Chapter on Ku Klux Klan

“SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Stetson Kennedy took a seat on the curb on Main Street in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. The air was warm, the crowd was festive, and the parade was about to begin. Crooking his neck for a better view, he immediately became engrossed in the spectacle. First came a row of men wearing white robes and hoods and mounted on great white stallions. Even the horses were bedecked with flowing saddle covers and ornamental hoods. When the riders pulled on the reins, the steeds rose up on their hind legs, whinnied, snorted, and furiously pawed the air. Following the riders were dozens of robed and hooded men marching four or five abreast. As Kennedy recalls, One of the mounted knights of the KKK bore a flaming fiery cross, while the other blew long, mournful blows on a bugle.” Kennedy was awestruck. This was his introduction to the Ku Klux Klan.”

“OVER THE YEARS historians have contended that the original Ku Klux Klan was a joke. Literally. Drawn mainly from the work of southern writers who were close to the secret society’s founders and often repeated to this day, the story goes like this: The original Klan began as a social club for a handful of men with time on their hands, a taste for the absurd, and a penchant for harmless mischief. In the spring of 1866, in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee, a half dozen men met at the office a prominent attorney to dream up a diversion from the doldrums of small-town-life. Just back from the Civil War with no immediate plans for the future, the former Confederate officers decided to form a social society much like the student fraternities gaining popularity on college campuses. The founders struggled to come up with a name until one man threw out the word “kuklos” –Greek for “circle” or “band.” His fellow brainstormers quickly added the word “clan” but started it with a K to harden the alliteration and to add a touch of mystery. After a bit of back and forth the founders had their name: Ku Klux Klan. They liked the sound of it. It felt like bones rattling in the closet. Building on the mysterious name, the “circle of brothers” added weird wardrobes, unusual rituals, mysterious code words, and absolute secrecy to the group. Members were required to wear handmade robes that flowed to the floor and high, pointed hoods that added two or three feet to their height. The officers were given titles drawn from mythology or just made up on the spot. The chief officer was the Grand Cyclops, his assistant was the Grand Magi, and the rank and file were Ghouls. After outgrowing their original meeting place, as local lore has it, the Klan moved to a more alluring venue: the ruins of an old farmhouse that had been decimated by a storm, engulfed with fallen trees, and rumored to be haunted. In strange midnight ceremonies the men donned their ghostly garb, recited their rambling incantations, pledged vows of secrecy, and indoctrinated new recruits. In time, the robed and hooded figures, masquerading as ghosts of Confederate soldiers returning from the battlefield, mounted horses and rode through neighboring farms and villages. The ghastly, ghostly figures told shocked onlookers that they had not had a drink since the Battle of Shiloh and had rode twice around the world since suppertime. Soon dozens of new dens had formed throughout the region, and sighting of hooded night riders were commonplace. Major newspapers speculated that this mysterious secret order must have a greater mission-for good or evil.”

“THE PRIME MOVER of the next rising of the KKK was William J. Simmons, the son of Civil War veteran from the Deep South. His father had ridden with the original night riders during Reconstruction. As a boy growing up on his family’s farm in the hamlet of Harpersville, Alabama, Simmons first heard the romanticize accounts of valiant, hooded night riders and saw the fear of the eyes of blacks servants and field hands who had felt their wrath. As a young man Simmons let the farm, served an undistinguished tour of duty in the Spanish-American War, and returned home to make his mark. He trained to be a minister and took to the preaching circuit, only to be drummed out of the Southern Methodist Episcopal Church for “ineffectiveness and moral failings.” Still searching for a life path Simmons moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and found work as a salesman and college lecturer before taking a job promoting fraternal organizations much like today’s Elks, Masons and Shriners. Rising to the rank of colonel in the Woodmen of the World, Simmons proudly told friends and associated that he was now a professional “fraternalist”-and he dreamed of resurrecting the fraternity of the KKK.”

