Racism and the Birth of the KKK
During the Early Twentieth Century
Karen Bang
HIS 4936
Professor Benowitz
April 9, 2012
1
2
Racism and the Birth of the KKK During the Early
Twentieth Century
Soon after the last war fought on the mainland of the United States of America, it became
clear that while one war had ended, another began. Not everyone was happy that the black man
had been freed, or worse, could now vote. Many whites could not stand the thought of the black
man not knowing his place. This country was about to face racism in an organized, cynical,
methodical, planned out fashion.
During the time frame from 1920 to 1945 the Civil Rights movement began, and it was a
very important step for equality among not only blacks, but all minorities. Unfortunately, this
was an important time of growth and advancement for the Ku Klux Klan as well. The KKK had
ties to religion, politics, and businesses throughout the United States, making it very difficult for
blacks to be treated as equals.
American Racism
According to the national Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders "Race prejudice has
shaped our history decisively: it now threatens to affect our future. White racism is essentially
responsible for the explosive mixture that has been accumulating in our cities."1 One major
perspective of this is the idea of a two category system. The system is simple and consists of
whites and non-whites, and is the system Americans have used for "discriminative purposes."
The Commission reported that the most radical behavior and actions occur when this type of
1
Quoted by Roger Daniels and Harry H.L.Kitano. American Racism: Exploration of the Nature of Prejudice.
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970, p. 26
3
"stratification encourages one group to view the other as less than human." Racist whites "have
often looked upon the relationship between themselves and nonwhites in these terms-nonwhites
have heard themselves referred to as monkeys or dogs, or as breeding like rabbits." 2
Racism did not just appear in private industry and white neighborhoods, racism happened
on the local governmental levels as well as the federal level. In Gary, Indiana during 1934,
blacks were not allowed to use the public beaches, state parks, attend city sponsored concerts,
and were discriminated against by public relief agencies hired to assist them. Realtors would not
sell to blacks in most of the city, and public housing was segregated for blacks and whites with a
long waiting list for blacks. In Gary, Indiana, as in most cities across the country, if you were
black and worked for the city you were most likely a garbage collector or street cleaner.3 If you
did not work for the city and you were a black male, jobs that were primarily available were
bootblacks, porters, janitors, and waiters. 4
Throughout the beginning of the 20th century African Americans poured into urban cities
of the North and the South from rural areas at an incredible growth rate, which changed the
politics and society of urban America. According to Joseph Heathcott, cities where blacks had
migrated to had become "Black Archipelagos," islands of vibrant black social life surrounded by
seas of white racism and hostility, cities within cities that stretched in a chain across America.
These Black Archipelago's had been "shaped by rapid migration, acute poverty, and pervasive
segregation on the one hand, and tremendous reliance and creativity on the other." Apartheid
2
Daniels, American Racism: Exploration of the Nature of Prejudice., p. 26
Neil Betten, Raymond A. Mohl. "The Evolution of Racism in an Industrial City, 1906-1940: A Case Study of
Gary, Indiana." The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Jan., 1974), p. 57
4
Kimberley Mangum, "A Force for Change: Beatrice Morrow Cannady's Program for Race Relations in Oregon,
1912-1936." The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol. 96, No. 2, (Spring, 2005), p. 52
3
4
had become a "broad and unilateral movement against black assimilation-a rejection by whites of
the notion that blacks should integrate into the white body politic." 5
Racism wasn't new to the post Civil War era, but with the birth of the Ku Klux Klan it
now had a visible face. The sentiment of the newly formed Klan was summed up with this
statement "We don't hate Negroes. We love 'em in their place-like shinin' shoes, bell-hoppin',
streetsweepin', pickin' cotton, diggin' ditches, eatin' possum, servin' time..."
6
The question is
whether racism is the major reason they joined the Klan, or are there other reasons such as
religion, politics or fear.
History of the Ku Klux Klan
According to Historians there were three movements to the Ku Klux Klan. The first one,
beginning in 1866, was organized by six Confederate veterans and founded in Pulaski,
Tennessee immediately following the Civil War. The original Ku Klux Klan was designed to
prevent freedmen from exercising their new found economic and political rights. 7 The other
reasons the original Klan won approval and was embraced, was the mistrust for politicians the
South had after the Civil War. The first Klan was headed by Confederate Army General, Nathan
Bedford Forrest, who was also the first Imperial Wizard. The Ku Klux Klan was in all nine
Southern States. Originally the Klan was composed of citizens of the South who wanted to
preserve what they had, but with time things began to change.
