the residences of this community to usurp firearms, with the excuse of disarming the black veteran blacks of the secession war. Some of these acts were inspired by the actions of other groups in the state of Tennessee, such as yellow jackets or red caps. The Kux Klan was aimed at the political and social control of the liberated slaves. He was dedicated to weakening education, economic progress, the right to carry weapons and the electoral rights of African Americans. However, the Klan did not limit himself only to acting against these races, since the Southern Republicans were also victims of their intimidating tactics. Frequently, they reached their goals through violence. In the Georgia elections, in April 1868, Columbia County registered 1222 Republican votes for the state governor, Rufus Bullock. In the November presidential elections of that same year, in the same county there was only one vote in favor of Republican candidate Ulysses S. Grant, due to KLAN interference.
Decadence and abolition
Klan’s activity began to decline a few years of its foundation and, as demonstrated in the proclamation of George Gordon, the organization began to be used only as a way of evading the persecution of justice for acts of violence. Many Southern Democrats began to see it as a hindrance, and as a pretext that the federal government used to maintain its power over the south. The original Klan was never well organized. As a secret group, it was not equipped with a formal affiliation, or obligations, spokesmen or officers of any kind, neither local nor national. He managed to be popular thanks to his reputation, achieved largely through his bizarre costumes and their theater ceremonies. The National Coordination of Forrest did not control the local Klanes. Forrest sent the dissolution of the KLAN in 1869, with the argument that he had been diverted from his original and patriotic objectives, becoming an injurious and harmful group for public peace. In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the act, according to which federal troops had to exercise the public force and the members of the KLAN should be legally prosecuted in a federal court, instead of the local and state courts. Under this legislation, a large number of KLAN members were arrested or fined, and habeas corpus was suspended in nine southern Carolina counties. The Klan was completely destroyed in that southern and reduced state in the rest of the country, where its fall had already begun years ago.
The second organization of the Ku Klux Klan
In the 45 years that followed the suppression of Ku Klux Klan, racial relations in the United States reached its lowest point. The 1890s had the greatest number of executions that
There has been in the US. Therefore, because US legislation protects the rights and freedoms included in the first amendment, the reappearance of this organization is possible.
Training
The second Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1915, showing the recently discovered power of the media. That year three closely connected events took place. First, the movie The Birth of A Nation, of D was released. W. Griffith, in which the first Ku Klux Klan is praised. Second, Leo Frank, a Jewish man accused of raping and killing a young woman named Mary Phagan, was veiled in a great media frenzy. The second Ku Klux Klan formed, with new anti -Semitic and xenophobic goals. Most of the founders were part of a group called "the gentlemen of Mary Phagan" in honor of the deceased young. The film "The Birth of a Nation" extolled the first Klan, who at that time was already an old memory. The film is based on the book and theater play The Clansman (The Man of the Clan), as well as in the book by Thomas Dixon The Leopard’s Spots (the leopard spots). The film caused a national fanaticism for the KLAN.
Members
The KLAN succeeded by achieving millions of new members throughout the country, and achieved its highest level in the 1920s, when 15% of the American population was part of their organization this time, KLAN leaders administered it as a lucrative formation, and participated in the main fraternal organizations of the time. When joining the KLAN, the new members had to acquire their own costumes and pay an initiation tax. The recruitment organizers were left with half of the quota, and sent the remaining to state or national officers. When the organizer had ended the recruitment in the area, he created a demonstration that on different occasions included burning crosses and probably a ceremonial delivery of the Bible to a Protestant minister of the town. After this, the organizer left the area with the money.
Objectives and incidents
The second Klan had new anti -Semitic, anticatolic and xenophobic goals. Thanks to this, he managed to easily expand his scope, by recruiting members throughout the west, when in previous times the southern states were the most cooperated to increase their ranks. The recruiters insisted on accusing Jewish bankers, blacks, Catholics or any other social or racial group to how the authors of ordinary citizen problems. The difference between the original and the second KKK is based on the fact that, while the original could be characterized as its own south and only the Democratic Party, the second Klan, despite remaining highly Democrat, managed to enter the Republican party firmly, expanding its influence throughout the country. In the 20s and 30s, a KLAN side known as "The Black Legion" maintained extensive activity in the west of the United States. The black legion replaced white uniforms with others in black. It was the most aggressive group of KLAN, and obtained notoriety for killing socialists and communists. Some KKK factions participated in lynchings, ending the life of black soldiers returning from World War II, even with their military garments. The KKK argued that their purposes were to protect the weak from the offenses from the aggressive outlines of the law; rescue the oppressed; help the suffering; Protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and finally, help and assist in the realization of all constitutional laws.
