What is kkk against

Throughout the South, lynching and intimidation were prevalent. The KKK used secrecy, intimidation, violence, and murder to prevent formerly enslaved African-American men from voting.

Black officeholders and their supporters were especially targeted. In , during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, anti-Klan laws were passed allowing the president to declare martial law.

Grant did not use these powers to the full extent of the law, but some state militias did break up Klan chapters. Nine South Carolina counties were placed under martial law and arrests followed. However, after Reconstruction ended in , state legislatures were able to put in place Jim Crow laws that ensured white superiority and segregation. Black voters were intimidated or simply blocked from registering and voting.

The new laws placed almost insurmountable obstacles in the way of voting. The early Klan disbanded in the s, partly because of federal laws but also because its goals had been met. The Klan would be revived in the early 20 th century with its falsely heroic portrayal in The Birth of a Nation film. The influx of Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe offered a new target for the Klan's prejudice. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.

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If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. Unlike the early Klan or the Klan of the s , the s Klan, although founded in the South, was not exclusively southern.

It boasted support nationwide, primarily in the Midwest. In , more than 40 percent of all Klan membership could be found in just three states Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois , but the Klan also secured significant support in Maine, Colorado, and Oregon where it helped ban Catholic schools. It enjoyed a small-town base but also appealed to big-city Protestants, with large chapters in such cities as Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Dallas, and Indianapolis. In the South, most members were Democrats.

In the North such as in Indiana , most were Republicans, though Milwaukee had a fairly large Socialist membership. Of course, the Klan was much more than a social group or a business network. It was especially hostile to blacks, Catholics, and Jews. The original Klan had been specifically formed to combat freedoms for freed slaves, and the new Klan continued that trend. The Klan also opposed and disparaged Jews, painting them alternately as predatory capitalists and dangerous radicals.

Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Italy, eastern Europe, French Canada, and southern Germany had poured into the country by the millions in the previous decades, competing with native-born American workers for jobs and driving down wages. The Klan also associated immigrants with drunkenness and saloons in an era of Prohibition , as well as with being un-American because of their languages, foods, and customs. The great majority of Klan members were Protestants who feared Catholics because they were convinced the average Catholic was completely under the thumb of his or her parish priest or worse a foreign, authoritarian Church hierarchy led by the pope.

Senator J. Although not every Klansman was violent, far too many were. Members perpetrated lynchings, arson, beatings, and whippings. Ku Kluxism as conceived, incorporated, propagated, and practiced has become a menace to the peace and security of every section of the United States. Its evil and vicious possibilities are boundless. It is nothing more or less than a throwback to the centuries when terror, instead of law and justice, regulated the lives of men.

At first the Klan grew slowly after its rebirth, but the early s witnessed spectacular growth. On July 4, , an estimated , Klansmen, women, and children gathered in Kokomo, Indiana, to hold mass rallies.

Some said Klan membership reached 8 million by the mids, but the actual number was somewhere between 2. Still, that was enough to make the Klan an organization to be feared not only when it physically threatened blacks, Catholics, Jews, bootleggers, or local adulterers but also when it burned fiery crosses on deserted hillsides or on the front lawns of its opponents including future radio demagogue Father Charles A.

During the decade, it even exercised great power at the ballot box, helping to elect governors in Alabama, California, Oregon, and Indiana. An estimated 75 House members took their seats with KKK assistance in the s. They included Earl Mayfield, as U. Just as quickly as the Klan rose in membership and influence, however, it collapsed.

There were many reasons. Indeed, the early Klan committed more crimes than its twentieth-century successors combined. Largely rural, the organization paralyzed the normal law enforcement process. Although Forrest formally disbanded the KKK in , it did not die.

In response, Congress passed a Force Act in and in and the Ku Klux Klan Act in , authorizing the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, suppress disturbances by force, and impose heavy penalties on terrorist organizations. Federal troops were sent into some areas to combat Klan activity. Nine South Carolina counties suspended habeas corpus, and federal agents arrested hundreds of southerners for conspiracy against the national government.

As whites regained political power, the activities of the Klan declined. In in United States v. Harris , the Supreme Court declared a section of the KKK Act inapplicable to the acts of private persons and thus unconstitutional. Simmons, as a patriotic fraternal society. This resurgence followed the release of the sensational movie Birth of a Nation , based on the novel by Thomas Dixon, The Clansman.

In the early s, an era of economic dislocation, the Klan spread nationwide. With a membership of between two and four million members, it held political power in Indiana, Oklahoma, and Oregon, as well as in the old South, and it helped to elect U.

The Klan appealed to white, native-born Protestants who were very patriotic and fearful of immigrants, radicals, Jews and Catholics , and labor unions. In the National Democratic Convention defeated a motion denouncing the Klan after a bitter party platform controversy.

The organization formally disbanded in when it was unable to pay back federal taxes. Samuel Green, an Atlanta physician, headed the revival. However, the group was a shadow of its earlier incarnations.

Membership peaked in the s at about 17, The new Klan offered hard-core opposition to the civil rights movement. It was behind the bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, in , the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in , and the murder of Viola Liuzzo, a voting rights volunteer from the North, in