The Rise Of The Ku Klux Klan Of Today

Improved Essays
Today, there are still some isolated incidents that are thought to be linked to the KKK, but they are few and far between. The remaining 5,000 members have joined forces with Neo-Nazis and other far-right extremist groups (“Ku Klux Klan”). “The Klan of today has fragmented into more than 40 separate factions of varying sizes. There is no ‘one’ KKK” (Anti-Defamanation League). The Klan has a rather high association with unlawful activity such as hate crimes and domestic terrorism, which defeats their original intentions of keeping a good public image. This seems to prove that the Klan’s days are limited, and the age of hate is slowly coming to an end.

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    The KKK was a terrorist organization that tried to return the south to pre-civil war conditions through a campaign of terror and violence. Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. Its members waged a campaign of intimidation and violence directed at former slaves who dared to act against the status quo, and Republican leaders. They burned houses down (Doc 4), lynched young black men, and stood outside polling places in order to ensure that they did not vote. They upheld a strict curfew for former slaves.…

    • 1576 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    By 1868 the KKK power started to decline, and “In 1871 Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act that authorized the use of federal troops in the Klan’s suppression and for the trial of its members in federal court.” The KKK disappeared for a while and did not comeback until…

    • 1911 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Horrors of the Ku Klux Klan during the Reconstruction Era During the Reconstruction era, politics was a catalyst for widespread racism and hatred that former slaves experienced throughout the South. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), founded by a Confederate general in 1866, became known as the “invisible empire of the South” in which members represented the ghosts of the Confederate dead returning to terrorize, suppress, and victimize African Americans and Radical Republicans (white reformers) (Gale Encyclopedia of American Law, 2011). From 1868 through the early 1870s the Ku Klux Klan functioned as a loosely organized group of political and social terrorists. The Klan 's goals included the political defeat of the Republican Party and the maintenance…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Forty-three years after the Ku Klux Klan was established, a group known as the NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909 as a civil rights organization to fight for equality. “NAACP stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People” (historystudycenter). The original KKK group had flourished in 1865 but was quickly shut down in 1877. Before things got better, the next group of KKK members has arose in 1950’s now apposing more catholics and jews. Although the KKK had been around since the 1800’s they still continued to discriminate even after an act was passed called “ The Ku Klux Klan act” in April 1871.…

    • 1309 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This desire caused the formation of the famous vigilante group the KKK, who rode around destroying crops, burning houses, lynching and even murdering freed African Americans who threatened white supremacy. While the government tried to distinguish the KKK, the group has yet to end, although most recent members are estimated to belong in the Deep South. These acts combined with the long lasting Jim Crow Laws, laws ensuring segregation, proved that federal laws had made the African Americans free but white racists ensured them to be far from…

    • 1109 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many people have been arguing over whether the Ku Klux Klan should be protected by the first amendment. The Ku Klux Klan is a group based in the southern states. This group was established after the civil war and their goal was to stop african americans from exercising their political powers. Stopping the african americans from exercising their political power was usually done in a gruesome and gory fashion. Although the K.K.K was practicing their beliefs, they also put a lot of hatred toward african americans and they should definitely not be protected by the first amendment based on all the other cases where people weren't protected while they were expressing their beliefs.…

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Radical Reconstruction

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages

    White supremacists in Tennessee formed the Ku Klux Klan (KKK,) a secret organisation meant to terrorize southern blacks. Race riots and mass murders of former slaves occurred in Memphis and New Orleans that same year. From 1867 onward, African-American participation in public life in the South became one of the most radical aspects of reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan dedicated itself to an underground campaign of violence against Republican leaders and voters in an effort to reverse the policies of Radical Reconstruction and restore white supremacy in the South. The KKK are still around today, which conveys their significance as people in the US are still against minorities having equal rights.…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ku Klux Klan In The 1920s

    • 261 Words
    • 2 Pages

    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…

    • 261 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Ku Klux Klan The Civil War was over. Over 4 million slaves are freed. The 13th Amendment is passed, abolishing slavery in the United States. The Reconstruction Era is in full swing, against the opposition of many Southerners who did not believe former slaves should be viewed as equal to white men.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    More specifically, the author's purpose is to write about the Ku Klux Klan’s history and their objective . It writes, “Ku Klux Klan, 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, Tenn., on Dec. 24, 1865, 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.” In this passage it explains the general idea of the Ku Klux Klan and its origins.…

    • 1107 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Klu Klux Klan Essay

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In a time of unrest, people like Bob Jones preyed on people who were struggling and lost. The film, Klansville USA, lays out the history and progression of the Klu Klux Klan in North Carolina, but it also touches on the makings of a KKK member. The typical components of someone who became a member of the KKK are also common in the creation of other radical group’s followers. This concept of someone taking advantage of others and manipulating them to think a certain way, has happened throughout history and has taken many different forms. The formation of the KKK is just one example of the many groups that committed heinous acts out of ignorance.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1915, the Ku Klux Klan was reborn in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The group had accumulated over three million members and they were determined to help solve America’s immigration crisis. In the 1920’s the Klan felt as though the “Nordic race” was facing major obstacles. The population of immigrants in America had increased and their presence had instilled a fear of foreigners across the nation. Hiram W. Evans addressed the situation in “The Klan’s Fight for Americanism.”…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    When it comes to defining terrorist there seem to be some ambiguity in the criteria of what is considered terrorism and what is not. Conversely, Crone and Harrow (2011) suggested the best definition of domestic terrorism is belonging and autonomy of the west. Accordingly, this criterion eliminates some terror acts directed towards the government while inclusive of others. Eugene (2004) argues regardless of the level of autonomy the groups possess the defining attribute of the group or individual is the overall aim or intent. Accordingly, Tom argues the best definition of domestic terrorism would be individual, groups, or organizations that live or have residence in this country and advocate and inflict acts of terrorism guided by their own political stance that is contrary to this country.…

    • 1492 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Ku Klux Klan is a terrorist organization that had been threatening people. However, a guy named Kennedy, writer who was dedicated to end KKK, decided to go undercover and join the Klan in order to reveal its coveted secrets that might help lead to its destruction. According to Kennedy, “The Ku Klux Klan was a group whose power—much like that of politicians or real-estate agents or stockbrokers—was derived in large part from the fact that it hoarded information. Once that information falls into the wrong hands (or, depending on your point of view, the right hands), much of the group’s advantage disappears.” (62)…

    • 1817 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In present day society, six-in-ten Americans say the country needs to continue making changes to assure that blacks have equal rights with whites. In two contrasting articles, both the authors look at racism on very different levels. Edmund Morel tries to bring attention to the problem and wants others to stop it, while Cecil Rhodes feels that white people are the perfect race and that all countries should only be White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Cecil Rhodes had a very strong faith, one that not many believe in now, but he wanted to spread his faith everywhere. He wanted the race to be White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or WASP for short.…

    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays