KKK!! NATIVISM!!

1. KKK!! NATIVISM!! The KKK was led by Nathaniel Bedford Forrest a former confederate general, they used terrorist tactics to scare former slaves. but during the twenties a new KKK arose. it was protecting of traditional morality, prohibition, and true Americanism. African Americans, Roman Catholics, Jews, and foreigners were the most obvious targets of the KKK Bootleggers were also targets. they went after bootleggers because they considered themselves as protectors/defenders of prohibition.

2. WE WANT YOU!!! JOIN NOW !!! The KKK members -All was well for the Ku Klux Klan until 1925. The Klan had reached its peak with between 4 and 6 million members. The Klan had overwhelming pulls in state elections and influence on the elections of many governors as well as ties with organized crime. Eventually, though, people began to oppose the Klan. The leader of the KKK in the 1920’s was a dentist called Hiram Wesley Evans whose name in the KKK was Imperial Wizard. The KKK were a violent organisation. The white hooded KKK burnt churches of the black population, murdered, raped, castrated etc and they were rarely caught as most senior law officers in the South were high ranking KKK men or sympathetic with their aims - which was a white protestant south. Even white people who had contacts with the blacks had reason to fear the KKK.

3. WE ARE LOUD AND PROUD WE ARE STRONG - Ku Klux Klan parade (1926). Ku Klux Klan parade Washington, D.C., on Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, September 13, 1926. While the original Ku Klux Klan declined in the 1880s, white racists reestablished the vigilante organization in 1915, seeking to capitalize on class anxieties about jobs and status. By the early 1920s, the Klan claimed between two and three million members, and controlled hundreds of elected officials and several state legislatures, not only in the South. The group's parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC highlighted the Klan's strength and boldness.

4. YOU SHOULD BE SCARED -The Klan used others tactics to install fear as well. The most significant, which later became a trademark of the Klan, was the burning of the cross. The fiery cross is said to be a "symbol representing the ideals of Christian civilization." The cross itself is a symbol of sacrifice and service to Christ. The fire signifies that "Christ is the light of the world." The light is said to "drive away the darkness and the gloom so a knowledge of truth dispels ignorance and superstition." Burning crosses were left as a mark to warn those that had been violated by the Klan. The leader of the KKK in the 1920’s was a dentist called Hiram Wesley Evans whose name in the KKK was Imperial Wizard. The KKK were a violent organisation. The white hooded KKK burnt churches of the black population, murdered, raped, castrated etc and they were rarely caught as most senior law officers in the South were high ranking KKK men or sympathetic with their aims - which was a white protestant south. Even white people who had contacts with the blacks had reason to fear the KKK.

5. KKK INFLUENCE The Black Americans tried to fight back using non-violent methods. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) asked Washington for new laws to help combat the KKK violence but received very little, if any, help. In the 1920’s Black Americans started to turn to the ‘Back to Africa’ movement which told blacks that they should return to their native America. This was started by Marcus Garvey but the whole movement faltered when he was arrested for fraud and sent to prison. During the early 1920s, the Klan helped elect 16 U.S. Senators and many Representatives and local officials. By 1924, when the Klan had reached its peak in numbers and influence, it claimed to control 24 of the nation's 48 state legislatures. That year it succeeded in blocking the nomination of Al Smith, a New York Catholic, at the Democratic National Convention

6. ANTI-KKK Union Army veterans in mountainous Blount County, Alabama, organized 'the anti-Ku Klux.' They put an end to violence by threatening Klansmen with reprisals unless they stopped whipping Unionists and burning black churches and schools. Armed blacks formed their own defense in Bennettsville, South Carolina and patrolled the streets to protect their homes. National sentiment gathered to crack down on the Klan, even though some Democrats at the national level questioned whether the Klan really existed or believed that it was just a creation of nervous Southern Republican governors. Many southern states began to pass anti-Klan legislation. January 1871, The Republican Senator John Scott convened a Congressional committee which took testimony from 52 witnesses about Klan atrocities. They took 12 horrifying testimony. In February, the Union General Benjamin Franklin Butler made the Klu Klux Klan act. This added to the enmity that southern white Democrats bore toward him. While the bill was being considered, more violence in the South swung support for its passage. The governor of South Carolina appealed for federal troops to assist his efforts in keeping control of the state. A riot and massacre in a Meridian Mississippi courthouse were reported, from which a black state representative escaped only by taking to the woods.

7. KKK THE END OF THE TWENTIES By the end of the 1920s, a backlash against the KKK had developed. Reports of its violence turned public sentiment against the group, and its membership declined to about 40,000. At the same time, Louisiana, Michigan, and Oklahoma passed anti-mask laws intended to frustrate Klan activity. Most of these laws made it a misdemeanor to wear a mask that concealed the identity of the wearer, excluding masks worn for holiday costumes or other legitimate uses. South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia later passed similar laws.