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Spreekbeurt Engels Klu Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan, a secret terrorist organization that originated in the southern states
during the period of Reconstruction following the American Civil War and was
reactivated on a wider geographic basis in the 20th century. The original Klan was
organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, during the winter of 1865 to 1866, by six former
Confederate army officers who gave their society a name adapted from the Greek word
kuklos ("circle"). Although the Ku Klux Klan began as a prankish social organization,
its activities soon were directed against the Republican Reconstruction governments and
their leaders, both black and white, which came into power in the southern states in
1867.
ORIGINAL TARGETS AND TACTICS
The Klansmen regarded the Reconstruction governments as hostile and oppressive.
They also generally believed in the innate inferiority of blacks and therefore mistrusted
and resented the rise of former slaves to a status of civil equality and often to positions
of political power. The Klan became an illegal organization committed to destroying the
Reconstruction governments from the Carolinas to Arkansas. Attired in robes or sheets
and wearing masks topped with pointed hoods, the Klansmen terrorized public officials
in efforts to drive them from office and blacks in general to prevent them from voting,
holding office, and otherwise exercising their newly acquired political rights. It was
customary for the Klansmen to burn crosses on hillsides and near the homes of those
they wished to frighten. When such tactics failed to produce the desired effect, their
victims might be flogged, mutilated, or murdered. The Klan justified these activities as
necessary measures in defense of white supremacy and the inviolability of white
womanhood.
A secret convention of Klansmen, held in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1867, adopted a
declaration of principles expressing loyalty to the United States Constitution and its
government and declaring the determination of the Klan to "protect the weak, the
innocent and the defenseless ...; to relieve the injured and oppressed; [and] to succor the
suffering ...." The convention designated the Klan as an Invisible Empire and provided
for a supreme official, called Grand Wizard of the Empire, who wielded virtually
autocratic power and who was assisted by ten Genii. Other principal officials of the
Klan were the Grand Dragon of the Realm, who was assisted by eight Hydras; the
Grand Titan of the Dominion, assisted by six Furies; and the Grand Cyclops of the Den,
assisted by two Nighthawks.
From 1868 to 1870, while federal occupation troops were being withdrawn from the
southern states and radical regimes replaced with Democratic administrations, the Klan
was increasingly dominated by the rougher elements in the population. The local
organizations, called klaverns, became so uncontrollable and violent that the Grand
Wizard, former Confederate general Nathan B. Forrest, officially disbanded the Klan in
1869. Klaverns, however, continued to operate on their own. In 1871, Congress passed
the Force Bill to implement the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing
the rights of all citizens. In the same year President Ulysses S. Grant issued a
proclamation calling on members of illegal organizations to disarm and disband;
thereafter hundreds of Klansmen were arrested. The remaining klaverns gradually faded
as the political and social subordination of blacks was reestablished.
INVISIBLE EMPIRE, KNIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN
The name, rituals, and some of the attitudes of the original Klan were adopted by a new
fraternal organization incorporated in Georgia in 1915. The official name of the new
society, which was organized by a former preacher, Colonel William Simmons, was
Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Membership was open to native-born,
white, Protestant males, 16 years or older; blacks, Catholics, and Jews were excluded
and were made targets of persecution by the Klan. Until 1920 the society had little
influence. Then, in the period of economic dislocation and political and social unrest
that followed World War I, the Klan expanded rapidly in urban areas and became active
in many states, notably Colorado, Oregon, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama,
Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Although the Klan
everywhere fiercely preached white supremacy, it focused its attack on what it
considered to be alien outsiders, particularly the Catholic church, which it believed was
threatening traditional American ways and values. All non-Protestants, aliens, liberals,
trade unionists, and striking workers were denounced as subversives.
The Klan burned fiery crosses to frighten its victims. Masked Klansmen also marched
through the streets of many communities, carrying placards threatening various persons
with summary punishment and warning others to leave town. Many persons were
kidnapped, flogged, by the Klan; a number were killed. Few prosecutions of Klansmen
resulted, and in some communities they were abetted by local officials.
Journalistic disclosures of crimes committed by the Klan and of corruption and
immorality in its leadership led to a congressional investigation in 1921, and for a time
the Klan changed its tactics. After 1921 it experienced a rapid growth of membership
and became politically influential throughout the nation. One estimate of its
membership, made in 1924, when the Klan was at the peak of its strength, was as high
as 3 million. In that year a resolution denouncing the Klan, introduced at the national
convention of the Democratic Party, precipitated a bitter controversy and was defeated.
In the mid-1920s, inept and exploitative leadership, internal conflict, and alleged Klan
immorality and violence badly damaged the Klans reputation, and political opposition
increased. By 1929 it had been reduced to several thousand members. During the
economic depression of the 1930s the Ku Klux Klan remained active on a small scale,
particularly against trade union organizers in the South. It also threatened blacks with
punishment if they tried to exercise their right to vote. In 1940 the Klan joined with the
German-American Bund, an organization financed in part by the government of Nazi
Germany, in holding a large rally at Camp Nordland, New Jersey.
After the entry of the United States into World War II, the Klan curtailed its activities.
In 1944 it disbanded formally when it was unable to pay back taxes owed to the federal
government. Revival of Klan activities after the war led to widespread public sentiment
for the suppression of the organization. It suffered a setback in its national stronghold,
Georgia, when that state revoked the Klan charter in 1947. With the death of its
strongest postwar leader, the obstetrician Samuel Green, of Atlanta, Georgia, Klan unity
broke down into numerous, independent, competing units, which often did not last long
enough to be placed on the list of subversive organizations issued by the U.S. attorney
general.
RECENT ACTIVITY
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling, on May 17, 1954, that racial segregation in public
schools was unconstitutional, stirred the Klan into new attempts at recruitment and
violence but did not bring internal unity or greatly increased membership, power, or
respectability in the South. Most opponents of desegregation chose other leaders, such
as the White Citizens Council, while the Klan chiefly attracted the fringe elements of
society and remained more of a status than a resistance movement.
As the civil rights movement gained force in the late 1950s and as resistance to
integration began to diminish throughout the South, the Klan continued to offer
hard-core opposition to civil rights programs and was believed to be involved in many
incidents of racial violence, intimidation, and reprisal, particularly bombings. After the
U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 it experienced a marked increase in membership, reaching
an estimated 40,000 in 1965.
By the mid-1970s, the Klan had gained somewhat in respectability. Acknowledged Klan
leaders ran for public office in the South, amassing sizable numbers of votes.
Approximately 15 separate organizations existed, including the Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan, the United Klans of America, and the National Klan. A resurgence of Klan
violence occurred in the late 1970s, and in 1980 a Klan office was opened in Toronto,
Canada. The total membership was estimated at about 5000 at the end of the 1980s. A
former grand wizard of the Klan, David Duke was elected to the Louisiana House of
Representatives in 1989 and ran unsuccessfully in the stateҒs gubernatorial election in
1991.