Masaryk university in brno faculty of education

2.5 Ku Klux Klan now- 5^th era

In these days, Ku Klux Klan is not only one organization but it is separated into many smaller groups functioning over whole USA. There are also some wings of KKK in Europe. This is the list of the most important groups of Ku Klux Klan:

Alabama White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

Imperial Knights of America

International Association of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

Invisible Empire National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

Knights of the White Kamelia

Knight Riders of the Ku Klux Klan

National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

U.S. Klans, KKK Inc.

United Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

United White Klans

White Camellia Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

These groups are acting mostly in the South of USA, fighting against African- Americans, Jews and in some regions also against immigrants from Mexico and South America.

“During the 1990's, as in the 1980's, many Klan groups got into legal trouble and lost precedent setting lawsuits. Other Klans were plagued by poor leadership, infighting, and general incompetence. The KKK had lost all of it is one time power, money, and influence.”¹¹

2.6 Symbols of Ku Klux Klan

Although the Ku Klux Klan is not only one organization any more, all of them use the same symbols. The best known one is “the blood drop”. According to the Ku Klux Klan and their explanation and interpretation of the Bible, this drop is blood of Jesus Christ, who died for white Aryan race. Another important symbol that KKK uses, is the cross wheel. It is supposed to advert to the original word, the name the Ku Klux Klan is made of, Kuklos, which means the circle. The cross wheel also confirm the unity and motion of Ku Klux Klan.

3. Ku Klux Klan in 50’s and 60’s

3.1 The Civil Rights Movement

In the southern states, the segregation of all public facilities was normal and common thing. African- Americans had separated schools, restaurants and public transport. White inhabitants did not consider them equal fellow citizens and did not want to live together with them. African- Americans tried to protest several times but only with smaller success.

There were several organizations associating African- Americans, who tried to discus and solve the problem of the segregation, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Later, in 60’s SCLC- Southern Christian Leadership Conference was found and Martin Luther King Jr. was a head of it.

In the year 1955, everything changed and African- Americans found a new way of requesting the equality in front of the law. It began on 1^st December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama when a Black woman, Rosa Parks, sitting in the bus after a long day in the work, refused to give up her seat for a white man, which was illegal and she was arrested.

Harvard Sitkoff says in his Struggle for Black Equality that

“The Black Panther publicist Eldridge Cleaver would later write about that moment: “Somewhere in the universe, a gear in the machinery had shifted.” At the next stop, Court Square, where slaves had once been auctioned, the driver summoned the police to arrest Rosa Parks for violating the municipal ordinance mandating segregation on publicly owned vehicles. Martin Luther King, Jr. would describe this as the moment when Parks had been “tracked down” by the Zeitgeist- the spirit of the times….”¹²
The leaders of all associations, fighting for the rights of African- Americans, realized that this is the right moment to start calling for the equality. As a main speaker and representative, Martin Luther King Jr. was chosen. He came with an idea of a non- violent fight. “We are impatient for justice but we will protest with love. There will be no violence on our part.”¹³ With this decision and courage, the Montgomery Bus Boycott began. Each Black citizen of Montgomery refused to use public transport when commuting to work or school. Some of them walked, some offered their cars to be used to car pools. At first, white inhabitants did not take it seriously but after a while, they realized that the incomes from public transport are much lower than usual and that they need African- Americans to use their busses again. Harvard Sitkoff describes in his book this period as a policy of harassment. Whites started to threaten Blacks, the, leaders of boycott lost their jobs and they were arrested for imaginary crimes that never happened. The mayor and other members of the local government joined secretly pro- white organizations, e. g. White Citizens Council, and when there was any protest organized by Civil Rights Movement, the members of Ku Klux Klan were asked to come and attack the participants.

The situation of Black citizens became harder and harder. The government and pro-white organizations were against them and made all the protests more complicated. Some of African- Americans stopped fighting and protesting and traveled by busses again. But it was only a few of them. Martin Luther King Jr. was encouraging them and still reminded them of the non violent way of protest. And then, after a long and tiring fight, after 381 days of Montgomery Bus Boycott, on 21^st December 1956, the buses were officially integrated. Black and white citizens traveled together in one bus. But this was only the beginning of a long and difficult journey of African- Americans in their struggle for equality. Their fight did not end up with desegregation of busses. They asked for integrated universities, restaurants and other public facilities.¹⁴

University students played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement. They founded organizations fighting against racial segregation, e.g. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, etc. Being aware of the ideas spread by Martin Luther King Jr. about non- violent protest, students came up with a new way of fight for the desegregation of restaurants. On January 31, 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina, four Black students went into a lunch counter and asked to be served. They refused to leave until they got served. In next few days, more and more students did the same. The owners of restaurants called the police, students were arrested but they did not stop coming into restaurants every day. Soon, all newspapers wrote about it and students not only in Greensboro but all over the south of USA began with these protest activities. They called it “sit- ins” and they had a big support from Martin Luther King Jr. and other organizations fighting against the segregation.¹⁵ Other university students took the events in Greensboro as an inspiration and so other sit- ins took place in Nashville, Tallahassee, Portsmouth (Virginia), Petersburg, Hampton, Newport, Arlington, Knoxville, Memphis, Oak Ridge, etc.¹⁶

On the contrary to big enthusiasm of African- Americans, white inhabitants behaved very adversely to it. The owners of restaurants and lunch counters and waitress refused to serve Black students and they often called the police and let them arrested. Later white extremists started with violent actions against African- Americans.

