Marty Gitlin Popular Books

Marty Gitlin Biography & Facts

The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is the name of several historical and current American white supremacist, far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, the Klan was "the first organized terror movement in American history." Their primary targets, at various times and places, have been African Americans, Jews, and Catholics. Three separate groups calling themselves the Klan have existed in non-overlapping time periods. Each comprised local chapters with little or no central direction. Each has advocated reactionary positions such as white nationalism, anti-immigration and—especially in later iterations—Nordicism, antisemitism, anti-Catholicism, right-wing populism, anti-communism, homophobia, anti-atheism, and Islamophobia. The first Klan, founded by Confederate veterans in the late 1860s, assaulted and murdered politically active Black people and their allies in the South. The second iteration of the Klan originated in the late 1910s, and was the first to use cross burnings and white-hooded robes. The KKK of the 1920s had a nationwide membership in the millions and reflected a cross-section of the native-born white English-speaking and Protestant population. The third Klan formed in the mid 20th century, largely as a reaction to the growing civil rights movement. It used murder and bombings to achieve its aims. All three movements have called for the "purification" of American society, and are all considered far-right extremist organizations. In each era, membership was secret and estimates of the total were highly exaggerated by both allies and enemies. The first Klan, established in the wake of the Civil War, was a defining organization of the Reconstruction era. Federal law enforcement began taking action against it around 1871. The Klan sought to overthrow Republican state governments in the South, especially by using voter intimidation and targeted violence against African-American leaders. The Klan was organized into numerous independent chapters across the Southern United States. Each chapter was autonomous and highly secretive about membership and plans. Members made their own, often colorful, costumes: robes, masks and pointed hats, designed to be terrifying and to hide their identities. The second Klan started in 1915 as a small group in Georgia. It suddenly started to grow after 1920 and flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, including urban areas of the Midwest and West. Taking inspiration from D. W. Griffith's 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation, which mythologized the founding of the first Klan, it employed marketing techniques and a popular fraternal organization structure. Rooted in local Protestant communities, it sought to maintain white supremacy, often took a pro-Prohibition stance, and it opposed Jews, while also stressing its opposition to the alleged political power of the pope and the Catholic Church. This second Klan flourished both in the south and northern states; it was funded by initiation fees and selling its members a standard white costume. The chapters did not have dues. It used K-words which were similar to those used by the first Klan, while adding cross burnings and mass parades to intimidate others. It rapidly declined in the latter half of the 1920s. The third and current manifestation of the KKK emerged after 1950, in the form of localized and isolated groups that use the KKK name. They have focused on opposition to the civil rights movement, often using violence and murder to suppress activists. This manifestation is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. As of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League puts total KKK membership nationwide at around 3,000, while the Southern Poverty Law Center puts it at 6,000 members total. The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent references to a false mythologized perception of America's "Anglo-Saxon" blood, hearkening back to 19th-century nativism. Although members of the KKK swear to uphold "Christian morality", Christian denominations widely denounce them. Overview First Klan The first Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, on December 24, 1865, by six former officers of the Confederate army: Frank McCord, Richard Reed, John Lester, John Kennedy, J. Calvin Jones, and James Crowe. It started as a fraternal social club inspired at least in part by the then largely defunct Sons of Malta. It borrowed parts of the initiation ceremony from that group, with the same purpose: "ludicrous initiations, the baffling of public curiosity, and the amusement for members were the only objects of the Klan", according to Albert Stevens in 1907. The manual of rituals was printed by Laps D. McCord of Pulaski. The origins of the hood are uncertain; it may have been appropriated from the Spanish capirote hood, or it may be traced to the uniform of Southern Mardi Gras celebrations. According to The Cyclopædia of Fraternities (1907), "Beginning in April, 1867, there was a gradual transformation. ... The members had conjured up a veritable Frankenstein. They had played with an engine of power and mystery, though organized on entirely innocent lines, and found themselves overcome by a belief that something must lie behind it all—that there was, after all, a serious purpose, a work for the Klan to do." The KKK had no organizational structure above the chapter level. However, there were similar groups across the South that adopted similar goals. Klan chapters promoted white supremacy and spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement in resistance to Reconstruction. Confederate veteran John W. Morton founded a KKK chapter in Nashville, Tennessee. As a secret vigilante group, the Klan targeted freedmen and their allies; it sought to restore white supremacy by threats and violence, including murder. "They targeted white Northern leaders, Southern sympathizers and politically active Blacks." In 1870 and 1871, the federal government passed the Enforcement Acts, which were intended to prosecute and suppress Klan crimes. The first Klan had mixed results in terms of achieving its objectives. It seriously weakened the Black political leadership through its use of assassinations and threats of violence, and it drove some people out of politics. On the other hand, it caused a sharp backlash, with passage of federal laws that historian Eric Foner says were a success in terms of "restoring order, reinvigorating the morale of Southern Republicans, and enabling Blacks to exercise their rights as citizens". Historian George C. Rable argues that the Klan was a political failure and therefore was discarded by the Democratic Party leaders of the South. He says: The 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. More fundamentally, it.... Discover the Marty Gitlin popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Marty Gitlin books.