The Klan used intimidation and violence to achieve its goals of restoring white
domination. Dressed in white robes and sheets Klansman held nightly raids lynching, tarring and
5
Joseph Heathcott. "Black Archipelago: Politics and Civic Life in the Jim Crow City." Journals of Social History,
Vol. 38, No. 3 (Spring, 2005) p. 707
6
Richard T. Schaefer, "The Ku Klux Klan: Continuity and Change." Phylon, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2nd Qtr., 1971), p. 153
7
Michael Lewis, Jacqueline Serbu."Kommemorating the Ku Klux Klan." The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 40, No.
1 (Winter, 1999), p. 142
5
feathering, and whipping black freedmen and their white supporters. 8 When Forrest realized his
Klan was being taken over by "the pore no'count white trash," and was becoming a "salvage pile
for the undesirable elements of society" he moved to disband it.9 By 1871 there was a demise in
the original Klan, as the public was growing resentful of all their violence. The other major
reason for the diminishing Klan was that their activities were being curbed by federal
legislation.10
In 1915 a movie called The Birth of a Nation directed by David Ward Griffith was
released. The movie was based upon a novel about the Civil War and Reconstruction. The movie
took aim at Union soldiers, and unpredictable freedmen, scalawags and carpetbaggers. More than
fifty-million people saw the movie, which portrayed the white hooded horseman of the Ku Klux
Klan as the saviors of not only the South, but of white civilization. All over the country, but
especially in the South, enthusiasm for the movie and the romantic idea of the Ku Klux Klan was
spreading like wild fire. The movie introduced the idea of burning a cross on the lawn of black
homes in order to create fear. White Supremacy was being re-born.11
William Joseph Simmons was one of the fifty-million people to see the movie. Simmons
was a former disgruntled pastor for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. On December 6,
1915, Simmons chartered the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia. From 1915 to 1920
Simmons took on the task of reviving the Klan. The "instructions for Klansman" or Kloran, was
written by Simmons.12 Simmons designed the secret organization with rituals and rules that each
member was expected to follow. Part of the Klan's Constitution cited the following about their
8
Lewis, Kommemorating, p. 142
. Schaefer, The Ku Klux Klan: Continuity and Change p. 145
10
Lewis, Kommemorating, p. 143
11
Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku Klux Klan In The City 1915-1930. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1967,
p. 3
12
Ibid., p. 7
9
6
beliefs: "Section 1. The objects of this Order shall be to unite white male persons, native-born
Gentile citizens of the United States of America, who owe no allegiance of any nature or degree
to any foreign government, or nation." It further states that Klansman have a responsibility to
protect their homes "and the chastity of womanhood, to maintain forever white supremacy, to
teach and faithfully inculcate a high spiritual philosophy through an exalted ritualism, and by a
practical devotion to conserve, protect and maintain the distinctive institutions rights, privileges,
principles, traditions and ideals of pure Americanism." 13
Despite Simmons and the Klan working hard to promote membership, early participation
during the time frame of 1915 to 1920 had less than 5,000 men. Simmons hired publicists,
Edward Young Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler in 1920 to try and boost membership.14 The years
following World War I were filled with much turbulence and change, and the publicists used this
to their advantage. According to author Richard T, Schaefer, under the new publicity promotion,
the Klan became "anti Catholic instead of Protestant, anti-alien instead of pro-American. The
propaganda varied throughout the country-anti Japanese in the Pacific states, anti-Semitic in the
Atlantic states, and anti-Mexican in the Southwest. The Klan offered a target for every
frustration." and of course the continued rhetoric of the "Negro upptiness."15 The publicists also
focused on the strong sentiment of "nativism" and the enforcement of prohibition laws.
According to Historian David Shannon the main purpose of the Klan "was to force society to
accept rural and small-town values (Prohibition, sexual purity and fundamentalism) by political
13
Stanley Frost, The Challenge Of The Klan. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1924, p. 57
Schaefer, The Ku Klux Klan: Continuity and Change, p. 146
15
Ibid., p. 147
14
7
means if possible or by violent means if necessary." 16 These values were to be accepted in large
cities as well as small.
The Ku Klux Klan was not just present in the South or the big cities. As far away as
Portland, Oregon in the 1920's and 1930's you could see a strong presence of the KKK. During
the 1920's the KKK had what they called "necktie parties", in an effort to rid the city of Portland
from African American citizens. Segregation and discrimination might have been more prevalent
in cities and states with fewer blacks, because their numbers were small and they attracted more
attention.17 Oregon alone had over 25,000 members in the Klan by 1922. Clearly the publicists
had done their jobs, and the Klan was no longer a rural phenomenon.18
Violence within the Klan continued at an accelerated pace during the second movement
of the Ku Klux Klan. Lynching and cross burning had become a symbol for the Klan. Schaefer
writes that in 1921 the Klan was "implicated, although not necessarily prosecuted, in four
killings, a mutilation, one branding with acid, five kidnappings, forty-two floggings, and twentyseven tar and feather parties."19
Lynching was in a class of its own when it came to instilling fear amongst blacks and
black sympathizers. Author Amy Wood maintains that "Lynching assumed this tremendous
symbolic power precisely because it was extraordinary and, by its very nature, public and
visually sensational." At times these public acts of violence were witnessed by up to a 1,000
white spectators who as Wood describes "watched as their fellow citizens tortured, mutilated,
16
Quoted by Leonard J. Moore. "Historical Interpretations of the 1920's Klan: The Traditional View and the
Populist Revision, The Party of Fear: From Nativist Movements to the New Right in American History by David H.
Bennett: The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America by Wyn Craig W." Journal of Social History, Vol. 24, No.
2 (Winter, 1990), p. 349
17
Mangum, A Force for Change:, p. 69
18
Schaefer, The Ku Klux Klan: Continuity and Change p. 147
19
Ibid., p. 147
8
and hanged or burned their victims in full view were, for obvious reasons, the most potently
haunting."20 Public lynchings were also designed to give powerful messages to other whites, to
show their superiority and racial dominance over blacks.21 Klan members of the second wave
wore masks and robes just as the Klan of the Reconstruction era did.
Unions suffered their own brand of punishment from the Klan. According to the Klan,
unions were enemies and fair game for retribution of alleged crimes, which included night riding
raids from the Klansmen. In one night thirty-two union leaders were whipped from the Atlanta
based Textile Workers Union of America. The primary reason for this sentiment of antiunionism was the concept of equal pay for blacks as whites.
22
The Klan did not like the un-
biased influence and authority the unions showed towards all men including blacks. The
organization and teamwork that black men learned by belonging to unions empowered them to
fight harder for the civil rights movement in later years.
Women in the Ku Klux Klan
Prior to the early 1920's, women like children were considered possessions of the
Klansmen, and had no place in public view. Klan women were to be soft, gentle, feminine and of
high virtue.23 Nevertheless, sociologist Kathleen Blee found that women played an enormous
role in the Ku Klux Klan and, with time, had their own branch called the Woman of the Ku Klux
Klan (WKKK). The women who joined the Ku Klux Klan were considered to be far right-wing
minded, who opposed legal liquor "immigration, racial equality, Jewish-owned businesses,
20
Amy Louise Wood, Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940. North
Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009, Introduction 1
21
Ibid., Introduction 2
22
Schaefer, The Ku Klux Klan: Continuity and Change, p. 151
23
Kathleen M. Blee, "Women in the 1920's Ku Klux Klan Movement." Feminist Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring,
1991), p. 43
9
parochial schools, and ‘moral decay’."
24
During the time period of 1923 to 1930 women rushed
to join the WKKK, and not all of them were related to male Klan members.