“Violence began. White hecklers pushed lighted cigarettes against the backs of girls sitting at the counter. They beat and kicked ‘nigger lovers’. They threw French fried potatoes and gum at the demonstrators. They spat on them and blew cigar smoke in their faces.” ¹⁷

When the police was called to violent crimes caused by whites, the Blacks were always arrested. Many of African- Americans were arrested on the basis of fictional crimes. The most of the public officials secretly supported pro- white organizations. Policemen, politicians in local governments and other members of executive did not punish the members of extremist racist groups, when committing crimes against African- Americans. But nothing could make Civil Rights Movement to stop their activities.

According to Sitkoff:

“When asked to explain their motives, sit- ins participants answered in about as many ways as their number. They stated that their inspiration came from parents engaged in the struggle for racial justice or from teacher who dwelled on the long and noble tradition of Negro protest, or even from whites, who urged the necessity to demonstrate against Jim Crow. Sometimes they stressed personal experiences.”¹⁸

Another part of the sit-ins was that the students would be dressed up in their best Sunday clothing. James J. Kilpatrick, the editor of the Richmond News Leader and a vehement segregationist, noted that this created an interesting contrast with the whites who came to harass them:

“Here were the colored students, in coats, white shirts, ties, and one of them was reading Goethe and one was taking notes from a biology text. [The students often brought schoolbooks with them to sit-ins so they could study.] And here, on the sidewalk outside was a gang of white boys come to heckle, a ragtail rabble, slack-jawed, Black-jacketed, grinning fit to kill, and some of them, God save the mark, were waving the proud and honored flag of the Southern States in the last war fought by gentlemen. Eheu! It gives one pause.“¹⁹

The “sit- ins” were not the only actions and activities, Black students organized. There were also “watch- ins” in cinemas, “read- ins” in libraries and even “kneel- ins” in segregated churches. ²⁰

Few years later, in the year 1961, James Farmer, came with an idea of Freedom Rides. Few African- Americans went by bus to another city or state and during the journey; they entered public facilities for whites and tested them. But white extremists attacked the busses and hurt and killed many Blacks. The police should have gone with the busses to protect them from attacks. But usually, as the bus was suppose to enter some city or village, police left and bus was brutally attacked by mobs of white people belonging to racist organizations. In one case, mobs assailed the bus and forced the Blacks to hide in the church that they surrounded and threw stones and bottles inside.

Freedom Riders were attacked so often and brutally that even president Kennedy asked police to stop it. But police had actually no interests in stopping them, because they supported them, so he asked Freedom Riders to stop. But they refused to do so, too. They asked desegregated railroads, airport facilities and interstate public transport. In the year 1962, they got it for interstate buses and other ways of transport were officially integrated.²¹
A fight for desegregation of schools and education was one of the most complicated ones. African- Americans had their separated schools but they were not as good and advanced as schools for white children. In the year 1954, Oliver Brown in Topeka, Kansas, asked NAACP for help for his daughter Linda. She was a third grader and every morning; she had to walk to school over a mile, although an elementary school for white children was very close to her home. Her father wanted her to visit that school but until that time, it was not possible because of the segregation. Until this time a motto “separate but equal” was followed. But in this case, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Supreme Court decided to recall it. It proclaimed that the separation of schools predetermines children to see the worlds of African- Americans and whites as two worlds that cannot exist together. On the other hand, the representatives of the school for white children said that separated schools prepare children for future living and it makes them to get used to the future separation. And according to “separate but equal”, there is no reason for them to feel inferior. Many parents, not only in Topeka, joined Brown and asked better and desegregated education for their children. Finally, the Supreme Court decided that “separate but equal” idea will be followed no more and abolished the segregation of schools. Black children could visit schools that were earlier only for white children. But the process of desegregation was not that easy as expected. White inhabitants did not want to segregate and they did not want to let their children be at one school with Black children. They had to face vexation, mockery and were beaten a lot. The process of integration went slowly but almost in all countries, the schools were finally desegregated. ²²

But in Little Rock in Arkansas, people were not wiling to share schools with African- Americans. In the year 1957, after the Supreme Court decision, nine of Black students decided to sign up for studying at Central High School in Little Rock that was only for white students before. But on the first school day, governor Orval Faubus called the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the nine students from entering the school. They were not able to come into the building, although they tried every day. Mobs of white inhabitants clustered at school every day and did not let the students to pass. After two weeks, President Eisenhower was forced to send an army troop to Little Rock to protect the students from attacks. This was the first time in the history, when army force must have been used to set up the law. The “Little Rock Nine”, as the students were called by media, visited the school for a year until Faubus let all the schools shut down to slow down the process of integration. The year after only two of them returned to school back.²³

The cases of Little Rock and Brown vs. Board of Education were the most important events in integration of schools. The process was long, slow and difficult but Civil Rights Movement did not give up. They fought in a non violent way and had strong motivation and desire. It was very difficult to stay calm, avoid the violence and still insist on their rights. Long after Civil Rights Movement, there were and still are problem with segregation. Racist groups are active until nowadays but nevertheless, from the historical point of view, they reached a great success.