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Aufsatz
Englisch

Maria-Wächtler-Gymnasium Essen

2+, Stein, 2013

Johannes V. ©
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ID# 38050







The Influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the past and present

The term ‘Ku Klux Klan’ is probably derived from the Greek word kuklos which means circle, so the Ku Klux Klan was meant to be a circle of brothers with the same objective. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was founded on 24th of December 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, USA by Calvin E. Jones, John B. Kennedy, Frank O. McCord, John C. Lester, Richard R. Reed and James R Crowe as an organization without a political target.

The Klan grew especially from people of the southern states which do not accepted the laws adopted by the northern states about the equality of the rights of black and white people. In 1867 the founder lost their leadership and control about the Klan, so they organized a meeting in Nashville, Tennessee to elect a leader of this brotherhood.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was elected to be the first ‘Grand Wizard’ of the KKK. It was a try to unite the separate groups of KKK- supporters, but the groups worked independent from each other. At this time the KKK had 500,000 members and lots of sympathizers in the southern states.

The attacks of the KKK were against former slaves to prevent the acting in their new rights. The attacks included physical force and rape but also murder. The KKK was not only against former slaves but also against members of the republicans and the U.S. Army.

The KKK was dissolved in 1871 by the ‘Grand Wizard’ Nathan Bedford Forrest due to the Ku- Klux- Acts, laws against the terrorism in the southern states. This call were only obeyed by members in Arkansas and Tennessee but the violence grew in the other states, especially in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North- and South Carolina.

The real end of the KKK was in 1876 because of the reaching of their goals: In 1874 had the republicans the majority in the United States House of Representatives and two years later they dominated the south of the US.

In the beginning of the 20th century the KKK begun again to grew because of the film ‘the birth of a nation’ by D. W. Griffith which had a big effect in hating the blacks. The film was watched by 1,000,000 people only in the first year and is the most successful silent film ever.

The former priest William Joseph Simmons took advantage of the opportunity to revive the Klan and h held the first induction ceremony of the 20th century on Thanksgiving 1915 at Stone Mountain, near Atlanta. Simmons introduced the burning crucifix to the mythical repertoire of the Klan symbols and he and his new KKK gained lots of new members by using fantastical Klan titles like ‘Grand Dragon’ for the leader or ‘Grand Cyclops’ and ‘Imperial Wizard’ and grew to an international organization.

Together with Edward Young Clarke he built a profitable business out of the KKK. The ‘new’ KKK was against immigrants, Jews, Catholics, intellectuals, and opponents of the ‘National Prohibition Act.’, which illegalized the production and pouring alcoholic drinks.

In 1922 the Klan had round 3 million members and in 1924 4.5 million. Some of the active members where respected politicians in the senate, in the Supreme Court and in the United States House of Representatives. Even some are called to be active members of the KKK, so, for example it is public that president Warren G. Harding was ordinated to be an active member by Evans (Empire Wizard) and judge Comer (Klalif).

In the wake of the emancipation also round 500,000 women joined the Klan. Between 1923 and 1928 the Klan was decimated by bad press and some argues and separation, so in 1928 the Klan was only 100,000 members big and in 1939 Evans had to sell the Klan.

The KKK begun to grew a third time in the 1950s under the leadership of Samuel Bowers but it was only in Mississippi so the Klan was not strong enough to survive and ‘died’ nearly at the end of this decade.

The most popular movement of the KKK is the ‘European White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan’ but it had between 2000 and 2002 only ten members so it is visible that the Ku Klux Klan has in Europe especially in Germany no influence and is only a border movement and also in the USA the KKK don’t have the influence it had some times.

Now the KKK (in the USA as well as in Germany) is no serious threat anymore and it can be stamped as a small organization of rather extreme insane, although there is the presence in our society, in form of the internet ( in form of bribed policemen (2012 Böblingen) or in form of other rather extreme organizations. (994 words)


Laurina Peter


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