The second wave of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the 1920s indeed was a “thoroughly negative movement” which ultimately “clung to the corpse” of the pre-war era through their revival of the first Klan’s perception of race, religion and politics. The Klan carefully manipulated post-WWI tensions, directing America’s fear and anger towards racial, religious and other outcast groups who became scapegoats for all the problems of the post-war era. This ‘us versus them’ dichotomy reinforced Reconstruction-era prejudice and restricted the definition of American identity to purely white, native Protestants, hence justifying the KKK’s existence. This topic is significant because even today the presence of the KKK and their ideology can still be felt in the