The woman's Klan was adamant that it was not governed by the Ku Klux Klan or by any
individual Klansman. However, there were evident ties between the WKKK and the KKK,
especially ideological ties. The women of the WKKK were "fighting for the same principles as
the knights of the Ku Klux Klan,'' although they were working on social issues more in line with
those of other women's organizations, such as welfare and juvenile delinquency. 25 In private the
women of the WKKK were just as vicious as the men of the KKK. Blee writes that women of the
WKKK "constituted nearly half of the Klan membership in some states, and were a significant
minority of Klan members in many others. And women were major factors in the Klan,
responsible for some of its most vicious, destructive results." 26
The WKKK served for more than just a political avenue for the women of the order, it
also became an outlet for women's friendships. Many of the friendships made in the WKKK
would last a lifetime. These friendships and relationships are probably the reason the WKKK
outlasted the KKK. Blee found that the women's Klan remained active in the early 1930's, long
after the men's Klan had disbanded. Some of the Klanswomen continued to get together socially
into the 1960s to talk and play cards. 27
Youth were important to the future of the Klan, and the investment in a "Klan university"
was formed to educate both boys and girls. The Klan poured an incredible amount of money into
Lanier University in Atlanta, and the college dedicated its teaching to "pure Americanism" and
24
Blee, Women in the 1920's Ku Klux Klan Movement, p. 58
Ibid., p. 34
26
Ibid., p. 2
27
Ibid., p. 129
25
10
announced its "doors were open to the sons and daughters of all real Americans." Young
teenage girls had their own junior order, and proclaimed themselves "future Klanswomen of
America." Their training was to "make them capable of assuming the responsibilities of the
future mothers of the race." 28
Religion and the Ku Klux Klan
In his study of the Klan, Glenn Feldman found that the exclusively Protestant
organization of the Ku Klux Klan made it very difficult to determine where indignant morality
began, and religion left off for the 1920's Klan.29
The Ku Klux Klan believe that Catholic church's members set themselves apart and exist
separate from the general population; that their members pledge their alliance not to the United
States, but only to Rome and the Pope. Therefore, they are foreigners, and not true Americans.
The Klan believes too that by having Catholic schools, they are turning their backs on the
American way of "unification and solidarity".30 Professor and scholar Martin J. Scott takes aim
at these racist and inaccurate ideologies by the Ku Klux Klan in an article written in 1926. He
states that "The Catholic Church is not a foreign power, unless we consider Christ a foreigner.
The Catholic Church is universal. Its Head is at Rome. Its power is spiritual. It does not advise
its members politically. It does not seek to interfere with any government." 31
Violence and hatred for Jews set the Ku Klux Klan apart from mainstream white
supremacists. The Klan had a high regard for the Germans, and both the Germans and the Klan
28
Blee, Women in the 1920's Ku Klux Klan Movement, p. 160
Glenn Feldman, Politics, Society, and the Klan in Alabama, 1915-1949. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of
Alabama Press, 1999, p. 37
30
Martin J. Scott, "Catholics and the Ku Klux Klan." The North American Review, Vol. 223, No. 831 (Jun.-Aug.,
1926), p. 269
31
Ibid., p. 279
29
11
exchanged articles outlining the ""terrible misdeeds"" of the Jewish people. For many of the
Klansmen the Jews represented the people who crucified Jesus and blocked mandatory school
prayer. But primarily, the Jew represented the evils of capitalism. Members of the Klan accused
Jews, above all, of dominating international capitalism, particularly the world's finances. History
professor Nancy MacLean wrote that the Klan stated "the Jew has a monopoly on the monetary
system of the commercial world." 32
Jim Crow Laws:
Between 1877 and the 1960's, Jim Crow was a racial caste system. Dr. David Pilgim of
Ferris State University stated that Jim Crow laws had become "more than a series of rigid antiblack laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status
of second class citizens."33 According to the History of Jim Crow website:
The term Jim Crow is believed to have originated around 1830 when a white,
minstrel show performer, Thomas "Daddy" Rice, blackened his face with charcoal
paste or burnt cork and danced a ridiculous jig while singing the lyrics to the
song, "Jump Jim Crow." Rice created this character after seeing (while traveling
in the South) a crippled, elderly black man. "Jim Crow" character had become a
standard part of the minstrel show scene in America. On the eve of the Civil War,
the Jim Crow idea was one of many stereotypical images of black inferiority in
the popular culture of the day--along with Sambos, Coons and Zip Dandies. The
word Jim Crow became a racial slur synonymous with black, colored, or Negro in
32
Nancy MacLean, Behind The Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1994, p. 135-36
33
David Pilgrim, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. What Was Jim Crow? 2012.
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow (Accessed March 18, 2012)
12
the vocabulary of many whites; and by the end of the century acts of racial
discrimination toward blacks were often referred to as Jim Crow laws and
practices. 34
The Ku Klux Klan and Politics
The Ku Klux Klan understood where the true power of our country was, and knew to
gain lasting power and strength to further their causes, they would need to control the politicians.