“After hearing out Simmons, Tyler and Clarke made a round of calls to newspaper and magazine editors across the country to test the waters. To their happy astonishment, most of the newsmen were more than open to running stories about the new Ku Klux Klan. Even better for the publicity mavens, the interest from the press was not limited of the South. Editors from the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast asked for regular released about the revived Klan too. Tyler and Clarke were confident that a bold new message-coupled with an aggressive membership campaign-could drive growth nationwide. Their challenge was to make the job lucrative enough for themselves-particularly sine working for the Klan would mean the loss of their Jewish clientele. Over a two-week period in 1920, Tyler and Clarke worked out an astounding contract with Simmons. The public relations duo would get four of every five dollars in new membership fees plus profits from merchandise sales for the life of the campaign. Seeing dollar signs, Tyler and Clarke went to work. THE FIRST STEP was to refocus the Klan’s message for the modern world. It was the aftermath of World War I, and change was in the air. Immigrants were pouring into the country and taking good jobs at low wages. Women had won the ote and were demanding more influence in public affairs. Black men were mustering out of the military and pressing for equality in their own country. Morals were changing too, as the focus of American life shifted from the small town to the city. Young people flocked to nightclubs nd speakeasies, whiskey flowed like water, jazz played on the radio, and divorce became more of an option for unhappy couples. Many white men feared that their traditional place atop the social order-even their status as heads of their own households-was endangered. The Klan had to speak to those people and tap into their fear. So, to the well-known goal of stamping down blacks and Jews, Tyler and Clarke added new targets: Catholics, Asians, Mexicans, labor unionists, socialists, and greedy Wall Street tycoons. To the Klan’s historic opposition to racial integration and religious tolerance, they added the evils of dope, booze, sex, corruption, nightclubs, roadhouses, and violations of the Sabbath. Seeking to differentiate the Klan from other fraternal organizations, they positioned it as the most militant enforcer of morality and decency in communities across the country. Then they pushed the new message through the media. The PR team persuaded newsreel producers to make short, pro—Klan films for movie theaters. They hired a Chicago advertising agency to design newspaper ads and billboards and placed them coast-to-coast. They organized elaborate Klan ceremonies, speeches, and rallies that drew hundreds of new recruits and thousands of onlookers. Tyler coached Simmons to talk less about white brotherhood and more about black inferiority, Jewish greed, and the plans of the Roman Catholic Church to dominate America. Simmons delivered the expanded message in interviews with major newspapers and in crowded meeting halls full of potential members. At one event he stepped forward to deliver his message to a group of influential men who could serve in important roles in his organization. Standing behind a bare table in the front of the room, Simmons at first said nothing. Then he placed his Colt automatic on the table. Then he placed his revolver on the table. Then he placed his ammunition belt on the table. Then he plunged his bowie knife into the tabletop. Then he said, “Now let the Niggers, Catholics, [and] Jews…come on.” THE TACTICS PROVED a stunning success. A year into the campaign, more than 100,000 men had paid their ten-dollar Klektoken )initiation fee)-and all the taking were tax-free because the KKK was chartered as a charitable organization. Traveling promoters called Kleagles were offered a cut of the dues to sign up new members. Driven more by the money than the message, most Kleagles targeted any white protestant man willing to part with ten dollars. As one journalist put it, the prospect list included “the poor, the romantic, the short-witted, the bored, the vindictive the bigoted and the ambitious.”

