“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.” (Maya Angelou) Freedom, a foreign concept for many who grew up Black in the South during the 1960’s, as foreign as this land was when the ancestors of these oppressed men, women, and children were first cast into the harsh reality that was the United States of America. A “united” nation where people were separated by barriers and stigmas too numerous to list. Inequality and the idea that one’s ideas or race is superior to someone else’s has been a part of America’s history since its inception. The Klu Klux Klan is a prime example of a group who embodies these antiquated qualities. Today the Klan is shown in a very bad light. No longer are they the long armed vigilantes above the law, but a highly detested and much smaller counterculture. Today, with people being more open minded and with the passing of so many laws making sure everyone is equal, the Klan is trying to change what has now become the natural way of life. The Klan is working towards a nation of White Christians. With Obama as president, Sonia Sotomayor as the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, and Bernie Sanders a Jewish man running for president, the world today seems to have left the Klan behind. The Klan’s ideas go against progress and the current way of life. Many even call the group a home grown terrorist organizations because they attack the diversity and freedom that our country has flourished from. The fact that the KKK has gone from a subculture to a counterculture really shows how far we have come as a nation. The fact that the ideals of the Klan are so widely rejected and scorned is a sure sign that many social stigmas and the closed-mindedness of the American people is slowly fading. As with all illnesses, it will take time for our nation to fully heal and there will be relapses, but the current progress is a great sign that freedom will
Currently in the United States of America, there is a wave a patriotism sweeping across this great land: a feeling of pride in being an American and in being able to call this nation home. The United States is the land of the free and the home of the brave; however, for the African-American citizens of the United States, from the inception of this country to midway through the twentieth century, there was no such thing as freedom, especially in the Deep South. Nowhere is that more evident than in Stories of Scottsboro, an account of the Scottsboro trials of 1931-1937, where nine African-American teenage boys were falsely accused of raping two white girls in Scottsboro, Alabama and no matter how much proof was brought forth proving there innocence, they were always guilty. This was a period of racism and bigotry in our country that is deeply and vividly portrayed though different points of view through author James E. Goodman.
Throughout history, Americans have sought to spread the spirit of equality, which is believed to be the realization of true freedom. Before establishing this freedom, every American had only one question stuck in their head: What is freedom? Our country received it in the year of 1776 from the British through a series of difficulties and wars. African Americans defined it as an escape from slavery, while immigrants defined it as their acceptance into a new society. More yet, women of the women’s suffrage defined their freedom as their recognition into society and for their rights to be equal to that of every other man. These different perceptions of cultures/groups in America tied together to form an American view of freedom. Freedom is something that every American should be willing to do anything in order to maintain. We may have weapons of mass destruction, but when it comes to living in a peaceful, American lifestyle, our freedom is our greatest weapon.
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.
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.
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
Freedom has been discussed and debated for a while now and yet no one can completely agree that it exists. Since the Civil, War America has been conditioned to be divided politically. The conflict over the meaning of freedom continues to exist from the civil war, throughout the sixties and in the present. The Civil War was fought over the question of what freedom means in America. The issue was in the open for all to see: slavery. Human slavery was the shameless face of the idea of freedom. The cultural war in the sixties was once more about the question of what freedom is and what it means to Americans. No slaves. Instead, in the sixties and seventies four main issues dominated the struggle for racial equality: opposition to discriminatory immigration controls; the fight against racist attacks; the struggle for equality in the workplace; and, most explosively, the issue of police brutality. For more than two centuries, Americans demanded successive expansions of freedom; progressive freedom. Americans wanted freedom that grants expansions of voting rights, civil rights, education, public health, scientific knowledge and protections from fear.
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
According to the Klan members, the only requirement for being a part of the organization is to be Christian. As they see it, America is under attack by immigrants and foreign groups. To them it seems that it isn't right for races to mix because we would all melt into one race of "brown". The highest ranked members of the KKK are said to be led by divine provide...
In 1869 the Klan was disbanded by Forrest, this was the height of their membership with 500,00 members, because laws were created in the 1870’s to slow down their activities, such as the KKK Act and the Enforcement Acts, limiting their power in the south. Even though they were no longer active their threat was still lingering. They left a legacy in the United States of torture, havoc, white supremacy and black oppression that lasted for a century. The KKK were successful at achieving their goals of abolishing the Republicans ideas in the South and scaring many African Americans during the late
In the ideal of civil rights when it comes to being judged by race Americans have made huge steps in the right direction, but we still have miles and miles to go. A large source of the racism present in our society stems from one's pride in his or her own race. Many people, especially those associated with racist groups; find it necessary to put down other ethnic groups in an attempt to strengthen their own. This train of thought usually results in extreme hatred of other races and an overall sense of bigotry. Reasoning in this manner causes too many consider associating with racist groups. Many people believe that we have far left the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) in the past, but in my research I have learned sadly that is not the case there are eight active KKK tribes in Oklahoma alone. The KKK is just as violent as ever in Mississippi there is believed to have been twelve murders committed by the KKK in t...
The Invisible Empire of the South, also known as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), has been a major role in shaping the views of the United States and the South, particularly speaking the eleven former states of the Confederacy. From significant national figures, down to the local county councilman, evidence of the Klan being involved in politics is clearly there. One also cannot rule out the amount of legislation that the Klan has affected due to its terrorist-like tactics. It can definitely said that the KKK not only impacted government and policy making, but it affected Southern life. Since the formation of the first Klan after the end of the Civil War, it has been clear that the KKK will not stop at nothing to ensure the continuity of the white supremacy, especially in the South. The Invisible Empire clearly had a good hold on Southern politics throughout the height of their existence.
Nearly three centuries ago, black men and women from Africa were brought to America and put into slavery. They were treated more cruelly in the United States than in any other country that had practiced slavery. African Americans didn’t gain their freedom until after the Civil War, nearly one-hundred years later. Even though African Americans were freed and the constitution was amended to guarantee racial equality, they were still not treated the same as whites and were thought of as second class citizens. One man had the right idea on how to change America, Martin Luther King Jr. had the best philosophy for advancing civil rights, he preached nonviolence to express the need for change in America and he united both African Americans and whites together to fight for economic and social equality.
Diversity, we define this term today as one of our nation’s most dynamic characteristics in American history. The United States thrives through the means of diversity. However, diversity has not always been a positive component in America; in fact, it took many years for our nation to become accustomed to this broad variety of mixed cultures and social groups. One of the leading groups that were most commonly affected by this, were African American citizens, who were victimized because of their color and race. It wasn’t easy being an African American, back then they had to fight in order to achieve where they are today, from slavery and discrimination, there was a very slim chance of hope for freedom or even citizenship. This longing for hope began to shift around the 1950’s during the Civil Rights Movement, where discrimination still took place yet, it is the time when African Americans started to defend their rights and honor to become freemen like every other citizen of the United States. African Americans were beginning to gain recognition after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, which declared all people born natural in the United States and included the slaves that were previously declared free. However, this didn’t prevent the people from disputing against the constitutional law, especially the people in the South who continued to retaliate against African Americans and the idea of integration in white schools. Integration in white schools played a major role in the battle for Civil Rights in the South, upon the coming of independence for all African American people in the United States after a series of tribulations and loss of hope.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free”. Which shows how even though the Emancipation Proclamation freed the African Americans from slavery, they still are not free because of segregation. He then transitions to the injustice and suffering that the African Americans face. He makes this argument when he proclaims, “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream”.
Massive protests against racial segregation and discrimination broke out in the southern United States that came to national attention during the middle of the 1950’s. This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ...