The Up Rise of a Secret Society
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan is possibly the most famous of all hate groups in America. The Ku Klux Klan was the first major, violence prone group in the United States to be organized according to racism in general and white supremacy particularly. With the development of this organization many other different branches have risen using the same common goals of the KKK which is to maintain the supremacy of the white race over African Americans, Jews, Catholics, homosexuals and immigrants. Even without extensive knowledge of its history or beliefs, many Americans recognize the unmistakable symbols of the KKK; the robe, the hood, and the burning of the cross. To ones belief the development a social club to influential organization derived from the religion of Christianity.
No organization just appears out nowhere. Organizing or creating is accomplished because mankind believes there is a need. It is to be found that men do not join an organization unless there is a compelling social, economic, political, spiritual, or religious benefit. The Ku Klux Klan has often been linked to a myth or legend. It might be supposed that a dramatic event marked the beginning of the Klan, but it appears that this is not the case. After the Civil War, local government in the South was weak or nonexistent and there were fears of black outrages. Many white citizens were not pleased that President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, officially freeing all slaves in the states that had withdrew from the union. Therefore after the war there were millions of former slaves living in the South, this outraged a certain white citizens. On Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1865, the Ku Klux Klan was created by six veterans of the Confederate army; Calvin E. Jones, Frank O. McCord, Richard R. Reed, John B. Kennedy, John C. Lester, and James R. Crowe for the purpose of mutual entertainment. These ex-Confederate soldiers formed their social club, in Judge Thomas M. Jones’s law office in Pulaski, Tennessee, were discussed on they were opposed of Reconstruction and wanted to restore white domination over newly enfranchised blacks. To create an overall mystery atmosphere of their club they invented an unusual name the first two words of the group's name are from the Greek word kuklos, meaning "circle," and took the third as a variant of the word clan. During the first meeting the gentlemen established goals and objectives began planning and directing Klan activities. Through many readings it has been documented that the early Confederate soldiers did not have a remarkable beginning, many authorities claim that these first Klansmen were “just young fellows beginning a social fraternity just to have a good time.” (Able, 18)
This group of young Confederate veterans’ main purpose was to scare adults, especially the blacks, and to bring awareness of the bible. The first night ride was done with amusement and full intention to be a prank, so by using the sheets to cover their bodies was to be considered a costume not a scarified symbol. So the night rides inclined into contest; the Klansmen who could pull off the most unusual stunt was awarded the highest degree of social recognition. Klansmen, with theatrical aids, would ride up to a Negro’s shack and drink a whole bucket of water, some would remove their heads or extend artificial arm for some five to six feet while asking the Negro to shake hands. (Turner, 25) Other white citizens that were not in the Klan still benefited from these childish acts; since the blacks were in fear the white landowners would offer to protect their families in exchange for work and a basic minimal income. For the Klan to have become a social and sometimes political movement of significance in America is amazing, particularly considering its modest foundation. However, the depth and span of its secrecy and fraternalism caused it to evolve into a subject valuable of social examination.
The membership of the Klan enlarged, and its circle of influence widened. This became a secret way to get even with the Yankee government, scalawags, and carpetbaggers. No longer were the pranks innocent acts; harassment then became a deadly serious business. Not to long after the formation of the KKK in April, 1867, former slave trader and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, assumed control of the organization and turned it into a military hierarchy unit. Nobody was just allowed to be a Klansmen, they were carefully selected. Many had to pledges against alcohol, sensuality, and gambling. They had to sworn on an oath of obedience to follow the Christian flag as well to protect the Southern way of life. (Heberlein, 43) To heighten their social status, Klansmen also capitalized on social and traditional religion beliefs. Nathan Bedford Forrest was elected to the position of Grand Wizard (the supreme officer of the Empire) and also at this time they divided the Invisible Empire into realms, dominions, provinces, and dens, which were headed by Grand Dragons, Titans, Giants, and Cyclops. (Able, 25) Each Klan unit was responsible for it own affairs. Each subunit was to function independently of the others. The Klan functioned just like one of the major Protestant denominations. Each den, klavern, or unit had a member that was voted to be apart of the national organization, and each unit determined its own degree of violence. It was necessary that the membership lists of the Klan stayed anonymous, secrecy was one of the earliest universal polices especially since they faced real threat from the federal government.
