The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920’s

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was ill-famed for their hatred to contendds African Americans and their proclamation of vacuous supremacy. They were known as the inconspicuous empire and for their symbols of intimidation, which included white cloaks with hoods, and burning crosses. The KKK was depicted as an funda custodytal law which was mostly active in the southernern Confederate states and targeted African Americans. It in the beginning died out in the late 1860s, scarcely The Klan rose again in the 1920s because of the motion picture ingest of a Nation, new immigrants arriving to America, and hatred towards African-Americans . conduct of a Nation was a silent film that premiered in 1925 that was directed by D. W. Griffith. Griffith went to Johns Hopkins University where he met Woodrow Wilson and became obedient fri closedowns. Wilson was a supporter of the Klan. One of the slides in Birth of a Nation has a quote by Wilson that said,The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation until at last thither had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to cherish the Southern country. Dixons was a legislator, baptist preacher, lecturer, novelist,playwright, and an actor. The movie is based on the 1905 book The clanswoman An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan by Thomas Dixon (Chalmer 28). This story revolves around cardinal polar opposite families the northern Stonemans and the southern Camerons. In this story their sons and daughters throw in love entirely were split by the civil war stricken states and reconstruction had devastated them.Congressmen Stoneman (was based on radical republican Thaddues Stephens) was delineate as a hate-filled villain, urged by his Mulatto mistress to degrade the captured south, and with the recent character assassination of The Great Soul, Abraham Lincoln, there was nothing to stop his r shape up. According to the book the south was ruled by Black tyranny and foul corr uption stained the legislative hall. The opposite of Congressmen Stoneman was Ben Cameron, leader of the KKK and a civil war hero of the south.In the end the Klan comes and saves the innocent, avenges the fallen, and reunites the grand lovers (Binder 9166). D. W. Griffith based the movie on Dixons book, by re-staging the war battles, Shermans march to the sea. This gave the impression that the Klan was the savior of the states and the patriots leading our country with an invisible fist. This inspired numerous people to be patriotic like the Klan only when others wanted to be the Klan again. William J. Simmon was one who had viewed this movie and took it to heart. He thought that it was clipping to bring The Klan back. Colonel Simmons proposal for the Klan had been revealed in an advertisement in the Atlanta Journal on celestial latitude 7 1915. It contained blurbs such as, The worlds greatest secret, social, patriotic, fraternal, and beneficiary order. This helped make the Klan more popular, but it wasnt the only reason for the KKKs substantial growth. There are umpteen other things that led to the KKK success that fell into place beautifully. They were allowed to march in parades during World War I in demonstrations of patriotism. After the war the seized the hazard for indicator. Binder 9167) Many problems were caused by a new inflow of immigrants across the unify States. Race riots sprang up in Chicago, Omaha, Duluth, Springfield, Tulsa, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, and Florida. The KKK disdained the new southern and eastern European immigrants that were. usually either Roman Catholic, Jews, Slavs, or Bolshevik. simply they still hated people who were not white. This helped the KKK spread apace done anti-Catholic socialist Wisconsin. The Catholics seemed to be real threats to the public schools and the enforcement of prohibition.The Klan actually favored something that may considered correct with there stance against alcohol during prohibition. Th e Klan went sour from there, when a fewer white men from Louisiana began criticizing them. These men where tortured and then laterwards hanged by the Klan. This was known as The Mier Rouge Murders (Chalmer 29). The Ku Klux Klan spread to all corners of the United States, and all through the Midwest. William Allen White had experienced this first hand in 1921. He written of his experience and the experience of others.The following is from his letter that he had wrote on September 27, 1921. An organizer of the Ku Klux Klan was in Emporia the other day, and the men whom he invited to join his band at $10 per join turned him down. downstairs the leadership of Dr. J. B. Brickell and following their own judgment after hearing his story, the Emporians told him that they had no era for him. The proposition seems to be Anti-foreigners Anti-Catholics Anti-Negroes. There are, of course, bad foreigners and good ones, good Catholics and bad ones, and all kinds of Negroes.To make a case agai nst a birthplace, a religion, or a race is wickedly un-american and cowardly. The whole get at with the Ku Klux Klan is that it is based upon such deep foolishness that it is bound to be a menace to good political science in any community,(qtd Johnson 56). White went on to say how idiotic and self centered the Klan was by creation so greedy and racial. He also said no one in Emporia fell into this recruiters clenches and they ran the recruiter out of town. (Johnson 285). The KKK had made there mark in legion(predicate) places.The KKK had control over many different government positions at the time such as in Indiana, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Oregon to name a few, but in Indiana the Klan was genuinely influential. In 1924, Republican Edward Jackson was pick out governor. This made the rest of the state filled with components of the Klan, but this had not lasted big (AP 135-136). 1924 Anaheim, California was taken completely over by the Ku Klux Klan to make it a model of a perf ect city, by taking over the city council, but it was short lived because the voters called for a special recall election.A little bit after this Earle Mayfield of Texas got the U. S Senators seat, this made the Klan very powerful in these regions(Chalmer 34). Klan members in government seats did not stop there. F clanlin D. Roosevelt appointed a former Klan member as a Supreme Court Justice. This man was confirmed to be a big supporter of the Klan, this was Hugo Black. Hugo Black was from Alabama where the Ku Klux Klan had been growing rapidly. He joined the invisible empire and became a high ranking incumbent in the Klan. Later he entered into politics. He was supported by the Klan and prohibitionists alike.At the age of forty he had not been known all that well in public in politics, but he had surpassed four other prominent candidates and win the Senate nomination in the democratic primary, which essentially assured him of victory. For the next stratum he campaigned in any County. As senator he had openly admit Klan support and attended many state wide rallies. When the Klan political power diminished he broke his ties with them in 1930 (Van Deer Ver). In 1937 Franklin Roosevelt was scotch with the conservative members of the supreme court.His legislation to appoint one member for every justice over the age of seventy had failed after a vitriolic 168 day fight in congress. That plan would have allowed him to appoint as many as six new justices. Roosevelt was not finished yet, as the struggle created one vacant seat, which he had filled with Hugo Black (Leuchtenburg 1). The Klan during the time of Blacks membership was very hateful to non white people, especially blacks. They had thought that their jobs were being snatched up by Black people. They also didnt like them because the Ku Klux Klan viewed anyone who was not white as inferior to them.It had been a hard life for a black person during this time period because of the political power and the nu mber of members in the Ku Klux Klan, they also always used the African Americans of scapegoats to their problems (Drowne 10). The downfall of the second oscillate Klan happened for a number of reasons but one main reason was the doctrine of D. C Stephenson. Stephenson was a long time member of the Klan and became the high rank of Grand Dragon. He was Publicly known to be a severe Prohibitionist. In 1925 he went on trial for the murder of Madge Oberholtzer.He was also prudent for the abduction, forced intoxication, and rape of Ms. Oberholtzer. The court had ruled that He was sentenced to life in prison. This devastated the Klan and sent them on a steep decline of members. (AP 135-137) The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s was very powerful during its prime. It started with Simmons, grew to enormous numbers, but then died out as quickly as it had came. The Ku Klux Klan had rapidly rose because of Griffiths major motion picture Birth of a Nation, the amount of new immigrants arriving to th e United States, and the racial tensions between the Klan and African Americans.