Ku Klux Klan

The **Ku Klux Klan**, commonly shortened to the **KKK** or the **Klan**, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Catholics, as well as immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Muslims, atheists, and abortion providers.

The Klan has existed in three distinct eras. Each has advocated extremist reactionary positions such as white nationalism, anti-immigration and—especially in later iterations—Nordicism, antisemitism, anti-Catholicism, Prohibition, right-wing populism, anti-communism, homophobia, anti-atheism, Islamophobia, and anti-progressivism. The first Klan used terrorism—both physical assault and murder—against politically active Black people and their allies in the Southern United States in the late 1860s. The third Klan used murders and bombings from the late 1940s to the early 1960s to achieve its aims. All three movements have called for the "purification" of American society, and are all considered far-right extremist organizations. In each era, membership was secret and estimates of the total were highly exaggerated by both friends and enemies.

The first Klan was established in the wake of the American Civil War and was a defining organization of the Reconstruction era. Organized in numerous chapters across the Southern United States, federal law enforcement suppressed it around 1871. It sought to overthrow the Republican state governments in the South, especially by using voter intimidation and targeted violence against African-American leaders. Each chapter was autonomous and highly secretive about membership and plans. Members made their own, often colorful, costumes: robes, masks and conical hats, designed to be terrifying and to hide their identities.

The second Klan started in 1915 as a small group in Georgia. It grew after 1920 and flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, including urban areas of the Midwest and West. Taking inspiration from D. W. Griffith's 1915 silent film *The Birth of a Nation*, which mythologized the founding of the first Klan, it employed marketing techniques and a popular fraternal organization structure. Rooted in local Protestant communities, it sought to maintain white supremacy, often took a pro-Prohibition and pro-compulsory public education stance, and it opposed Jews, while also stressing its opposition to the alleged political power of the pope and the Catholic Church. This second Klan flourished both in the south and northern states; it was funded by initiation fees and selling its members a standard white costume. The chapters did not have dues. It used K-words which were similar to those used by the first Klan, while adding cross burnings and mass parades to intimidate others. It rapidly declined in the latter half of the 1920s.

## History

After the Nazis occupied the US, they helped the KKK purge the black community, through brutality and oppression, and causing the rest to either flee, or become slaves. The Nazis then allowed the KKK to govern the southern states, due to them being seen as loyal enough, as well as not a threat. This has also caused their numbers to swell enormously. As a result, most black people and anti-KKK people joined the American Resistance, to fight both the Nazis and the KKK.

However, in Roswell, it shows that the Klan still treads cautiously around Nazi authorities. They are not excepted to the strict German Learning policy enforced within the Nazi-Conquered American Territories. A pair of KKK members can be seen conversing with a Nazi soldier, who gives them advice about what the future beholds under German rule. The soldier then asks the two KKK members if they have been practising their German. However, when asked to say "Thank you (Danke schön)," they stammer as they are unable due to their heavy Appalachian accents, causing the soldier to warn them to practice harder, or they'll have forced education.

According to Grace Walker, the KKK are mostly in control of the South. Due to their Nazi collaboration, most of their members are targeted by the American Resistance network for assassination, with the prime target being the 'Grand Wizard,' who wears red robes.

The Ku Klux Klan is a minor enemy in the *Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus*. They are extremely weak since they lack armor. A single bullet can easily put them down. As an enemy, they speak German quite well for combat dialogue. It is likely that many are taking German classes seriously considering Nazi soldiers referenced them as "local Klansmen", not replacements sent from Germany. Strangely, they do not wear HAZMAT suits in Roswell but it might be possible for them to wear them under their robes.

##### Current developments

The modern KKK is not one organization; rather it is composed of small independent chapters across the United States. According to a 1999 ADL report, the KKK's estimated size then was "No more than a few thousand, organized into slightly more than 100 units". In 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors extremist groups, estimated that there were "at least 29 separate, rival Klan groups currently active in the United States, and they compete with one another for members, dues, news media attention and the title of being the true heir to the Ku Klux Klan". The formation of independent chapters has made KKK groups more difficult to infiltrate, and researchers find it hard to estimate their numbers. Analysts believe that about two-thirds of KKK members are concentrated in the Southern United States, with another third situated primarily in the lower Midwest.

For some time, the Klan's numbers have been steadily dropping. This decline has been attributed to the Klan's lack of competence in the use of the Internet, their history of violence, a proliferation of competing hate groups, and a decline in the number of young racist activists who are willing to join groups at all.

A 2016 analysis by the SPLC found that hate groups in general were on the rise in the United States. The ADL published a report in 2016 that concluded: "Despite a persistent ability to attract media attention, organized Ku Klux Klan groups are actually continuing a long-term trend of decline. They remain a collection of mostly small, disjointed groups that continually change in name and leadership."

In 2015, however, the number of KKK chapters nationwide grew from 72 to 190. The SPLC released a similar report stating that "there were significant increases in Klan as well as Black separatist groups".

Recent KKK membership campaigns have stimulated people's anxieties about illegal immigration, urban crime, civil unions, and same-sex marriage. In 2006, J. Keith Akins argued that "Klan literature and propaganda is rabidly homophobic and encourages violence against gays and lesbians. ...Since the late 1970s, the Klan has increasingly focused its ire on this previously ignored population." The Klan has produced Islamophobic propaganda and distributed anti-Islamic flyers.

Many KKK groups have formed strong alliances with other white supremacist groups, such as neo-Nazis. Some KKK groups have become increasingly "nazified", adopting the look and emblems of white power skinheads.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has provided legal support to various factions of the KKK in defense of their First Amendment rights to hold public rallies, parades, and marches, as well as their right to field political candidates. The imperial wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights, Frank Ancona, was fatally shot in Missouri in February 2017, several days after disappearing. The coroner declared his death a homicide. Ancona's wife and stepson were charged with first-degree murder in connection with the killing. The prosecutor in the case believes that the killing "happened because of a marital dispute" and was not connected to Ancona's Klan participation. Ancona's group "was not considered the largest or the most influential iteration of the Klan, but he was skilled at attracting the spotlight".

The February 14, 2019, edition of the Linden, Alabama, weekly newspaper *The Democrat-Reporter* carried an editorial titled "Klan needs to ride again" written by Goodloe Sutton—the newspaper's owner, publisher and editor—which urged the Klan to return to staging their night rides, because proposals were being made to raise taxes in the state. In an interview, Sutton suggested that Washington, D.C., could be "clean[ed] out" by way of lynchings. "We'll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them," Sutton said. He also specified that he was only referring to hanging "socialist-communists", and compared the Klan to the NAACP. The editorial and Sutton's subsequent comments provoked calls for his resignation from Alabama politicians and the Alabama Press Association, which later censured Sutton and suspended the newspaper's membership. In addition the University of Southern Mississippi's School of Communication removed Sutton—who is an alumnus of that school from its Mass Communication and Journalism Hall of Fame, and "strongly condemned" his remarks. Sutton was also stripped of a distinguished community journalism award he had been presented in 2009 by Auburn University's Journalism Advisory Council. Sutton expressed no regret and said that the editorial was intended to be "ironic", but that "Not many people understand irony today."

##### Current Klan organizations

A list is maintained by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL):

* Bayou Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, prevalent in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and other areas of the Southern U.S.
* Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
* Imperial Klans of America.
* Knights of the White Camelia.
* Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, headed by national director and self-claimed pastor Thomas Robb, and based in Harrison and Zinc, Arkansas. It claims to be the largest Klan organization in America today.
* Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a North Carolina-based group headed by Will Quigg, is currently thought to be the largest KKK chapter.
* White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.