It is just not America with the KKK, but Canada also has members which most of us are strongly opposed too, but many Canadians are not aware of. It's more silent here than in parts of the States. None of us can say we are 100% American or Canadian. Our forefathers could have come from other countries and had the very religious beliefs the KKK abhorred. The KKK didn't just go after Black-Americans, but Jews and anyone else that dared to go against them. The KKK is broken down into 3 parts:FIRST PART: The KKK was organized by ex-Confederate elements to oppose the Reconstruction policies of the radical Republican Congress to maintain "white supremacy. After the Civil War, when local gov't in the South was weak or nonexistent there were fears of black outrages and insurrection, informal vigilante organizations or armed patrols were formed in almost all communities. They were linked together in societies such as "Men of Justice, "The Pale Faces," "The Constitutional Union Guards, The White Brotherhood and the "Order of the White Rose." The KKK was the best known of these and eventually absorbed the other organizations. It was organized at Pulaski, Tenn., in May, 1866. Their strange disguises, silent parades, midnight rides and mysterious language and commands were be most effective in playing upon fears and superstitions. The riders muffled their horses' feet and covered the horses with white robes and they, themselves, dressed in flowing white sheets, their faces covered with white masks and with skulls on their saddle horns, posed as spirits of the Confederate dead returned from the battlefields. Although the Klan often were able to achieve their aims by terror alone, whippings and lynchings were also used, not only against blacks, but also against the so-called carpetbaggers and scalawags. A general organization of the KKK was effected in Apr. 1867 at Nashville, Tenn. Gen. N.B. Forrest the famous Confederate cavalry leader was made Grand Wizard of the Empire and was assisted by ten GEnii. Each state constituted a Realm under a Grand Dragon with 8 Hydras as a staff; several counties formed a Dominion controlled by a Grand Titan and 6 Furies; a county was a Province ruled by a Grand Giant and 4 Night Hawks; the local Den was governed by Grand Cyclops with 2 Night Hawks as aides. The individual members were called Ghouls. The Klan was effective in systematically keeping black men away from the polls, so that the ex Confederate gained political control in many states. Congress in 1870 and 1871 passed legislation to combat the Klan. The order, founded in 1867 in Louisiana, is reputed to have had even more members than the KKK, but its membership was more conservative and it's actions less spectacular. THE SECOND KKK: Founded in 1915 by William J. Simmons, an ex-minister and promoter of fraternal orders; it's first meeting was held on Stone Mt., Ga. The new Klan had a wider program than its forerunner, for it added to "white supremacy" an intense negativism and anti-Catholicism (it was also anti-Semitic) closely related to that of the Know-Nothing movement of the middle 19th cent. Its appeal was not sectional and, aided after 1920 by the activities of professional promoters Elizabeth Tyler and Edward Y. Clarke, it spread rapidly thought the North as well as the South. It furnished an outlet for the militant patriots aroused by WW1, and it stressed fundamentalism in religion. Professing itself nonpolitical, the Klan nevertheless controlled politics in many communities and in 1922, 1924 and 1926 elected many state officials and a number of Congressmen. Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, Oregon, and Maine were particularly under its influence. Its power in the Midwest was broken during the late 20s when David C. Stephenson, a major Klan leader was convicted of 2nd degree murder, and evidence of corruption came out that led to the indictment of the governor of Indiana and the mayor of Indianapolis, both supporters of the Klan. The Klan frequently took extralegal measures, especially against those whom it considered its enemies. As was the case with the earlier Klan, some of these measures, whether authorized by the central organization or not, were extreme. At its peak in the mid-20s its membership was estimated at 4 million to 5 million. Although the actual figures were probably much smaller, the Klan nevertheless declined with amazing rapidity to an estimate 30,000 by 1930. The Klan spirit, however, was a factor in breaking the Democratic hold on the South in 1928, when Alfred E. Smith, a Roman Catholic was that party's presidential candidate. Its collapse thereafter was largely due to state laws that forbade masks and eliminated the secret element, to the bad publicity the organization received through its thugs and swindlers, and apparently from the declining interest of the members. With the depression of the 1930s, due-paying membership of the Klan shrank to almost nothing. Many of its leaders had done extremely well financially from the dues and the sale of Klan paraphernalia. THE KLAN AFTER WWII: Dr. Samuel Green led a concerted attempt to revive the Klan, but it failed dismally as the organization splintered and as state after state specifically barred the order. Southern civil-rights activists during the 1960s gave the Klan a new impetus and led to revivals of scattered Klan organizations. The most notable of these were Mississippi's White Knights of the KKK, led by Robert Shelton. The newly revived Klan groups were responsible for violent attacks against blacks and civil-rights workers in cities throughout the South, including Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Fla., Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala, and Meridian, Miss. In spite of its efforts, the new Klan was not strong, and by the end of the decade its power and membership had declined to practically nothing. Altho a resurgence of support for the Klan was manifested in the surprising popularity in the early 1990s of David Duke of Louisiana, actual membership in Klan organization is estimated to be in the low thousands.
