KKK in the USA:
The Ku Klux Klan and Nativistic America

ANT 440B
Fall 2001

It is hard to imagine a person living in the United States who has not heard of the term KKK and who does not know what it means, although undoubtedly many fall into this category. The phrase conjures up a warm evening in the Deep South, a gathering of men in white sheets with pointed hats, a burning cross or perhaps even the persecution of a person of color. Based on what many people know of the Ku Klux Klan through historical and cultural experiences, this would be a fairly correct image. Yet some might be surprised to learn that the Deep South was not the only region affected by the KKK. It is even more surprising to learn that African Americans were not the only – and were not even the most hated -- group targeted by the Klan.  The basis and motivation for the above-proposed maltreatment and other perpetrated activities against minorities by the KKK have evolved over time, reflecting changes in American society.

Throughout its history, the Ku Klux Klan evolved from its initially small group of pranksters to become a social movement of dramatic proportions – one that was both lauded and loathed.  The original Ku Klux Klan was vastly different from the extensive organization that later developed. It started in 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee, when the state was still somewhat politically divided in the aftermath of the Civil War. It was the only Southern state to ignore President Andrew Johnson’s ignorant advice of not ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment in order to avoid having its state governments taken apart, blacks given the right to vote, and their Confederate leaders “disenfranchised” in what was called “Radical Reconstruction” (Wade 27). However, this does not mean that Tennessee was not still devoutly pro-Confederate (Wade 32). In fact, the KKK was founded by six Confederate soldiers who had returned home from the war, and who found themselves with nothing to do. These six young men set about creating a secret club for themselves, including costumes, mystical symbols, and the infamous name itself, which is Greek derived. According to one of the co-creators of the Klan, James Crowe, the sole purpose of the club was to “’have fun, make mischief, and play pranks on the public’” (Qtd. in Wade 34). Of course, the “public” upon whom these pranks were played were mainly black ex-slaves. In the beginning, the pranks perpetrated by these initial Klan members were relatively harmless, and involved no violence. Soon the Klan or possibly other such similar groups acting as the Klan began to grow more violent (Wade 37). Still, there was as yet no real social or political intentions driving the activities of the Klan, unlike the motivations that would later became so evident in the organization

In the early stages of its development, what is known as the Reconstruction-era Klan – that 19th century Klan created by Crowe and his cronies – was viewed by the public as a source of interest and amusement. Who were these strange people dressed in white robes? The mystery behind it all only increased the sense of intrigue. This interest led to men wanting to join; women would not join for another forty or fifty years. Thus the Ku Klux Klan began to grow. As a result of this expansion the original creators of the Klan, the six young Confederate soldiers, drafted a hierarchical system of positions and rules for the Klan, giving it a more structured basis. This irrevocably altered it from its relatively innocuous status as a lodge club and turned it into something more powerful.

The Klan spread, and separate club chapters were organized in different cities and states as the Klan actively recruited new members. In Wade’s study of the KKK, Fiery Cross: the Ku Klux Klan in America, a dialogue is given between a reporter and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, in which Forrest estimated the number of Klan members in Tennessee alone to be forty thousand (Wade 50). The number of members in other Southern states totaled almost eight times as much as that, and Bedford, who himself held the highest position of the KKK, was credited for the Klan’s massive spread across the South. It is due to the events of this era that the South is today inexorably associated with the Ku Klux Klan.

As the KKK evolved so did its primary mission. While in post-Civil War Tennessee the Klan was a means by which to relieve boredom, have a little fun, and entertain the townspeople, this changed as the organization grew. The change manifested itself in the period from 1868 to 1871, in which the Klan’s actions against Republican radicals and blacks – their first targets – became more violent. Many Southerners hated, or at least looked down upon, the Northern Republicans, especially the ones who were actually living in the South. The Klan sent threatening letters to white teachers of blacks, and occasionally had their property and homes damaged.  In some instances these educators were beaten and ordered to leave town. The result was an increasingly tense atmosphere wherein these local communities began to realize that the Klan also had a dangerous side. In fact, a quote from Ulysses S. Grant adequately explores the extent of the Klan’s activities, and the viewpoint of those opposed to the Klan:

“[B]y force and terror, to prevent all political action not in accord with the views of its members, to deprive colored citizens of the right to bear arms and the right of a free ballot, to suppress the schools in which colored children were taught and to reduce the colored people to a condition closely allied to that of slavery” (Wade 62)

This ideological change on the part of the Klan appears to have been a precursor of things to come. The Klan began to consider itself a protective “law enforcement” organization. The law and order part of the Klan’s mission statement referred to its staunch approval for prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, and its consequent opposition to bootleggers. The protection part of its mission statement originally referred to the protection of white females from dangerous “lustful” black males. It also later referred to the protection of the Protestant, Anglo-Saxon heritage from influences of Catholics, Jews, immigrants, radicals, and immorality in general. Of course, the Catholics, Jews, radicals, and immigrants were viewed as the cause of the above-stated immorality, and this was one of many causes for the hostility towards these particular groups. In actuality, in the 1920s Catholics and immigrants were persecuted more than African Americans (Wade 199), although African Americans had been the primary target of the Reconstruction-era Klan. According to John Higham’s book Strangers in the Land, “The Klan’s snowballing advance in the early twenties paralleled the upthrust of racial nativism in public opinion generally” (291). Higham continues by saying that the Klan became increasingly obsessed with protecting the superiority of the “old Anglo-Saxon stock” from the numerous immigrants coming to America (291). The direction that the KKK’s sentiments took reflected an organization that meshed perfectly with increasingly ethnocentrism in the late 1910s and 1920s.  While there had been strong nativistic patterns throughout American history, there had yet to be seen a single organization as extremely nativistic as the Ku Klux Klan.

In the South the primary groups targeted by the KKK were Republicans and African Americans, but in other parts of the country to which the Klan had spread this was not necessarily the case. One of the groups targeted most in the 1920s -- perhaps even the most targeted and harassed -- were Roman Catholics, who were particularly despised. Catholics have a long history of discrimination in the history or the United States. This discrimination can be attributed to the fact that the first settlers of this New World were Protestants, and thus they desired the country to remain Protestant as well. In the latter half of the 19th century, there was a lot of pressure and animosity directed towards Catholics; of the waves of immigrants that arrived every day throughout the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, a large percentage were Catholic (Higham 40). In addition to the fact that most immigrants were seen as dirty and ignorant subversives, Catholics – especially priests – were considered unpatriotic and un-American. Their religious rituals and ceremonies were ridiculed and their devotion to the Pope caused suspicions to arise in regards to where their true loyalties lay (Goldberg 2), suspicions that the strictly Protestant KKK whole-heartedly cultivated.

The other major religious group attacked by the Klan in the 1910s and ‘20s, though to a lesser degree, was the Jewish population. The Klan position on the Jewish population was ultimately a reflection of a broader public opinion, the basis of which – like the Catholic situation – reached back into the latter half of the 19th century. Even in the early stages of immigration influx, in the 1860s and 1870s, Jews were seen as greedy, immoral, and untrustworthy (Higham 27). According to Wade, they “were criticized for keeping their shops open on Sunday” (179), and their ethics were called into question over how they handled their businesses. While this cultural stereotype of Jews never actually faded, as a group they remained relatively un-harassed by the Klan because the Jewish population was considerably proportionately less than the Catholic population, thus the more prominent and “evil” Catholics received most of the Klan’s attentions. Not until 1915 was attention drawn to the Jews. In Georgia, a young girl was raped and murdered and a Jewish man named Leo Frank was convicted of her murder. Although his innocence was proven, it was too late to prevent a large mob from pulling Frank from his work on a prison farm and lynching him (Wade 144). One result of the Frank lynching was the inspiration of a man to resurrect the Ku Klux Klan.

The above-discussed Reconstruction-era Klan had previously faded in its intensity during the 1870s and 1880s. Pressing opposition had resulted in the dissolution of the KKK in several states. However, in 1915 Colonel William Joseph Simmons was inspired by the public reaction to the Frank lynching. He gathered together thirty-four men, several men who were involved in the lynching, and formed the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (Wade 144). He actively recruited new members, and the Klan grew quickly. According to Chris Rhomberg’s article, “White Nativism and Urban Politics: the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Oakland, California,” the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan “grew to an estimated three million members in the mid-twenties, extending well beyond the Old South into the Midwest and Western states” (Rhomberg 1). In fact, Klan involvement in these regions nearly rivaled that of Klan involvement in the South.