Under the leadership of Forest, the Klan was transformed into an organization of terror. In the early 1870s, the Klan had been so effective in terrorizing southern African Americans that almost none voted. The federal government finally took a stand in 1871 with a series of steps to counter the KKK and its violence. Congress organized a joint select committee made up of seven senators and fourteen representatives to look into the Klan and its activities. (Turner, 55) Another tactic that President Ulysses S. Grant did was to move the troops from the Indian wars on the western plains to South Carolina, in order to put down Klan violence. In October and November of that year, the federal Circuit Court for the District of South Carolina held a series of trials of KKK members suspected of having engaged in criminal acts, but the trials resulted in a few convictions. Then the government enforced civil rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, it then passed the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act, which made night riding a crime. The law also provided criminal and civil penalties for people convicted of private plots, perpetrated by the KKK, which denied others from their civil rights. (Heberlein, 58) The Klan started to fade away after the Reconstruction came to an end in 1877.
Not to long after the re-birth of the new Klan occurred in 1915, after World War I. It was inspired by the newfound power of the modern mass media, The Birth of a Nation, which was based on Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansmen published in 1905, served as a spark for this revival. The movie portrayed the Klan as a heroic force defending white southerners against African Americans and Radical Republicans seeking to build a Black Empire in the South. In particular, the movie showed a gallant Klan defending the honor of white women threatened by disapproving African American men. Along with the movie, another stirring of the pot was the newspaper articles following the trail and lynching of accused murderer Leo Frank. Leo Frank was a Jewish man accused of raping a young white girl; this made white men outraged and gave them more of a reason to act violently against them.
The twentieth-century Klan was revitalized by Colonel William Joseph Simmons, an orator, ex-Methodist preacher, and fraternalism. (Martinez, 64) On Thanksgiving of 1915, Simmons led nineteen followers up to the top of Stone Mountain, outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Later, Christian fundamentalist ministers aided recruitment as the Klan portrayed itself as the protector of traditional values during the Jazz Age. (Martinez, 65) As its membership grew into the millions in the 1920s, the Klan exerted considerable political influence, helping to elect sympathetic candidates to state and national offices. The second KKK, paid thousands of men to organize local chapters all over the country, it was operated as a profit-making venture by its leaders, and it participated in the boom in fraternal organizations at the time. The recruiters signed up the new members, and they would paid initiation fees and had to purchase the ritual KKK robe. The recruiter would have kept half the money and sent the rest to state or national officials. These newly founded fraternal organizations was strong not only in southern states such as Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, but also in Oklahoma, California, Oregon, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. (Able, 38) In addition to being racist, the group also espoused hatred of Jews, Catholics, socialists, unions, and strongly opposed of immigration.
By the end of the 1920s, a hostile response against the KKK had developed. Many reports of violence turned public attitude against the group, and its membership declined to about forty thousand. Also during this time, Louisiana, Michigan, and Oklahoma passed “Anti-Mask” laws intended to prevent Klan activity. These laws made it a misdemeanor to wear a mask that concealed the identity of the wearer, excluding masks worn for holiday costumes or other legitimate uses. (Wade, 72) Similar laws were passed in South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. Right after the WWII, membership of the KKK started to see a slightly increase, especially since the African Americans won civil rights again in the South. They were opposed to the civil rights movement and its attempt to end racial segregation and discrimination. The KKK acted out violently of course, responsible for many beatings, murders, and bombings, including attacks on the Freedom Riders, who desired to integrate interstate buses. During this time the KKK was responsible for the arrangement of the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four African American citizens. Ever since the 1970s the KKK has shrunk to ten thousands members, and has broken into several organizations. However, many other numbers of white supremacist groups have evolved from the Ku Klux Klan.
