"KKK in the Civil Rights Era"

"Organized Resistance to Racial Laws Grows"

Newspaper article

By: John N. Popham

Date: December 2, 1956

Source: The New York Times.

About the Author: John N. Popham was hired by the New York Times in 1947 to work in Chattanooga, Tennessee, near the offices of the Chattanooga Times. Popham reported on the important social changes that were occurring in the region during the late 1940s and 1950s. Popham quickly established himself as a reliable and unbiased journalist, with an expertise concerning political and social events brewing in the southern states. Popham continued to work at the New York Times until 1958, when he left to become the executive editor of the Chattanooga Times.

INTRODUCTION

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK, or the Klan) is a secret white supremacist, terrorist organization that was created in the winter of 1865–1866 during the beginning of Reconstruction following the United States Civil War. Its goal was to terrorize Southern blacks and white Northerners who replaced white Southerners in powerful positions of business and government.

The KKK was dissolved in 1944 after the country's entry into World War II, when it was unable to pay its federal taxes to the government. Its power increased again later in the twentieth century as a result of southern civil-rights activities, and ultimately to the Civil Rights movement, of the 1950s and 1960s.

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the federal decision of Brown v. Board of Education (of Topeka, Kansas). The ruling stated that racial segregation in the public school system was unconstitutional because it denied black children equal rights and protection under the law. Unwilling to accept such a decision, the KKK organization was revived to counter integration throughout the country, especially in the southern states.

The establishment of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the authorization of the U.S. Attorney General to enforce voting rights was enacted into law in 1957. The Klan began to terrorize anyone who favored, or was suspected of favoring, desegregation or black civil rights. The group began to use more violent methods such as threats, intimidations, and murder to oppose civil rights programs. The Klan especially used lynchings, bombings, and the burning of churches to illustrate their opposition to civil rights.

Membership within the Klan increased as the Civil Rights movement gained momentum. As the result of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964—a comprehensive bill that made racial discrimination illegal in public buildings and other facilities, and by unions, employers, and voting assemblies—membership of the KKK dramatically increased to around 40,000 members in 1965.

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[This text has been suppressed due to author restrictions]

SIGNIFICANCE

During the Civil Rights movement, the Klan was responsible for violent attacks against African Americans and civil-rights workers in cities throughout the South, including major incidents in Jacksonville and St. Augustine (Florida), Birmingham and Montgomery (Alabama), and Meridian (Mississippi). The efforts of Klan members were not particularly effective. By the end of the 1960s, its power and membership had declined.

KKK violence during the Civil Rights era was directly used to restrain and deny the rights of African-Americans just as it had been doing during Reconstruction. The Klan did slow down the Civil Rights movement with its violence, but the public, for the most part, did not support Klan activities. As a result, public sentiment helped to eventually mobilize additional support for the passage of Civil Rights legislation. In the end, the Klan was unsuccessful in its efforts to block the Civil Rights movement that eventually provided formal equality for black Americans.

The Klan sill exists today, in a reduced state. Small, scattered cells of the Klan are still prevalent in various areas of the country (primarily in the southern and midwestern states) with a membership of no more than 6,000 within about 150 chapters. In addition, other racist groups and movements (such as the skinheads and Neo-Nazi groups) have diverted interest away from the Klan. In recent years, the Klan has tended to stay away from a central organization due to problems with lawsuits. Instead, it has sprung up as various subgroups such as the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Kamelia, and the Imperial Klans of America.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Randel, William Peirce. The Ku Klux Klan: A Century of Infamy. Radnor, PA: Chilton Book Company, 1965.

Tourgée, Albion Winegar. The Invisible Empire. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.

Web sites

National School Boards Association. "The Ruling That Changed America." <http://www.asbj.com/BrownvBoard/> (accessed June 22, 2005).

Public Broadcasting Corporation. "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: Ku Klux Klan." <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_kkk.html> (accessed June 22, 2005).