Author Stanley Frost wrote that "the true hope or menace of the Ku Klux Klan lies in politics. It
is there that it can produce the greatest effect, cause the most stunning impact on our lives, exert
the deepest influence on the nation." 35 The other areas of the Klan's involvement were important
to their mission, such as their "social, economic and spiritual activities, its terrorism and
boycotting and possible violence" and although these actions will affect or harm thousands of
lives, compared to what they could accomplish in politics, they are mere trifles.36
Throughout the United States the Klan was an active participant in the election process,
their candidates seeking local, state, and national office. Klan members often earned support
from a powerful group of sympathizers.37 Lewis notes that despite the reputation and public
outcry of the violence from the Klan, "by 1923 at least seventy-five congressional
representatives, as well as senators from Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Oklahoma, and
Texas, were said to owe their seats to the Klan." 38
34
Ronald L. F. Davis, The History of Jim Crow. http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/history (Accessed March 15, 2012)
Frost, The Challenge Of The Klan, p. 220
36
Ibid., p. 220
37
Kenneth D Wald,. "The Visible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan as an Electoral Movement." The Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Autumn, 1980): 217-234, p. 218
38
Lewis, Kommemorating, p. 145
35
13
The political pull of the Klan was so strong that both Republican and Democratic
conventions in 1924 refused to condemn the Klan by name. In the South, the Democratic Party
was the overwhelmingly dominant party and the Republican Party was almost invisible. Blacks
were allowed to vote in the general elections, but were barred from voting in the Democratic
Party primary elections. Unfortunately for the black population, the major political decisions
were made in the Democratic primary, and not the general election. However, in 1944 the United
States Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Allwright that it was unconstitutional to prohibit blacks
from participating in Democratic Party primary elections. 39
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
The NAACP was formed in 1909 by a group of prominent black leaders in response to
the race riot of 1908 in Springfield, Illinois and the continued lynchings of black men. Civil
Rights movements did not begin until the 1920's and 1930's although the NAACP was organized
in 1909. According to Historian Professor Steven F. Lawson "scholars are beginning to
reexamine the ideological roots of the freedom struggle, exploring the legal, theological, and
political legacies left by leaders and organizations of the 1930's and 1940's"40 The NAACP
worked tirelessly to register voters while trying hard to remain nonpartisan. Harry T. Moore the
president of the Florida branch of the NAACP led an aggressive campaign to register voters in
1944 raising the number of qualified voters from 5.5 percent to 11.
41
Campaigns like the one
Moore led were happening all over the country.
39
Quoted in Clark, James C. "Civil Rights Leader Harry T. Moore and the Ku Klux Klan." The Florida Historical
Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Oct., 1994), p. 169
40
Ibid., p. 166-7
41
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People . NAACP: 100 Years of History. 2009-2009.
http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history (Accessed March 15, 2012)
14
One of the main goals of the NAACP was to stop the racism and violent acts upon blacks.
The most horrific act used on blacks was the act of lynching. The NAACP worked incessantly to
try and put an end to this brutal act. The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill was proposed in 1918 by
Republican Representative Leonidas C. Dyer. The NAACP waged an all out war from 19191923 to try and get the bill passed. Dyer had solicited the help of the NAACP by asking them to
draft a brief in support of his anti-lynching bill, and coordinate the presentations of friendly
witnesses at the hearings"
42
The Dyer Bill was defeated in the Senate in December of 1922
which according to Robert Zangrando "forced the NAACP to redirect its energies." 43
The NAACP reports that the 1920's "proved less and less hospitable to civil rights
legislation, and not for over ten years would it seem politically feasible to launch another
sustained drive in Congress."
44
The NAACP stayed in a transitional period from 1923 to 1933,
with a huge push for anti-lynching legislation during the time period of 1934 to 1946. Although
the House of Representatives passed the measure in 1922, 1937, and 1940, no anti-lynching bill
was ever brought to a vote in the United States Senate. 45
Beginning in 1940 the NAACP expanded its activities beyond the anti-lynching bill.
However, the NAACP owed the movement against lynching for all of their "protest momentum,
political contacts, public visibility, community support, and staff competence" they had begun to
receive.46 The NAACP began to work on the issue of decimation and education during the late
1930's, and was involved in multiple public school cases around the country, including in
Maryland, Virginia, Florida, and Oklahoma. Zangrando writes that one of the higher profile
42
Robert L. Zangrando, The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1980, p. 55
43
Ibid., p. 72
44
Ibid., p. 72
45
Ibid., p. 72
46
Ibid., p. 166
15
cases the NAACP was involved in was in 1938 when "association lawyers won a major victory
before the United States Supreme Court in Missouri ex re. Gaines v. Canada, which barred racial
discrimination in public institutions of higher learning." 47
Besides education during the 1940's, the NAACP turned their attention to the battle for
equal employment opportunities for blacks in national defense industries, and the connected
drive for nondiscriminatory treatment in the Armed Forces.48 The lack of equal treatment for
black men in the military was brought to the attention of everyone from the President to the War
and Navy Departments. In an effort to head off a March on Washington that was planned in
protest of the poor treatment of blacks in the military, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802
establishing the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC). This was a trade off to stop the
March, but did little to help the black men within the military.