Just as many other organizations around the world have symbols which identifies them so does the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan adapts Christian ideology to have more of an appealing organization to the society, which was not discovered to years after the secret group developed. In 1946, Wesley Swift, a Grand Wizard of the KKK founded Identity Christians. Identity Christians believe that the “chosen people” referred to in the Christian Bible are not the Jews, which is what most other Christians believe. (Able, 47) Instead they believe that God’s chosen people are the white Europeans and Englishmen who settled North America. They also consider that all nonwhites and Jews are descendents of Cain, Adam, and Eve’s evil son. Klansmen think that Jews are children of Satin who scheme at all times to conquer the white Christians. An identity church declares that Jesus Christ was not a Jew but was instead the true ancestor of the white northern European people. (Landau, 55) The Klan searched through the Christian Bible for a doctrine showing that they had a religious approval; they discovered the twelfth chapter of Roman would fulfill this need.
So then, my brothers, because of God’s many mercies to us, I make this appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer. Do not conform outwardly to the standards of the world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God-what is good, and is pleasing to him and is perfect. For because of God’s gracious gift to me, I say to all of you: Do not think yourselves more highly than you should. Instead be modest in your thinking, and each one of you judge himself according to the amount of faith that God has given him. We have many different parts in the one body, and all these parts have different uses. In the same way, though we are many we are of one body in union with Christ and we all joined to each other as different parts of one body. So we are to use different gifts in accordance with the grace that God has given us. It our gift is to preach God’s message, we must do it according to the faith that we have. If it is to serve, we must serve. If it is to teach, we must teach. If it is to encourage others, we must do so. Whoever shares what he has with others, must do it generously; whoever has authority, must work hard; whoever shows kindness to others, must do it cheerfully. Love must be completely sincere. Hate what is evil, hold on to what is good. Love one another warmly as brothers in Christ and be eager to show respect for one another. Work hard, do not be lazy. Serve the Lord with a heart full of devotion. Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray all the times. Share your belongings with your needy brothers and open your homes to strangers. Ask God to bless those who persecute you; yes, ask him to bless, not to curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Show the same spirit toward all alike. Do not be proud but accept humble duties. Do not think of yourselves as wise. If someone does evil to you do not pay him back with evil. Try to do what all men consider to be good. Do everything possible, on your part, to live at peace with all men. Never take revenge my friends, but instead let God’s wrath do it. For the scripture says “, I will take revenge, I will pay back, says the Lord.” Instead as the scripture says: “if your enemy is hungry feed him; if he is thirsty give him to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not let evil defeat you; instead conquer evil with good.
"twelfth chapter Roman"
The Klansmen seem to truly believe in this scripture, if not all of it, at least the parts where Roman accepts a special relationship with Almighty God. He thinks of himself as a man set aside by God for a particular cause and a nontraditional Christian service. Besides the Christian ideology, the Klansmen have created their own language to heighten their secrecy.
In addition to the Klan “language,” there have been many other symbols. Each of these symbols refers to the rituals and articles of the Klan faith. The symbols and insignias are the sacred altar, the fiery cross, the Klan robes, the robed horse, the Holy Bible, and crossed, unsheathed swords, the Klan flag of the dragon with the arrowheads for tongue and tail and the flag of the United States. Furthermore I am going to discuss a few of the most important symbols. The Holy Bible is used in all Klan meetings. It typically is set up on a table or altar at the front of the meeting. It typically is opened to the twelfth chapter of Romans, which represents the Klansman belief that expresses their special relationship with God. The Bible as a symbol of Christianity thus is always present. (Wade, 87) Another is the cross burnings by Klansmen was not intended to desecrate religious symbols or to commit any sacrilegious act. Rather the burning of the cross was intended to symbolize the destruction of the cross and the need for it as a sacrifice of sin. The Klan doctrine also contends that lighting the cross symbolizes that Jesus Christ is the light and the hope of the world. (Wade, 87) The Klansmen’s robes are used to represent purity through the color white. They also use the robe to hide themselves from others. The robe signifies the righteousness of Christ and Christianity to the Klansmen. Another reason why the Klansmen wear the robe is to covers his own desecrated spirit of imperfection and becomes as one in the body, the soul, and the living spirit of Jesus Christ. (Wade, 88)
The Klan truly replicas a fraternal organization; with their secret symbols, language, rituals, and Christian followings. Never would have imagined that three simple words or letters had so much meaning behind them. The Klansmen definitely had a well organized group that impacted the past and continues to live on in the present.
