Introduction
The Ku Klux Klan had interesting and different tactics for their recruitment, mobilization, and maintenance techniques. The major time for the Ku Klux Klan was in the 1920s where they had different tactics and strategies than they do today. They used to have a different focus as many people joined a group that used much violence and bigotry, where once media displayed these images and were detrimental they now help play a part in transforming their image as well as their recruitment and mobilization techniques expanding to a more generalized public. Since society is ever changing they have now been forced to change their tactics as openly hating on groups is not morally right and the media showing off the violence of the Ku Klux Klan in the past has lead to these horrible images and what much of the group relied on seen as unacceptable. They have tried to change their image from a racist group into a group that supports white superiority. Over time they have had to change their different strategies for recruiting and mobilizing due to changes in society. This paper will argue that their have been many changes in strategies since the 1920s for the Ku Klux Klan in it’s recruitment, mobilization, and maintenance tactics as it’s goals and ideals have been forced to change along with society.
Methods
This paper is a content analysis of secondary resources which will examine and explain information that others have studied and found about the topic.
Discussion and Analysis
The Ku Klux Klan originally started out as a white supremacist group in the southern united states. Many states such as California, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, A...
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...Ku Klux Klan: Organization & Principles, 153.
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On November 9, 1920, Byron de la Beckwith, an only child, was born to Byron De La Beckwith, Sr. and Susie Yerger in Sacramento, California. One of Beckwith’s early childhood memories was of the Ku Klux Klan marching through town, fully clad in their long white robes. During the twenties, there were over two million known members of the Klan and at least two were U.S. Senators. Needless to say, this left quite an impression on the young boy. Beckwith’s father died in 1926, his debts exceeding the value of his estate, leaving Susie and Byron Jr., whom they had nicknamed “Delay”, destitute. Susie left California, along with her son, for her native Greenwood, Mississippi. Beckwith’s mother passed away a few short years later, leaving Beckwith rearing to one of her cousins.
A few years ago, my mother told me something thought provoking: we had once lived on the same block as the leader of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. That had been in Charlotte, North Carolina, around 1994. The Ku Klux Klan, according to Blaine Varney in Lynching in the 1890’s, used to “…set out on nightly ‘terror rides’ to harass ‘uppity Negroes’….” They are far more infamous, however, for their “lynching”—nightly “terror rides” that included murder—of African Americans. Varney tells us lynching levels reached their pinnacle in 1892, with 161 recorded murders that year. In modern times, most Americans would agree that the Klan, along with any form of white supremacy, has no place in society—and pointing out its survival is a good way to imply that we, as a people, are still not perfect.
The population of African Americans from 1865 to 1900 had limited social freedom. Social limitations are limitations that relate “…to society and the way people interact with each other,” as defined by the lesson. One example of a social limitation African Americans experienced at the time is the white supremacy terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan or the KKK. The KKK started as a social club formed by former confederate soldiers, which rapidly became a domestic terrorist organization. The KKK members were white supremacists who’s objective was to ward off African Americans from using their new political power. In an attempts to achieve their objective, Klansmen would burn African American schools, scare and threaten voters, destroy the homes of African Americans and also the homes of whites who supported African American rights. The greatest terror the KKK imposed was that of lynching. Lynching may be defined via the lesson as, “…public hanging for an alleged offense without benefit of trial.” As one can imagine these tactics struck fear into African Americans and the KKK was achiev...
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.
From White Supremacy to White Power: The FBI, COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE, and the Nazification of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. " American Studies 48.3 (2007): 49-74. Jstor.com. Web. The Web.
...manding, and we expect to win, a return of power into the hands of the everyday, not highly cultured, not overly intellectualized, but entirely unspoiled and not de-Americanized, average citizen of the old stock. The KKK has now come to speak for the great mass of Americans of the old pioneer stock" (Document D.) By 1923, Klan membership grew to five million. However, there was a sharp decline in members within a decade, showing how the new frameset of mind took over the old quickly. Accept the new, changing world around them. They represented the old, racist values long thought to have been delegated to the South.
People attending schools before 1960’s were learning about certain “unscrupulous carpetbaggers”, “traitorous scalawags”, and the “Radical Republicans”(223). According to the historians before the event of 1960’s revision, these people are the reason that the “white community of South banded together to overthrow these “black” governments and restore home rule”(223). While this might have been true if it was not for the fact that the “carpetbaggers were former Union soldiers”, “Scalawags… emerged as “Old Line” Whig Unionists”(227). Eric Foner wrote the lines in his thesis “The New View of Reconstruction” to show us how completely of target the historians before the 1960’s revision were in their beliefs.
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We study the beginning of America and the movement of settlers into a new land. Then we look at the formation of the United States through the Revolutionary War. But nothing has ever changed this country from the inside as much as the Ku Klux Klan invasion into the country. The Klan’s influence and ability to cause destruction within a society inspired leaders and dictators such as Adolf Hitler. During the height of the Klan’s power and influence, it was doing many things right. It had attracted mass amounts of people with a simple message and used them to complete a secret agenda. Had the KKK continued to find new ways of bringing people to their cause and working to achieve superiority first, they may have caused an unforeseen amount of damage to the United States. Mistakes that were made by the members grew attention to them and caused society to see them as they were. The Ku Klux Klan of the modern day is still alive. It is barely breathing but growing and changing everyday. The hate will live on through the young, but the good people in the world are the key to truly changing the world for the
"The Ku Klux Klan in Reconstruction North Carolina: Methods of Madness in the Struggle for Southern
White Southerners who hated blacks started the Ku Klux Klan in 1866. It was also called the KKK. They tried to stop black people from voting and having other civil rights. They would wear white sheets and masks with pointed hoods. They would beat up blacks and public officials. They would burn crosses by the houses of people they wanted to scare. The KKK was declared illegal in 1...
All the hate groups know that they can only flourish if they continue to recruit new members. Three of the most obvious similarities among hate groups members are their sex, male; their race, Caucasian; and their age, 35 years old or younger. Many people think that the reason young people are willing to join hate groups in high school and in college is that they are uncertain about their own futures. Often people believe that the young people who join hate groups are those with the least education and the least to hope for in the future in the way of jobs, but that does not follow anymore because hate has flourished on colleges and high school campuses. For members of the Ku Klux Klan, it is important that their message of hatred be carried to young people. The initiation of children and babies has being an important part of the Klan activities. It is so bad and wrong that the Ku Klux Klan has even gone so far as to hang out at playgrounds. They look for little boys who play unsupervised. The Klan believes that these boys are potential members of the Klan because their parents do not care enough to watch them play. The child is probably growing up in a dysfunctional family that gives him little attention and when he is older he will cling to the Klan because membership in this group will provide him with a strong family structure that his ...
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In the spring of 1866, A year after the civil war had ended; Six confederate veterans formed a social club in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee. Just out of the war and looking for excitement they formed a secret society which they named the Ku Klux Klan. The name came from the Greek word Kuklos, meaning circle.