Political power
Through government officials who agreed with the Ku Klux Klan, the governments of the states of Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma and Oregon and some legislatures in the southern states, were under the mandate of the KLAN. Edward Jackson, a republican participant of the KLAN, was elected governor of Indiana in 1924, and the entire government apparatus was influenced by members of the KLAN. The Democratic Party held its 1924 National Convention in New York. The notorious presence of KKK representatives, gave him the nickname of "Klanbake Convention".The Convention had to choose an applicant for president. The contestants were William Mcadoo, covered by the KLAN; and the governor of New York, to Smith, who was rejected by the KLAN given his Catholic faith. After several days of hostilities, both contestants retired tired without a clear winner. Ku Klux Klan meditated that William Mcadoo had won, as he managed to prevent the party from welcoming a political platform led by a Catholic. In some states, Klan showed a desire to carry out political and social reforms, as in the state of Alabama. By 1925, KKK was a political force of notorious power in the state.When Hugo Black was nominated for magistrate in the Supreme Court in 1937, there was an altercation at a national scale when he revealed that he had been a prestigious member of the KKK. However, he prevented them from being expelled from the position.
Decay
The sinking of the second Klan was partially due to the reaction against him, and partly thanks to the altercation around David Stephenson (at that time a member of the Republican Party, after having been the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party), participant of the Ku Klux Klan who was prosecuted for the rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer.As a result of the controversies, the KLAN sank into misfortunes, and in the 30s separated from political activity. The national leader Hiram Evans, sold the training in 1939 to the veterinarian of Indiana, James Colescott and an Atlanta doctor, Samuel Green, who were not able to stop the departure of the KLAN members. The group’s reputation received another blow when the understandings that Collescott had for pronazis features were revealed; Klan’s participation in Detroit ethnic disturbances in 1943; and efforts to hinder American performance in World War. In 1944, the KLAN received a call to pay $ 685,000 of past taxes, forcing Colescott to close the training.
Presence of Ku Klux Klan between 1950-2000
After the dissipation of the second Ku Klux Klan, several independent groups began to use the name.In the 50s, many individual klanes opposed civil rights movement, through acts of aggressiveness and intimidation.Despite the excessive violence of the different Klanes, in the postwar period there was a successful reaction about the kkk. In 1958, the Klan ordered some crosses in front of the residences of two Lumbee Indians in North Carolina. When the Klan began his ceremony, he was suddenly cornered and threatened by hundreds of armed people.In 1964, the FBI (Coinlpro) counterintelligence program began to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan to dismantle it. The position of Cointelpro in the Civil Rights Movement was undetermined, as it used its methods of infiltration, misinformation and violence against organizations of extreme left and extreme right; But also against peaceful groups such as the South Christian leaders conference, Martin Luther King. In the case of Liuzzo’s murder, this ambivalence was tragically found. One of Liuzzo’s murderers was an FBI informant. After the murder, the FBI began to disseminate false rumors that he was a communist and that he had abandoned his children to sexually surrender to workers for civil rights. However, despite these ambiguities, in 1982 it was announced that FBI’s works had finally ended the KLAN.
The Ku Klux Klan today (21st century)
The Ku Klux Klan still exists, in the form of groups separated from supporters, which surely do not go from a few thousand. Some of the biggest factions of the KKK are: Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Imperial Klanes of the United States, Knights of the White Camelia and Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.They are led by the National Director Pastor, and have their Zinc settlement, Arkansas. They comment that they are the most important faction of the KKK today, and proclaim ‘the Klan de la Sexta era’. The expansion of social networks during the first decade of the 21st century gave these groups a great platform to propagate their fraudulent values and facts that accredit it, as well as ways to exhibit anonymously and attack their opponents online. Because of the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, this group and others of the extreme American right have been accepted and strengthened, by supporting Trump and his counselors more or less veiled an ideology and political decisions opposite opposite to the promotion of minority rights, as well as the arrest of any reference to human rights in the international relations of the United States.
Symbology
The etymological origin of the name of this organization comes from the Greek "κύκλος" which means a circle and the "Klan" Scottish that means clan. The creators chose to write clan with K to give the group more prestige. They liked the rhythmic sound of the words, and chose to separate kuklos into two words, changing the "o" of kuklos for "u", and the final "s" for a more imposing "x". The official KKK uniform is a white tunic and a hood. The characteristic custom of burning crosses has a Scottish origin which was used to warn the allied clans of a declaration of war. They also used a code language to be able to identify each other without raising suspicions. For example, that a KLAN participant says "ayak" (are you to Klansman?). The affirmative answer would be "akia" (to Klansman I am).They also had a handshake that consisted of shaking hands and turning it once each.
Bibliography
- Ku Klux Klan. (2020). Retrieved May 2020, from https: // is.Wikipedia.org/wiki/ku_kux_klan
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