“As the anti-comic book crusaders railed against fictional characters a far more sinister force was stepping out of the shadows in the real world. The Ku Klux Klan was talking of revival and aligning itself with other racist hate groups. The sleeping giant was stirring again. FOLLOWING THEIR RISE to influence in the 1920s, the national Ku Klux Klan leadership had found themselves steeped in controversy with the federal government breathing down their necks. So the secret order of hooded vigilantes employed the approach it always turned to in times of trouble: It played possum. In the 1930s the national organization dissolves its charter, shut down the Imperial Palace, and told the world it was out of business. The KKK leaders hunkered down to operate in the shadows and keep the flame of hate and bigotry alive in the United States. While many Ku Klux Klan chapters did shut down, others continued operating as independent local groups still dedicated to white supremacy, Christian dominance, and rigid morality. While many continued to use the KKK name, language and garb proudly, others adopted new names to obscure their identities. As the White Cross Clan pressed its racist agenda in Oakland, California, other Klan front groups attacked minorities and preached hate in other cities. By maintaining only loose ties with national KKK leaders, these local groups avoided possible prosecution in federal court as well as the requirement to pay federal taxes. Like-minded local politicians often protected the newly named chapters. Even as the national press wrote the KKK’s obituary, local newspapers were writing about radical racist groups operating in their midst. Then, in the summer of 1940, a bizarre and frightening development took place. As Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime flexed its muscles far away in Europe, resurgent Ku Klux Klan factions began flirting with a new breed of Nazi hate groups in the United States. The Klan was cozying up to the German American Bund, an association led by Nazi sympathizers who praised Hitler, preached fascism, wore Nazi uniforms, and snapped off stiff-armed salutes to flags decorated with a swastika. The powerful and resilient New Jersey Klan led the negotiations with the Bund and arranged a joint rally at a Bund training camp outside Andover, New Jersey. On August 14, 1940, more than a thousand robed and hooded Klansmen and several hundred gray-shirted Bundsman assembled on the grounds of Camp Nordland for a day of anti-Semitic speeches and Negro bashing. As the Bundesfuhrer moved to center stage and proclaimed, “The principles of the Bund and the principles of the Klan are the same,” the KKK Grand Giant from New Jersey stepped forward and clasped the Bundsman’s hand in a show of unity. After the speeches a Klan wedding was held beneath a fiery cross, as if to symbolize a new union between the international and American forms of fascism. As the event reached a crescendo, hundreds of incensed citizens from nearby Andover decided they had had enough of the Nazis and the Klan in their own backyards. The mob gathered at the camp gate and screamed chants like “Burn Hitler on your cross.” The forces of hate were threatening to get out of control.”

“THERE were many other important voices rising up against the Klan, and many of those voices emanated from the KKK stronghold of Atlanta. Taking on the KKK with the power of his pen, Ralph McGill, the crusading editor of the “Atlanta Journal-Constitution”, often wrote to his readers in the tone of a parent assuring his children that their fears and prejudices were unwarranted: There are not many Catholics in Georgia which is a pity in a way because they are almost invariably good Christians, good citizens and worthwhile members of the community., something which has not been possible to say because of all the members of the Ku Klux Klan klaverns in the state .. There are not many Jews in Georgia either but they, too, are good citizens. Their contribution is one of hard work and decency. There is no reason to have an organization formed to promote hate and antagonism to Catholics, Jews, foreign-born citizens or any minority groups…If you could get through all the mumbo jumbo business of the kleagels, Cyclops, nighthawks and al the claptrap, you would still find it to be silly, unchristian and dangerous to the peace and dignity of the people”. Assistant Attorney General Daniel Duke of Georgia also took on the Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta. The hard-charging prosecutor had sent a number of Klansmen to prison for violent attacks against blacks and accused moral backsliders in the 1930s and early 1940s, and he was determined to see the guilty parties serve out their sentences. Late in 1941 Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge suggested granting clemency to the convicted floggers. This triggered a showdown between the fiery prosecutor and the race-baiting governor, who had long pandered for votes from KKK leaders and their followers. At a public hearing on the proposed pardons, Duke held up two leather whips with KKK etched into the handles and waved them in Talmadge’s face while making the point that the Klan’s weapon of choice could stop a bull elephant. Unmoved by the argument, Talmadge stated that he was familiar with such whips because he had once used one on a black man. Talmadge would go on to curry votes from the Klan and Duke would stand against them for years to come.”