Other Resistance to the Ku Klux Klan
Although there is not much written about black resistance, by the 1930's, blacks began to
openly clash with Klansmen.49 Most of the resistance came in the form of Union membership,
but other resistance was taking place throughout the country. Increasingly aggressive AfricanAmericans were challenging segregation in public transportation. Glenn Feldman wrote that "in
1942 Birmingham witnessed eighty-eight incidents of blacks taking white seats aboard buses and
streetcars, as well as one hundred and seventy six total racial incidents and complaints." 50 Two
other earlier resistance movements were The Garvey Movement and The Harlem Renaissance.
The Garvey Movement was a mass call for blacks to unite and be proud of their heritage and
47
. Zangrando, The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950, p. 166
Ibid., p. 167
49
, Clive Webb"Politics, Society, and the Klan in Alabama, 1915-1949 by Glenn Feldman." Journal of American
Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Aug., 2002), p. 347
50
Feldman, Politics, Society, and the Klan, p. 756
48
16
culture, becoming the largest mass movement that Black America had seen. The Harlem
Renaissance was a literary movement that had a related message, using protest literature. Aldon
Morris noted that "Northern Blacks organized a series of don't buy where you can't work
campaigns, in which white owned ghetto businesses were boycotted unless they agreed to hire
Blacks."51
Civil Rights and The New Deal Programs
As attorney and author David Bixby notes, a turning point for the Supreme Court took
place during the time period of 1935 to 1945 as the court recognized that "racial, religious, and
ethnic minorities should be accorded a special degree of judicial protection." 52 Prior to this time
the court seemed to struggle with the definition of "minorities". Bixby points out that to the
majority of the court, the word signified "economic, or regional minorities rather than racial,
religious, or ethnic groups."53 This began to change in the middle 1930's when the court began to
hear cases involving more "minorities in the modern sense." Cases coming before the Supreme
Court involved "areas of criminal justice, elections, organized labor, transportation, and
education."54 Bixby maintains the court realized that "once the country entered World War Two,
propaganda and morale needs made it imperative to control the more violent manifestations of
racism. Furthermore, the tilt of the Court in favor of protecting civil liberties and minorities may
have encouraged litigation that previously would have had little chance of success." 55
51
Morris, Adlon D. "A Retrospective on the Civil Rights Movement: Political and Intellectual Landmarks" Annual
Review of Sociology, Vol. 25 (1999), p. 520
52
David M. Bixby, "The Roosevelt Court, Democratic Ideology, and Minority Rights: Another Look at United
States v. Classic." The Yale Law Yournal, Vol.90, No. 4 (Mar., 1981), p. 743
53
Ibid., p. 743
54
Ibid., p. 743
55
Ibid., p. 783
17
Attorney General Frank Murphy created the Department of Justice's Civil Liberties Unit
in 1939, which was later renamed the Civil Rights Section. Professor of Law Risa Goluboff
states that the department was designed to "pursue a program of vigilant action in the prosecution
of infringement of these rights."
56
Murphy felt his first obligation was to the rights of labor and
labor laws and the First Amendment. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, "many of the
central questions of civil rights during the 1930's were labor -related." Goluboff notes that
"Labor Unions and their activities garnered widespread public attention and federal action. First
in the National Recovery Administration and later in the National Labor Relations Act and the
Fair Labors Standards Act, labor was a major component of New Deal reforms." 57
The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was formed in 1935 in an attempt to
defend the interests of African-Americans and other minorities in the workplace. The CIO was a
federation of Unions that created an atmosphere of tolerance among blacks and whites, who were
forced to work side by side. W. E. B. Du Bois and other black leaders considered the CIO a
leading organization in the struggle for black equality. Although, not everyone felt the same way,
and as Professor Michael Goldfield noted "even with equal pay for equal work, however, equal
rights were often denied."58
Another case affecting African Americans was United States v. Classic, which was a case
involving election law decided on by the Supreme Court in 1941. The ruling gave Congress the
power to regulate procedures for political party nominations, and primary elections. Also in 1941
President Roosevelt created the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) in response to
employers paying different wages to black employees.
