The Resurgence of the Infamous Ku Klux Klan During the 1920s

In the United States, racism has existed since before its official establishment 1776, targeted primarily toward ethnic minorities like African slaves deep within the agricultural South or the Scots-Irish along the western frontier. People at times in American history had gone so far as to create coalitions to spread sentiments of hatred and anger toward the minority groups. While some groups stand out in United States history during a particular period of time like the nativists during the long-lasting mass immigration period of the Irish and Germans toward the middle of the nineteenth century, no group in American history surpasses the evil legacy and lengthy list of inhumane misdeeds than the Ku Klux Klan. Originated directly after the conclusion of the Civil War, it acted as a means for retired Southern Civil War generals and soldiers to remain united and converse about current issues within their lives, one of them being the growing liberation of African Americans during Reconstruction. To combat this "problem," these men utilized tactics of fear ballot rigging to ensure that groups like the Radical Republicans would not retain more power with perpetuating on Reconstruction, and worse of all, lynching and torturing of pro-black supporters or African Americans themselves. However, under the administration of President Grant and appropriate action form the Republican Congress in the 1870s, the power of the KKK was curbed, sending them into dormancy for approximately another forty years.

The entity of the KKK had not yet arisen for a second time until 1915 in Georgia, where a collection of individuals from Protestant and nativist groups joined together to defend the white race and keep it as the superior standard for Americans. The Klan had not yet emerged to its largest size until after the conclusion of World War I, where war-wrought Europe sent over millions upon millions of immigrants holding the desire to improve their standards of living in a more stable nation. Like the nativists of the nineteenth century, this white supremacist group and its four million members worked diligently to ensure that the vision of a Protestant white America would triumph over any minority immigrant group or ethnic minority, especially Jewish and Catholic foreigners as well as blacks.  Though primarily a clandestine organization, they appealed to the internal patriotism of Americans with propaganda containing the American flag and memorable slogans. At times, this group would also literally spread their flames of hatred with ceremonial cross burnings that elicited the idea of a purified and Protestant America, and they also kept with the former common practice of lynching and psychologically damaging victims of their wrath.

The objective of the revived Ku Klux Klan rested in the conservative doctrine of preserving the old systems and traditions of life while in the midst of rapidly-urbanizing cities and growing America. They also aspired to maintain the "white man's democracy" through the time of the Russian Revolution outbreak in 1917 to prevent any communist uprising in the United States. The appeal of the Klan thus grew not only in the South but all over the country, eventually taking political control of seven states by the 1920s, most of them pertaining to the North. Its apex of power was marked during this tumultuous decade of growth as a means for apprehensive Americans, both men and women during this era, to join together as a part of the Klan and fight for their own identities and not have them washed away by the rising tide of immigration. Protests, including the famous march on Washington in 1925 and popular culture, like D.W. Griffith's motion picture Birth of a Nation, portrayed these individuals as heroic soldiers, where in reality, they were fueled by hatred and represented some of the most negative facets of America as a whole. Thankfully, this reign of power for the Ku Klux Klan did not last long, and as most things that appeared for the first time in this decade disappeared by the time of the 1930s when the Great Depression not only permanently altered the economy but also the typical American lifestyle. The Klan's second disappearance from the public eye was due to the American people focusing on the more important issues of financial stability and adequate possessions of food and shelter. Americans largely believed at this time that they should focus more on themselves than trying to injure the status of another social or ethnic group completely disconnected from one's personal life. Klan members would not meet the public eye again until the start of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

Resources:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/flood-klan/
http://www.history.com/topics/ku-klux-klan
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/rise-to-world-power/1920s-america/a/the-reemergence-of-the-kkk