Instigating Racial and Cultural Separation: The Ku Klux Klan
AfricanAmericansAustin Samuelson English Comp. 1001 1030-1120 Research paper November 2, 2012 KKK “There is a race war against whites. But our people – my white brothers and sisters – will stay committed to a non-violent resolution. ” This is one of the many lies and extremely contradictory statements that the head master of the Ku Klux Klan Pastor Thomas Robb tends to tell the general public. The Klan masks their ominous plans and devious hate crime behind a ploy that they are trying to protect the heritage and culture of the white race. They are driving force behind racial and cultural separation.
They lie and plot and plant seeds in those who listen closely and are naive enough to listen, they scare and strike fear into the hearts of many while accommodating to the flaws that society tends to look over. They harness their dominance over communities by exploiting lack of segregation and making all those that live there feel as though it is okay to be strictly one race. By doing this they have now planted their seed that anything outside of white is foreign and should not be tolerated. The Ku Klux Klan are the villains in every story, they are the evil in which kids are told about, the bullies you come across in life in America.
The Blatant lack of respect for anything other than the Christian culture shows truly how much the United States has failed to change since civil war times, and how far the maturation of United States citizens has truly come? This group is the true poster child for moral corruption amongst the world and all its inhabitants. The Ku Klux Klan has had a major influence on the actions in many people’s lives. In some opinions they are good, they felt as though what they were being taught was the true way of life. In others they are extremely terrible causing them extreme emotional and in many cases physical harm.
Either way the Klan has had a very significant touch on all those around them. With every action they performed and carried out for their own benefits really began to show everyone in the surrounding area, and in many cases, parts of the country just what the Klan really was, and what they were trying to do. The influences that the Klan has put forth have been different in the lives of many; a major example of this is William Joseph Simmons who single handedly brought forth a second coming of the Klan in 1915 after a fifty year hiatus.
He turned the Klan from closet villains who committed small hate crimes against neighboring towns with Negros, to a new breed of Klan, a fraternal organization who banned together with their common beliefs in being anti-Catholic, anti-negro, anti-Semitism, and all those who were foreign born and had no ancestral ties to the United States. He created a system so complex that infiltration would be impossible, or in the case that a high ranking leader was captured there was always a next in line. In his childhood he was told stories about how the Klan was ran and what they used to try and accomplish.
Simmons dreams were much larger and his organization was a lot more put together and thought out. He based his reincarnated version of the Klan on the legislative system by creating a court system and met annually. As the Klan began to progress, another man by the name of Edward Clark came into power because Simmons could not keep a large group. As Clarks reign over the Klan maturated so did its numbers jumping from 2,000 to 100,000. Just weeks later it membership grew to nearly 2. 2 million people through advertisements.
They used their group to influence those in power to join the Klan in attempts to secure the nation’s top political positions. Although Klan membership has decreased drastically throughout the recent years, there are still hate demonstrations performed by the Klan. There are very rarely cases quite as drastic as there were during the KKK’s prime, yet Klan activity remains, and still strikes fear into the hearts of many minorities. Today’s Klansmen use one of the most symbolic and oldest forms of intimidation used by the Ku Klux Klan; cross burnings.
Julian Borger, a news writer for The Guardian wrote a piece in 2002 entitled “Supreme Court to decide on Klan’s burning cross: Is it freedom of speech or incitement to violence? ” In this article, Borger cites recent incidents that have occurred involving cross burning. Cross burning is illegal in Virginia, along with many other states; but it remains legal in others. In 1998 three teenage men constructed a cross out of materials found at home and erected it outside of an African American families home. They continued to set the cross on fire, and let it burn.
Cross burnings are not only immoral, but they strike fear into the home owner, and possibly people that cross by and witness the burning. Virginia’s attorney general, Jerry Kilgore states that “even a white man would feel threatened if he woke up and found a burning cross in his garden. ” The Ku Klux Klan, which was created in the winter of 1865-1866, is the most iconic terrorist organization in this country’s history. However, according to the founders of the Klan, there was originally no malicious intent, but it quickly expanded, and adopted a new leader, and the Ku Klux Klan became what we remember it as today.
Nathan Forrest was the main influence in turning the KKK into a hate group that terrorized African Americans. Forrest is a famed cavalry commander from the civil war. He and his soldiers tortured and murdered captured African American troops. This would be a sign of things to come for the Ku Klux Klan after he took over. The Klan soon spread like a vicious cancer throughout the south, and included political figures, mayors, and criminals, along with your everyday business man. The Ku Klux Klan showed no mercy towards any African Americans.
They beat, whipped and murdered thousands, while at the same time inflicting great fear into tens, if not hundreds of thousands. In some of the more appalling and outright inhumane cases, Klansmen whipped a 103 year old woman, and would beat paralyzed Negroes. The only thing they cared about was the color of your skin, and whether or not your ideologies were the same as theirs. Just because someone was Caucasian did not mean anything. If a white man were to defend, be-friend, or stand up for a Negro, they were looked upon as a Negro by the Klansmen. One Negro wrote “We have very dark days here. The colored people are in despair….
God knows it is worse than slavery. ” In conclusion, as we let this internal terrorist flood the hearts of white America and strike fear into all else that inhabit it we are not only hurting ourselves but showing the world we do not care for our people . The Ku Klux Klan has personally demoralized everything that the United States has fought to have. This group is the statue of disrespect, the monument of treason toward America. The Ku Klux Klan throughout the years has demonstrated a complete lack of respect towards minorities, and has absolutely not displayed a commitment to social responsibility.