“THE EVENTS OF MAY 9, 1946, in Atlanta were not fantasy. Late that night-a 300-foot-tall wooden cross burned on a granite butte near the top of Stone Mountain. The lames cast a glow over more than a thousand men clad in white robes and hoods. Distinguished by his flowing green robe, Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Samuel Green presides from a makeshift altar made of flagstones, draped with an American flag, and bedecked with an unsheathed sword, a canteen of water, an a Bible open to Romans 12: The Christian Life. As plumes of flame leaped into the night and a half moon rose in the distant sky, the Grand Dragon delivered a blistering call to arms in defense of white rule Bringing his racist rant to a crescendo, he cast his gaze on several dozen men kneeling before him in plain clothes. After leading the new recruits in the sacred oath of initiation, he declared them knight of the Ku Klux Klan. He also warned that betrayal of the organization’s secrets would result in the ultimate punishment: death at the hands of a brother. As the ceremony ended Green cried, “We are revived!” Grand Dragon Green was elated with the Stone Mountain coming-our party. More than 200 new recruits had been initiated that night, and more than a thousand spectators had trekked up the mountain to witness the event Major newspapers, national wire services, and a nationally circulated magazine had covered it, and most reporters had used adjectives like “eerie,” mysterious,” “awesome,” and “haunting” to describe the goings-on. In fact, the next issue of LIFE magazine featured a four-page photo spread under the headline “Ku Klux Klan Tries a Comeback. It Pledges Initiated in a Mystic Pageant on Georgia’s Stone Mountain. “Now millions of readers across the country had the message that Green wanted them to have: the LL was rising again. Green-a 54-year old physician with wire-frame spectacles and a small, bushy white moustache-planned to follow the public relations coup with a highly organized national membership drive that would attract legions of new followers to the reviving order. A longtime Klansman and dedicated follower of the late colonel William Simmons Doc Green planned to apply the historic philosophies, rituals, and methods of the Klan to the emerging social conditions of post-World War II America.”

“In time the Anti-Defamation League stepped forward to make sure its man on the scene-or behind the scene-got credit. The “ADL Bulletin” of February 1947 reported, “It is now revealed that Superman’s informant was Stetson Kennedy, brilliant young Southern liberal who had joined the Klan and the (neo Nazi) Columbians under the assumed name of John S. Perkins. Nowadays Kennedy is telling the whole ugly story of racism in the South and its dollar hungry peddlers, who charged him $10 for a moth-eaten, second hand Klan uniform.” Kennedy even held a press conference in full KKK garb at the ADL offices in New York. His antics apparently did not sit well with Grand Dragon Green. An April 7, 1947 report by an unnamed KKK informant claimed that Green “circulated a picture of Kennedy and said his ass is worth $1,000 per pound.” And in response to the rank and file’s criticism of “failing to provide floggings, crossburnings, etc in ’47,” the Grand Dragon promised “a hot year in ’48 if they could catch the spies.” In the years that followed, Kennedy and other infiltrators redoubled their efforts, and the negative press continued to flow. By 1948 the Klan had become a kicking dog for a host of enemies. The governor of Florida responded to a KKK parade by calling the marchers “hooded hoodlums and sheeted jerks.” And “Time” magazine reported that “a bigoted little obstetrician named Samuel Green’ was becoming desperate to “prove to everybody that his movement wasn’t on the skids.” “Time” also noted that Green was under withering attack from such powerful opponents as the Junior Chamber of Commerce and a local group of churchwomen. Despite a 1,500-guest birthday party for Samuel Green and despite Green’s claims (reported by infiltrators) that he had 5,000 requests from all over the country to open KKK chapters, the talk of revival turned out to be just that-talk. The secret order was riddled with infiltrators, hounded by investigators, buried in bad press, and out of step with the modern mainstream of America.”