Why is ku klux klan bad

There were riots between black and whites in the North and housing conditions were very poor. Due to the secretive nature of the Klan, it is difficult to know exactly how many men were members. Estimates have ranged from 3 million to 8 million members in , when the Klan was at its peak. What is certain however is that the Klan had enough power in the s to hold marches through Washington, DC.

Its influence extended deep into American society. One of the changes was the addition of the 14 th and 15 th Amendments to the Constitution. The Amendments ensured equal rights and the right to vote and be elected. In addition, federal laws were introduced to protect the civil rights of freed people. However, when they tried to exercise their new rights, black voters suffered intimidation and violence.

Much of these activities were organized by the Klan. House of Representatives. The KKK reacted with terrorizing night rides to the homes of black voters. Throughout the South, intimidation of this kind was very common. The KKK used secrecy, intimidation, violence, and murder to prevent formerly enslaved African-American men from voting.

They especially targeted black officeholders and their supporters. In , during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, laws against the KKK were passed. These laws allowed the president to declare martial law , which is a rule by military of a certain area when the government is unable to rule. Grant did not use these powers to the full extent of the law, but some progress was made. Many of the advances of the Reconstruction period did not last long. After Reconstruction ended in , state lawmakers decided on Jim Crow laws.

These laws ensured white superiority and segregation. The new laws placed immense difficulties in the way of blacks voting. Black voters were intimidated or simply blocked from registering to vote and voting. The early KKK dissolved in the s, partly because of federal laws but also because its goals had been met. Then, in the early 20 th century, the KKK was revived. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.

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But it may be that the professed ideals of the founder were sincere, and undoubtedly many good men have joined because of them. Therefore, a brief examination of those ideals is necessary.

The Klan excludes from membership negroes, Jews, Catholics, and foreign-born, whether citizens or not. It is secret. Its membership is secret, in that respect differing probably from every other secret society in America, though like enough to many in Russia.

When asked if he is a member, the custom is for a good Klansman to evade, more rarely to reply in the negative, but in any event not to avow his membership. Section 1. I will yield prompt response to all summonses, I having knowledge of same, Providence alone preventing.

This oath makes obedience to the orders of the Invisible Empire obligatory, with no guaranty that those orders will not be unwise or un-American or even criminal. I swear that I will keep secure to myself a secret of a ——sman when same is committed to me in the sacred bond of ——smanship, the crime of violating this solemn oath, treason against the United States of America, rape, and malicious murder alone excepted.

And its viciousness becomes glaring on considering the fact that this Klan makes a special effort to enroll in its membership county and city officials, and even the members of the judiciary. But not from its ritual will the true purposes and methods of the organization be learned.

That information is given by its itinerant paid speakers, who are now touring the South and West, soliciting membership. The individual assigned to Mississippi for this work is Joseph G. The Jews, the Catholics, the negroes, the alien-born are organized; they are a menace to American institutions; it is necessary to combat their pernicious influences; the sole weapon to hand is the Ku Klux Klan; therefore, if you are a true American, join the Klan. The morals of the country are in a parlous condition; sexual vice, bootlegging, gambling flourish; the Klan loveth righteousness; if you are on the side of the angels, join the Klan.

The first part of the programme is effected by moulding public sentiment, by watching wayward politicians, by combating the sinister propaganda of the press, which is under the control of Jews or Catholics or negroes or foreigners. The second part of the programme is the real work of the separate local Klans.

The Klan speakers seem always to stress that part of their address outlining the regulation of private morals, and that part is very much the same wherever delivered. But the remainder of the address appears to vary widely from one section of the country to the other, to suit the outstanding prejudice or antipathy of the particular audience being exhorted.

It is said that in California the anti-Japanese feeling is the basis of appeal; in some localities the Jew is referred to in a manner to rejoice the heart of Henry Ford; less frequently, white supremacy as an anti-negro appeal is eloquently defended. But it appears the Church of Rome is never scanted. Always she is represented as the deadly enemy of American institutions, to be crushed not so much for her religious tenets as for her dark and unexplained political machinations.

What then is its effect? Granting that its every principle is high, and the every object of its hate deserving of that hate, what happens for better or for worse in the town or countryside where the Klan has gained a following?

That, after all, is the only question of importance. Jewry and Rome need no defense, at least from this writer. The struggle in these sections is to retain the negro population The industrial system of the South is built upon this population.

The loss of it means that the lumber-mills will lie idle and the cotton fields, cornfields, and sugar fields will revert to the wilderness. The steady trend of the negro population is away from the South to the industrial centres, because of better wages and better economic conditions than agriculture can compete with.

This trend cannot be arrested. It can easily, however, be so expedited as to afford no opportunity for readjustment to changed conditions, resulting in industrial paralysis and ruin. It would be as easy to go through a sedge field populated with rabbits with a bunch of hounds, and to satisfy the rabbits that they were in no danger, but that you were intent upon fox-hunting alone. You look like you are fixed for hunting rabbits. What you say may be so; but even if it is, I see seven or eight young hounds in that bunch that might break away and start to running now.

This grave menace to industrial conditions is without compensating advantages of any kind. There is another respect in which the Klan has, perhaps unwittingly, inflicted a wrong upon the negro. The negro, especially in the rural sections of the South, derives great pleasure from an extravagant nomenclature. The more meaningless, the better.

Duly signed and sealed by his Majesty. But aside from its effect upon the negro population, which cannot be overestimated, the fruits of the Ku Klux Klan are a heavy harvest and evil, all of them.