56
Risa L. Goluboff, "The Thirteenth Amendment and the Lost Origins of Civil Rights." Duke Law Journal, Vol. 50,
No. 6 (Apr., 2001), p. 1616
57
Ibid., p. 1616
58
Goldfield, Race and the CIO: p. 6
18
Just like the first wave of Klan activity lost its luster, so did the second wave that began
in the 1920. With the end of the Prohibition Era, an increasingly active NAACP, the Labor
Unions, and the push for civil rights and new deal programs, the Ku Klux Klan was spread thin
in its fight against Blacks, Catholics, and other minorities.
Demise of the Second Ku Klux Klan
The second Klan movement became riddled with corruption and fighting leadership
factions and, as Blee writes "changing social conditions also lessened the appeal of the Klan to
many white Protestants."
59
The political landscape was altered by the great depression of the
1930's, with the Klan losing much of its support. Blee notes that although racism, anti-Semitism,
and anti-Catholicism certainly had not disappeared, "most white Protestants no longer perceived
the Klan as the vehicle for expressing intolerance and racial hatred. From its heyday in the mid1920's, the Klan fell into public disgrace and marginality."60
By the 1930's a serious membership decline was happening, and by the end of World
War II the Klan was a small southern organization. Although it would never regain its hold on
state or national politics, the Klan continued to terrorize those who threatened the established
economic and social order. Schaefer points out that despite the fact that the second movement
lost its momentum, "the Ku Klux Klan throughout its history has retained its outwardly patriotic
and ritualistic heritage. The Klan hierarchy of wizards, kleagles, and nighthawks has remained
the same whether the Invisible Empire has 5,000 or 5,000,000 members."
61
The Knights of the
Ku Klux Klan, Inc. “officially dissolved itself at an Imperial Klonvokation held in Atlanta on
59
Blee, Women of the Klan, p. 175
Blee, Women of the Klan, p. 175
61
Schaefer, The Ku Klux Klan: Continuity and Change p. 156
60
19
April 23, 1944. The immediate cause for its collapse was the filing of a suit for $685,305 in back
taxes." 62
The Ku Klux Klan had an insurgent following World War II period. After the
war, white liberal politicians were successfully appealing to the poor, black electorates, and
working-class southern whites for their votes. This group of white liberal politician’s success in
post war America was in the words of Glenn Feldman "accompanied by a tense racial
atmosphere and increasingly rigid and violent reactions from the forces of white supremacy."
The reaction from the Klan involved them riding again, and "targeting not only assertive blacks
but also those whites who challenged conventional notions of morality."
63
The stress that goes
along with any war, had now given the Ku Klux Klan new vigor. Blacks and Women, who were
put to work in the industries during wartime, were replaced by white men after the war was over.
This caused great resentment, and strained race relations, but nothing like the time period before
World War II.
Conclusion
When I began researching for this paper, I believed that I would find a direct correlation
to religion and the Ku Klux Klan. My research concludes that all members of the Ku Klux Klan
were white Protestants. I believe that the fact that they are all of the Protestant faith and preach
on "pure morality", does not have anything to do with real religion. Whether the members were
church attending men and woman, or just believed in the Bible is the only real tie to religion. The
Ku Klux Klan uses religion to support their beliefs just as they use pure Americanism. They use
the pure white American theme to promote the reasons they do not believe that black men should
have any rights, and are in fact an inferior species.
62
63
Ibid., p. 151
Ibid., p. 754
20
Although we see a huge decline in Klan activity and membership beginning in the middle
1930's, their racist ideas and thoughts linger on until the third Klan movement begins in the
1960's. I find it to be impressive the amount of work and change the NAACP achieved from
1925 to 1945. The Klan preached that blacks were inferior, but when you look at the brilliant
minds that formed and managed the NAACP from its inception in 1909 to the demise of the
second movement of the Ku Klux Klan, it is surprising they did not fail sooner. Brilliant
attorneys worked pro bono, and took on policy that would shape the United States for centuries
to come.
The Civil Rights movement put an end to the organized and legalized Ku Klux Klan, in
1944, but the birth of the third movement for them shows how difficult it is to get rid of real evil.
Racism is an ugly word, and a tragic reality of almost every country in this world. Unfortunately,
as long as humans have free will, we will continue to see the ugly human nature of racism.
21
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