Broadsides for the trump era issue: 3 What was the Ku Klux Klan?

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HISTORIANS

fOR peAce & 

demOcRAcy

 

BROADSIDES

FOR THE  

TRUMP ERA 

ISSUE: 3

What was the Ku Klux Klan?

The first Klan arose after the Civil War to reimpose 

servitude on African Americans through a campaign 

of terrorism. The second Klan arose in 1920 with a 

broader agenda: because anti-black racism was not an 

adequate motivator in the North, where few African 

Americans lived at the time, it targeted Catholics, 

Jews, and in the West, Japanese and Mexican Amer-

icans. It added religion to its bigotry, alleging that 

America was intended as and should remain a nation 

of white Protestants. Unlike the first Klan, it was 

strongest in the Northern states, claiming 4 to 6 mil-

lion members; and it was not at all secret.  

What was the Klan’s ideology?

The Klan argued that America had been stolen from 

its rightful citizens. It  alleged, as do white nationalists 

today, that Catholics and Jews conspired to subvert 

American values, notably through immigration. Their 

overlords sent them to the US in order to sabotage the 

nation. Using fear to mobilize, it deployed a barrage of 

fake news designed to frighten: The pope had arrived 

incognito in Washington, DC, where he was building a 

palace, with a throne of gold, to prepare for a Vatican 

takeover of the country. Ninety percent of US police 

forces had been taken over by Catholics to pave the 

way. Jews, guided by the Protocols of the Elders of 

Zion, used Hollywood  to undermine the chastity of 

American girls. These enemies defied Prohibition in 

order to weaken America. But these views were just a 

exaggerated version of a bigotry, especially anti-Sem-

itism, shared by elites. In the 1920s many universities, 

including the most prestigious, established restrictive 

quotas for Jews and taught eugenics, which positioned 

ethnic/racial groups along a hierarchy that matched the 

Klan’s.

What was the Klan’s constituency?

Contemporary critics belittled the KKK as an organi-

zation of uneducated rural hicks, but they were wrong. 

Historian Kenneth Jackson showed in the 1960s that 

50 percent of active Klanspeople were urbanites, and 

32 percent lived in the country’s larger cities: 50,000 

in Chicago, for example. Recent studies of local 

Klans show that members were mainly middle class 

and upper working class, and in many locations Klan 

membership provided a way to become middle class, 

gaining both prestige and fellowship with successful 

businessmen and politicians. Among these were thou-

sands of Evangelical ministers and large numbers of 

policemen.  

How did the Klan grow?

The Klan operated a pyramid scheme: anyone who re-

cruited a new member kept 40 percent of the initiation 

fees. Members were also attracted by their inclusion in 

arcane, secret rituals. The Klan’s huge outdoor gather-

ings attracted tens of thousands with entertainment for 

all—games, races, baseball, rides, band concerts and 

beauty contests. The enormous crosses burned in the 

evenings were not typically direct threats against Klan 

enemies, as in the South, but spectacles that symbol-

ized Klan power—and holiness. 

Was the Klan violent?

Although the Klan publically eschewed violence, its 

rhetoric was supremely violent. Its stories of sub-

versive conspiracies also called on “real men” to 

quash  them. “… The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan 

take their place upon the firing line to …  save the 

most sacred heritage of the white race,” one Imperial 

Wizard declaimed. Dissenters were smeared with 

feminine labels. So episodes of vigilantism appeared 

frequently, mostly as threats rather than deeds, as 

The Ku Klux Klan 

of the 1920s

by Linda Gordon,

 

author of The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan 

and the American Political Tradition

when they drove Malcolm X’s family out of Omaha 

and evicted all the Japanese Americans from a town 

in Washington state. In the rare prosecution, the vig-

ilantes were almost always acquitted.  

The Klan argued that America had 

been stolen from its rightful citi-

zens. It alleged, as do white na-

tionalists today, that catholics and 

Jews conspired to subvert Ameri-

can values, notably through immi-

gration.

What of Klanswomen?

Many women enthusiastically formed female Klan 

auxiliaries, later united into the Women’s KKK, 

which claimed a membership of about 1.5 million.  

Despite conservative gender rhetoric, many simul-

taneously plunged enthusiastically into political 

activism, and some refused to defer to the male 

leadership. Some spokeswomen edged toward a 

certain feminism, championing women’s rights to 

divorce, to equality in inheritance, to maternal cus-

tody of children in cases of marital separation, even 

calling for action against wife beating and support-

ing the Equal Rights Amendment when it was first 

introduced in 1923. Thus Klanswomen showed that 

support for women’s rights could be compatible 

with belief in the superiority of white Protestants.  

What did the Klan accomplish?

The Klan ran hundreds of candidates, in both par-

ties, and put into office sixteen senators, scores of 

congressmen (the Klan claimed seventy-five), 

eleven governors, and thousands of state, county, 

and municipal officials. The  Indiana and Oregon 

state governments were dominated by the Klan for 

four to five years. In the 1924 Democratic Party 

convention, Klan sympathizers prevented the nom-

ination of New York Governor Al Smith who was a 

Catholic. In many states Klan politicians introduced 

bills to prohibit Catholic schools and exclude non

-Protestants from various employments. 

   The Klan’s biggest legislative success was the 

1924 federal immigration restriction, which in-

stalled the Klan’s hierarchy of desirable populations 

into a law that endured until 1965.  Equally impor-

tant, the Klan grew the legitimacy and intensity of 

bigoted discourse.

Why did the Klan decline?

The Klan suffered from high turnover in member-

ship, because dues were steep and its arcane rituals 

probably lost their initial titillation. Scandalous 

behavior of Klan leaders, caught in corruption, brib-

ery, embezzlement, drunkenness, sexual “immoral-

ity,” even murder, also contributed to its decline. By 

1930 KKK membership was an estimated 30,000, 

but many true believers joined pro-Nazi groups 

such as the Silver Shirts and the Black Legion and 

railed against the New Deal, labor unions, and later 

the integration of the armed forces. In the South 

the Klan continued its violence—soon to include 

bombings—directed against any sign of African 

American economic success or resistance to Jim 

Crow. Anti-Catholicism soon declined, but racism 

against African Americans and anti-Semitism have 

continued to be core values of the successor groups.

If you are a historian, a teacher, or a historically-minded activist,  

you are welcome in HPAD. Go to our website for resources and  

more about how to become active: www.historiansforpeace.org.

Historians for Peace and Democracy (HPAD; formerly Histori-

ans Against the War) was formed in January 2003 to oppose the 

Bush Administration’s drive for a pre-emptive, illegal invasion 

of Iraq. We participated actively in the antiwar movement of 

the Bush years, and we have continued to campaign for peace 

and diplomacy internationally, while extending our support for 

Palestinian human rights. Now, with the ascent of an extreme 

rightwing administration contemptuous of constitutional norms, 

we will add to our mission fighting for free speech and aca-

demic freedom for all members of campus communities, and 

for the human rights of our students, especially the undocu-

mented, Muslims, people of color, women and 

LGBTQ

 people. 

We will challenge the “fake news” and “alternative facts” that 

have driven the right’s ascent, and defend the discipline of history 

against attempts to reduce it to affirmations of “American great-

ness,” documenting how prior eras of reaction were successfully 

combatted. Finally, we recognize that the Trump-Pence Administra-

tion is a threat not only to the people of the United States, but to the 

people of the world, and we will continue to stand against a new nu-

clear arms race, more imperial interventions, and collaboration with  

authoritarian regimes.