Ku Klux KK And The White Citizens Council (WCC

Improved Essays
The Civil Rights Movement was one of the most progressive times for equality that not just America had ever witnessed, but the world. However this period also brought forth some of the darkest acts in history and two organisations, out of many against racial justice, will be analysed. These two groups are the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the White Citizens Council (WCC). Two strategies the KKK used were lynching and supporting the prohibition of alcohol while the WCC used propaganda and intimidation. These strategies will be discussed as well as the extent of their success.
The KKK is a white supremacy group which was first founded in 1865 by seven Southern men from Tennessee. When the 15th Amendment permitted black Americans to vote in 1870, the
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They used tactics such as rape, bombings, and intimidation but one of their most significant tactics was lynching (SPLC, 2016). They used this strategy multiple times including a case with a Jewish man called Leo Frank. Leo was accused of killing a woman named Mary Phagon in a factory but the only evidence against him was a testimony made by the janitor. This was still enough to have him placed into jail and sentenced to hanging but this was not enough for the Knights of Mary Phagan, a group within the KKK. They wanted to kill him themselves so they went into the prison, overthrew the guards, dragged Leo out, and lynched him (Sainato. M, …show more content…
Instead of using violence like the KKK, they used propaganda. In 1954, the first Council formed after the Brown vs. Board of Education permitted integration in public schools. Their leader was Robert B Patterson and in 1955, they released a newspaper in Mississippi called The Citizens’ Council. The newspaper spread to other Southern states, however not nationally, and they went from printing 125,000 copies monthly to 250,000 by 1957. This propaganda comprised of essays, articles, and cartoons that encouraged segregation, as well as radio and television appearances. Most pages in their newspaper were also designed to degrade people of African descent and depict them as inhumane criminals. An example of this includes a cartoon they released of an organisation that supports equality. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) were portrayed as burglars that threatened innocent white people with integration (Hague. E,

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