Kathleens Blee’s book, Women of the Klan highlights a side of the oldest terrorist organization America has never seen. Blee understands that the focus of the Klu Klux Klan has always been about Klansmen and an important part of their organization has been overlooked by history. It’s not exciting to learn that women were sometimes on the forefront of inequality and racial injustice while also fighting alongside the very men that kept their rights as women limited. No matter what their intentions were these women were powerful and found their voice in a organization that was dominated by a iron fist of a patriarchy. The women of the Klan separated themselves from the men in their organization, their actions, and their shared interests. The Klan found its footing during the birth of America 's reconstruction as a way to combat the rising “relentless independence” of African-American men and women. During the 1860’s, Blee says women were still trying to find a place in this male-dominated organization. The women did find their own special place and Blee argues it was the most dangerous. While the men were lynching black men, raping black women, and fighting to oppress every non-white, protestant in America, women were the actual poison of the Klan. Blee says the women were the poison in the family that tainted their children with their hatred for others not like them (50). They …show more content…
One big thing Blee argues was that these Klanswomen did not think they were vulnerable to society like their Klansmen thought. In an effort to please both sides, Klansmen advocated for a limited number of women 's rights, and women returned the favor by supporting their political and economic domination in American society (41). Klan women could have also pushed for the support of their Klansmen if they voted in their
A little less than a year after the Fifteenth Amendment passed, Harriet Hernandes and her daughter were dragged from their homes and beaten by the Ku Klux Klan because her husband voted in the recent election. In the Court Document, Harriet Hernandes, A South Carolina Woman, Testifies Against the Ku Klux Klan, 1871 in Spartanburgh, South Carolina, on July 10, 1871, Harrier gives her testimony about what has been happening to her and her family. The audience was the congressional committee appointed to investigate into Ku Klux Klan activity, until they made the testimony public, then the audience was all who cared to read about the terrorism that was brought by the KKK. Although African American men have been given
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.
The Moore’s Ford lynching shows that the Ku Klux Klan was still very powerful in Georgia just after the Second World War. Blacks who lived in these areas which were overwhelmingly rural and contained large plantations owned by white men were regularly browbeaten into submission by the white minority and sporadic outbreaks of violence were not uncommon. There was a wealth of evidence against several white men who were prominent citizens of the county, but no prosecution was ever conducted and the murderers went to their graves without having paid for their crime....
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...
Up until and during the mid -1800’s, women were stereotyped and not given the same rights that men had. Women were not allowed to vote, speak publically, stand for office and had no influence in public affairs. They received poorer education than men did and there was not one church, except for the Quakers, that allowed women to have a say in church affairs. Women also did not have any legal rights and were not permitted to own property. Overall, people believed that a woman only belonged in the home and that the only rule she may ever obtain was over her children. However, during the pre- Civil war era, woman began to stand up for what they believed in and to change the way that people viewed society (Lerner, 1971). Two of the most famous pioneers in the women’s rights movement, as well as abolition, were two sisters from South Carolina: Sarah and Angelina Grimké.
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 first wave of the Ku Klux Klan was the founders. This band of brothers lasted from 1866 to 1874. Their goal was to restore the white supremacy by using violence and threats, including murder against blacks, which later spread to including other racial groups. They took on the look of all white with masks and robes to complete their look and hide their identities when “attacking,” usually at night. Some of the members in the Klan claimed to be the ghosts of the Confederate solders to frighten superstitious blacks. At the end of 1867, there were one hundred ninety-seven murders and five hundred forty-eight cases reported of assaults. In April 1868, 1,222 Republican votes were casted but by the ...
