white person.
Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan Samuel Green, seen here flanked by other Klansmen, became responsible for a resurgence in Klan activity after the Second World War, although his reign was short-lived as he died in 1949.
Nor did state government intervene for, despite the Civil War having abolished slavery, southern states would still not allow their black citizens the ballot, a constitutional injustice that infuriated the majority of northerners. President Andrew Johnson even moved to invalidate every state government in the south with the exception of Tennessee. Far from alleviating the problem, however, this only served to reinforce support for the Ku Klux Klan. Membership soared, violence escalated. In 1871, in Mississippi, a handful of black political activists were put on trial for making inflammatory speeches and causing civil unrest. To show their support, groups of black men and women assembled outside the court, a gathering that attracted the attention of the Klan. Within minutes violence broke out, gunshots were fired and several black citizens were murdered. When the disturbance outside the court had died down, those on trial were taken from the jail and hanged.
Despite the fact that the society was growing in stature as a political force, by 1869 there were signs that the Klan was experiencing serious internal problems and no longer able to control all its various factions. Perhaps this is unsurprising given that each enclave was autonomous, answerable to no greater authority, and that the basis of the Klanâs existence was violence and misrule. Nevertheless, this did not make the problem any easier to manage, and in January 1869, General Forrest made the decision to disband the organization and destroy all Klan documents. Most sections of the KKK followed his orders, with the Klan closing its âofficesâ in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. The KKK was no longer required, or so it seemed, and when, in 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew the last of his federal troops from the south, this only seemed to reinforce the point. Local government was firmly back in the hands of local-born white southern Democrats; the black population knew its place and remained there with barely a whisper of insurrection. All were seemingly at peace, but this state of affairs was not to last and nowhere was this more apparent than within the pages of a 1905 book by Thomas Dixon, Jnr., titled The Clansman: An Historic Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, which, ten years later, was made into a film by the renowned director D. W. Griffith under the title Birth of a Nation . The film was a triumphant success, grossing in the region of US $18 million, but this achievement pales into insignificance when one compares the true effect of the film; an effect which, barely ten years later, led to the reestablishment of the KKK.
In the autumn of 1915, in the Piedmont Hotel, Atlanta, a man by the name of William J. Simmons gathered around him a small group of men (two of whom had been original Klan members), primarily to recreate the original order. Simmons had arranged it so that he and this group of dedicated followers later decamped to Stone Mountain (approximately 16 miles [26 km] outside of the city), at the top of which they built a temporary altar out of stones. Beside this they erected a wooden cross that had been padded with fabric and doused in petrol. Simmons set the cross alight, and the Ku Klux Klan was reborn. Days later, Griffithâs Birth of a Nation opened in Atlanta. It was an opportunity too good to miss and Simmons immediately placed an advertisement in a local newspaper, next to one for the film, announcing the reestablishment of âThe Worldâs Greatest Secret, Social, Patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary Order.â 2
Membership swelled rapidly, drawing into its fold all manner of disenfranchised white men. Although in the first flush its main aim wasnât to be
Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan Samuel Green, seen here flanked by other Klansmen, became responsible for a resurgence in Klan activity after the Second World War, although his reign was short-lived as he died in 1949.
Nor did state government intervene for, despite the Civil War having abolished slavery, southern states would still not allow their black citizens the ballot, a constitutional injustice that infuriated the majority of northerners. President Andrew Johnson even moved to invalidate every state government in the south with the exception of Tennessee. Far from alleviating the problem, however, this only served to reinforce support for the Ku Klux Klan. Membership soared, violence escalated. In 1871, in Mississippi, a handful of black political activists were put on trial for making inflammatory speeches and causing civil unrest. To show their support, groups of black men and women assembled outside the court, a gathering that attracted the attention of the Klan. Within minutes violence broke out, gunshots were fired and several black citizens were murdered. When the disturbance outside the court had died down, those on trial were taken from the jail and hanged.
Despite the fact that the society was growing in stature as a political force, by 1869 there were signs that the Klan was experiencing serious internal problems and no longer able to control all its various factions. Perhaps this is unsurprising given that each enclave was autonomous, answerable to no greater authority, and that the basis of the Klanâs existence was violence and misrule. Nevertheless, this did not make the problem any easier to manage, and in January 1869, General Forrest made the decision to disband the organization and destroy all Klan documents. Most sections of the KKK followed his orders, with the Klan closing its âofficesâ in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. The KKK was no longer required, or so it seemed, and when, in 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew the last of his federal troops from the south, this only seemed to reinforce the point. Local government was firmly back in the hands of local-born white southern Democrats; the black population knew its place and remained there with barely a whisper of insurrection. All were seemingly at peace, but this state of affairs was not to last and nowhere was this more apparent than within the pages of a 1905 book by Thomas Dixon, Jnr., titled The Clansman: An Historic Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, which, ten years later, was made into a film by the renowned director D. W. Griffith under the title Birth of a Nation . The film was a triumphant success, grossing in the region of US $18 million, but this achievement pales into insignificance when one compares the true effect of the film; an effect which, barely ten years later, led to the reestablishment of the KKK.
In the autumn of 1915, in the Piedmont Hotel, Atlanta, a man by the name of William J. Simmons gathered around him a small group of men (two of whom had been original Klan members), primarily to recreate the original order. Simmons had arranged it so that he and this group of dedicated followers later decamped to Stone Mountain (approximately 16 miles [26 km] outside of the city), at the top of which they built a temporary altar out of stones. Beside this they erected a wooden cross that had been padded with fabric and doused in petrol. Simmons set the cross alight, and the Ku Klux Klan was reborn. Days later, Griffithâs Birth of a Nation opened in Atlanta. It was an opportunity too good to miss and Simmons immediately placed an advertisement in a local newspaper, next to one for the film, announcing the reestablishment of âThe Worldâs Greatest Secret, Social, Patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary Order.â 2
Membership swelled rapidly, drawing into its fold all manner of disenfranchised white men. Although in the first flush its main aim wasnât to be
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