Examples of non-Southern states that have had a great deal of involvement with the KKK are Indiana and Colorado. According to Rhomberg, “the Klan were frequently more successful where native white Protestants were a majority” (1). This was especially true for Indiana. Indiana is a landlocked state and was not one of the major destinations of immigrants coming to the United States. Indiana was predominantly Southern-populated, and in the 1920s there were very few Catholics, Jews, blacks, or immigrants (Wade 218). However, despite the fact that there was not a large Catholic population, Indiana was extremely anti-Catholic. This strongly felt sentiment stemmed from many of the examples listed previously: the fact that many immigrants are Catholic, the belief that Catholics were unpatriotic and un-American, and – absurdly enough – the quiet fear that the Pope had some secret plan to take over the state of Indiana and convert everybody to Catholicism. This hatred and fear was all that people needed, and with a persuasive and charming Klan leader and a strong recruitment policy, the KKK in Indiana grew enormously.  By the end of 1923, Klan members accounted for ten percent of the population (Wade 218).

The development of the Ku Klux Klan in the state of Colorado has a number of things in common with the case of Indiana. For example, Colorado also did not have a large African American population. Unlike Indiana, however, Colorado did receive a lot of immigrants coming to work in the mines. As a result there formed a large Catholic populace, and like Indiana Catholics were the group most targeted by the KKK. Actually, the city of Denver was a great source of nativistic tendencies, contrary to the belief that Klan development occurred most often in rural or country areas. The citizens of Denver were, according to Robert Goldberg’s book Hooded Empire: the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado, were mostly white and Protestant, and in 1926 fifteen percent of Denver was Catholic (Goldberg 13). A difference between Indiana and Colorado, however, is the fact that the Klan occupied nearly all of Indiana’s districts, and Colorado’s districts put up fierce resistance and would not let the Klan seize political control.

The KKK was pushing a form of jingoism that many found appealing – the sentiments excluded all foreigners, in fact all non-whites, non-Anglo-Saxon, non-Protestant peoples. This rhetoric was not new, but it had its appeal in the post-Civil War and post-World War I era nation. In the first case, with the Civil War, the nation was in an upheaval, and the Klan offered a way to protect the status quo as much as possible – to prevent blacks from gaining power and Republicans from taking over the South. The resurrection of the Klan, with Simmons and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, in the 1910s and 1920s came at a time when the American people were pointing accusatory fingers at foreign immigrants, whether or not they were friend or foe during the war. Here the Klan appealed to many because it offered them a form of expression and a way to release their hatred and distrust of foreigners – of which many were Jews and Catholics.

Despite the broad-based appeal for the Klan, there was also strong opposition to the organization. These ranged from the groups being targeted – Jewish organizations, the Catholic Church, and African American organizations including the NAACP – to politicians, legislators, and of course ordinary people who embraced diversity. As quoted in David Goldberg’s article, the Mayor of Cleveland stated, “’ I cannot imagine a more vicious organization … This is a city of many different nationalities, many different creeds and different colors … There is no place here for such an order’” (Goldberg 3). This sentiment was proudly held by many as they fought to battle the Ku Klux Klan.

To revisit the opening paragraph of this paper, yes, the mental image that arises when one hears the term “KKK” would be accurate but incomplete. The Klan was so much larger than the picture represented before. The opening scenario suggested a handful of men gathered on a warm Southern evening. Consider fifteen hundred gathered on a California hill, or two hundred thousand – men, women, and children – gathered for a Fourth of July celebration in Indiana. The Ku Klux Klan was a national movement. While there may not have been chapters established in each and every state, each and every state knew of the KKK, saw what they did, and either cheered them on or decried their organization.

Fortunately, the influence of this discriminatory organization today is nothing compared to what it was during the Reconstruction era and the Roaring ‘20s. Will there be another resurgence in its popularity? America is an incredibly diverse nation. Throughout American history there have been cyclical patterns of nativism and nativistic sentiments.  In the face of today’s increased immigration, growing national diversity, and political conflict, it is entirely possible that our country will one day see a new version of the KKK develop. One can only hope it doesn’t.
 

Works Cited

Goldberg, David J. “Unmasking the Ku Klux Klan: the Northern Movement Against the KKK, 1920-1925.” Journal of American Ethnic History v15 n4 (Summer 1996): 32.

Goldberg, Robert A. Hooded Empire: the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1981.

Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 London: Rutgers University Press, 1998.

Rhomberg, Chris. “White Nativism and urban Politics: the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Oakland, California.” Journal of American Ethnic History v17 n2 (Winter 1998): 39.

Wade, Wyn Craig. Fiery Cross: the Ku Klux Klan in America New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.