Many of us know the Ku Klux Klan as a group who used violence and cruelty to daunt former slaves. What people often do not know is that the Ku Klux Klan made its comeback in the early 1920’s. This version of the Ku Klux Klan focused on the moral and ethical wrong doing. Although the terror was still brought on the minorities. Many of the three-million members of the Klan took part in rallies, parades, and they even advocated for republican candidates during elections. Women also played a bigger role in the Klan, considering they began receiving the right to vote. They even went as far as to create the Women’s Ku Klux Klan (WKKK). Their views matched the men of the Klan at most times, but they also sought to fix things in the sphere of education and children. Some parts of the Women’s Ku Klux Klan found homes for youth and raised money for less fortunate families in the Klan. These women mostly took ideas of the men of the Klan and did their own work on that
In the early 1920’s the Klan traveled on a wave of terror in the south and southwest. As the violence spread a pattern appeared. The majority of the Victorian’s were whites who had broken some kind of moral code. Such as Bootleggers, Gamblers, were favorite targets. The Klan would parade the streets at night as a reminder of the constant terror they haunted a southern town with.
The Ku Klux Klan, was an extremist group that formed during the 1800’s. They used torture to gain power, especially in the South. They were a group of white men that shared the same political views and goals. They formed between December of 1865, and the Summer of 1866 in Pulaski Tennessee. Their original idea was to be a brotherhood, but that quickly changed. The Klan did not realize their potential at first, but they realized they could have as much power as they wanted if they worked for it, and thats what they did. They met in secret to plot their heart breaking attacks on African Americans, Republicans and many others. Finally, in the 1870’s laws were passed to limit their deadly actions. In 1869 they had earned notoriety and nationwide
The Ku Klux Klan, otherwise known as the KKK, was flourishing with its second era in the 1920’s. The KKK was reinvigorated by William J. Simmons, a man who was a frequent joiner of clubs, through the period of the 1920’s, The KKK launched a campaign of political correctness as well as a hidden, dark movement which included lynching, beatings, tarring and feathering, and at some points, even murder of what they believed was the inferiors. Although this status was short lived, it was a dark, mysterious portion of the United States’ history and should never be forgotten.
The critical time periods in the Ku Klux Klan’s history can be simply broken down into separate “Klans.” Former Confederate soldiers in Pulaski, Tennessee formed the first Klan around a year after the end of the Civil War. Soon after, Nathan Forrest, a former Confederate lieutenant general, was named the “Grand Wizard” of the organization. The “main objective of white supremacy organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White Brotherhood, the Men of Justice, the Constitutional Union Guards and the Knights of the White Camelia was to stop black people from voting” and restore the white supremacy the South saw prior to the Civil War ("Effects of the Klu Klux Klan"). At this point, Klansmen would ride at night through towns brutally intimidating, blacks and radical Republicans. These tactics got so bad that in 1870, Congress began passing the first of three...
The inequality seen in American history has impacted all American citizens in different ways. Through the years, the people living in America have seen the different measures variety of racist groups do to make certain people stay at the bottom of the hierarchy in American society. One group that targets African Americans is the Ku Klux Klan. They are better known as the KKK, who wear hooded white outfit covering their faces shielding their identities. They committed hate crimes that led to the injuries and deaths of countless people. Due to the actions the Ku Klux Klan have committed, they are judged by American people with numerous perspectives explaining how these groups have impacted their life in America.
Dixon, M. (1977). The Rise and Demise of Women's Liberation: A Class Analysis. Marlene Dixon Archive , Retrieved April 12, 2014, from the Chicago Women's Liberation Union database.
For example, Blee’s writing allows the reader new insights regarding women in the movement. Standard documentary sources, assembled by contemporaries and historians who assumed that women were politically insignificant, focus entirely on the male Klan” (Blee 427). Klanswomen defined their role in the women’s right era of the first half of the twentieth century, and “participated in the women’s temperance movement and the extension of the right to vote to women.” Another takeaway from the reading was regardless of their view about “others,” they viewed themselves as everyday people. Klan families participated in “weddings, baby christenings, teenaged auxiliaries, family picnics, athletics contest, parades, spelling bees, beauty contest, rodeos, and circus, it is little wonder that the 1920s Klan is recalled by former members as normal white Protestants” (Blee 428). The oral interview project, allowed me to understand that their personal beliefs about African Americans, Jews and Catholics was the dominant definition of who they were 24/7. But the reading allows us to understand their mindset, and how they just view themselves as “ordinary