The Ku Klux Klan | National Geographic Society
By: National Geographic Society
Your White Supremacy history lesson for the day.
The seeder is not the topic
Biden is not the topic
Trump is definitely ON TOPIC
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
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Late in 1865, just after the United States Civil War ended, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was founded. The Klan, a secret organization that used terror tactics to target newly freed African Americans, attracted defeated Confederates who resented the changes of Reconstruction. Under the cloak of darkness and in disguise, the KKK worked to enforce white supremacy as the political and social order of the South.
The end of the Civil War brought freedom to enslaved African Americans in the former Confederacy. The 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, as well as federal laws introduced during the years of Reconstruction (1866-1877), were intended to protect the civil rights of freed people. However, when they tried to exercise their new rights, they encountered intimidation and violence, much of it organized by the Klan.
The votes of formerly enslaved men helped give the Republican Party control of the Mississippi state legislature, which made Hiram Rhodes Revels the first African American in the United States Senate.
In 1870, South Carolina directly elected Joseph Rainey, another African American, to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Klan reacted with terrorizing night rides to the homes of black voters.
Throughout the South, lynching and intimidation were prevalent. The KKK used secrecy, intimidation, violence, and murder to prevent formerly enslaved African-American men from voting. Black officeholders and their supporters were especially targeted.
In 1871, during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, anti-Klan laws were passed allowing the president to declare martial law. Grant did not use these powers to the full extent of the law, but some state militias did break up Klan chapters. Nine South Carolina counties were placed under martial law and arrests followed.
However, after Reconstruction ended in 1877, state legislatures were able to put in place Jim Crow laws that ensured white superiority and segregation. Black voters were intimidated or simply blocked from registering and voting. The new laws placed almost insurmountable obstacles in the way of voting. The early Klan disbanded in the 1870s, partly because of federal laws but also because its goals had been met. The Klan would be revived in the early 20th century with its falsely heroic portrayal in The Birth of a Nation film. The influx of Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe offered a new target for the Klan's prejudice.
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Should be easy to read for everyone.
flagged for being a call-out article in 3... 2... 1...
White sheets in Washington, D.C.
Founded in 1915 and inspired by the Reconstruction-era organization of the same name, the second Ku Klux Klan shared with its nineteenth-century namesake a deep racism, a fascination with mystical regalia, and a willingness to use violence to silence its foes. It also professed anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism as strongly as it affirmed racism. The “secret” society had 3 million members during its heyday in the early 1920s; roughly half its members lived in metropolitan areas, and although it enjoyed considerable support in the South, the Klan was strongest in the Midwest and Southwest. In this photograph, forty thousand members of the Klan march down Pennsylvania Avenue on August 8, 1925. Organized to counter reports of faltering enrollment, this “konklave“ succeeded in attracting national attention but marked the peak of Klan power in the 1920s.
there's a group here on NT meeting now to formulate an organized response to your comment.
That is a frightening sight.
Hey look! Peaceful protest!
Funny as a heart attack
Yeah, peaceful if you're KKK but then did a lot of lynching of blacks, in fact, one that same year right there in VA.
Never did think anything about the Klan was funny.
Then you need to broaden your horizons.
No worries my horizons are broad enough not to see anything funny about racists and murderers.
Really! What a foolish comment.
Really! What a [deleted comment.]
deleted
I wondered if they have a hard time finding outfits these days.
My newer sheets are elastic all around. Can't really make a pointy head.
Fitted sheets and pillow cases should work. Maybe that's what My Pillow Guy can start working on....Kostumes for the KKK
I can see it now. His new line of 'crisp white sheets'.
Just look at these pointed corners, will hold up under any circumstance...
Never needs ironing! Snaps back into shape no matter how many crosses you burn!
I am actually hearing his voice say that.
duh, ... pillowcase, stolen from a chain hotel ... I thought you were born in the south like me???
I guess that way, after the rally one can just return the sheets to the room.
No need to carry a set.
just look for where the hotel repaired it's linens from the last trump rally.
I like your rules.
I bet a lot of people did not know that the KKK also targeted Catholics & Jews.
And Native Americans but this time they chose the wrong tribe to try and intimidate.
When Native Americans Routed the Ku Klux Klan in the Battle of Hayes Pond
Great read. Banding together to defeat hate - hmmm maybe that is something that is needed today.
A Clash Over Catholicism
Amazing how some old stories get twisted into commonly held legends, based on nothing.
Good read.
Now that was very interesting. Thank you.
But...but...they were democrats! /s
I wonder how long it will be before some idiot comments about political parties instead of political ideologies.
no worries. I delete that idiot in here.