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I can't believe this is a "featured article"

It's irresponsible to claim, as historical fact, that there are "three" Klans. KKK as a historical phenomenon is a unique and singular American Fascism which for convenience has changed its shape several times simply in order to sell its core message: Fascism. To say there were "three" clans is like saying that there were two Nazi parties: the Sturmbateilung Arbeiter under Rohm, and the Nazis under Hitler.

An organization is NOT equivalent to some jerk with a membership list in a trailer. European Fascism went under different party guises in each country it appeared, yet the responsible historian, unconcerned to HIDE fascist tendencies, uses the singular name to identify, not membership lists, but the consistent mental disorganization of a lower middle class made insane by false promises and true miseries, which pretty much sums up Ku Kluxery.

Let me be blunt. This bullshit will convince any number of clue-starved, half-literate rural pedants in Amerikkka that the "Klan" is something other that what it is, a permanent Fascist backlash to the defeat of the primitive police state CSA, and a conspiracy by the neo-Secesh to return the USA to a new dark age, made all the more sinister by the lights of a perverted (and Creationist) science.

Shame on Wikipedia as a community for allowing this article to live.

Spinoza certainly seems to have opinions--though they do not have the same calm, reasoned stance of the real Spinoza. He could do well by reading a few of the books listed. As it stands he does seem to share an anti-intellectual streak with the Klansmen, as well as their proclivity toward violent rhetorical denunciations of their enemies and the use of ridicule instead of ideas to move arguments forward. Rjensen 05:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Spinoza1111 07:56, 14 March 2006 (UTC)Merely reading books by specialists with concealed pro-Secesh bias won't reveal that bias. What's needed is to make a unity out of a diversity, to see a single movement where it is in the Klan's interest to continually "morph", in the manner of European Fascism, so as to attract the gullible. You've missed the definitive form of Fascism, confusing it with anti-Fascist anger in a way that has allowed the Klan to flourish.

Wikipedia's story of multiple Klans does not agree with American history in which the Klan names not a single group or Web site but an exploited tendency which this article doesn't address because many of its authors haven't addressed their own Fascist tendencies in the slightest.

Furthermore, older philosophers seem calm, reasoned, and above all "white" only to rural pedants who encounter them in the public library, out yonder by the county work farm. In his time, Spinoza was accounted scandalous precisely because he saw a unity in God and in nature (deus sive natura).

Real cute about your reversion. You are doing Klan work. Hope you are proud of yourself. Looks like, time permitting, I need to participate in the rewrite of this suck article

At the end of the Civil War, with the onset of Reconstruction the Klan organized to intimidate whites and blacks keen on trying to change the established social order. They were ultimately subdued by government. In the 1920's the Klan returned to campaign for a reestablishment of an order benefitting white, anglo-saxon protestants. They joined other groups concerned about the effects of modernism on traditional life. Immigrants Blacks, Catholics and Jews, to mention of few, seemed to be the principal targets, so this second regeneration of the KKK has a broader objective than its reconstruction ancestors. The third reincarnation as I see it occurs after World War II. This time the Klan's target is a familiar one; black and white civil rights workers intent on, you guessed it, trying to once again change the established order. Looks like three Klans to me. And they're probably different in composition as well. Hard to imagine Lester Maddox in the image of the refined, retired Confederate Generals, who rocked away on the porches by day and took to horse by night to preserve southern honor. Jmorello

ACLU and the Klan

The original statement regarding the ACLU's legal assistance of certain Klan factions seemed misleading to me. The opening part "The ACLU has provided legal support to various factions of the KKK,..." seems to imply they have provided general legal counsel to these Klan factions. Mostly their legal support has focused on supporting their free speech and candidate fielding rights in court. If their are others areas in which the ACLU has provided legal support to a Klan faction that one thinks should be mentioned then be specific rather then general. --Cab88 17:26, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

1,300 lynchings in 1868?

I checked the footnote for the claim (lower in the article) and it does not support "1,300 lynchings in 1868" but does say there were over 300 murders of Black freedmen. That sounds about right, given other research. Also, it was both political and racial. I have edited the page to reflect the accurate data. If anyone has evidence for the 1,300 figure, please post it here. Thanks.--Cberlet 14:18, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi -- The footnote [8] is not documenting the 1,300 lynchings, it's documenting the sentence that the footnote is in. The 1,300 lynchings are discussed in the lynching article, and there's a graph in the lynching article that shows the huge spike in 1868.--Bcrowell 02:52, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
There may have been 1,300 political murders in 1868, but I can find no scholarly source that claims 1,300 lynchings. There is a difference.--Cberlet 03:16, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi -- The graph in the lynching article gives a reference in footnote 24. I'll copy the reference into this article. I disagree about the existence of a sharp distinction between lynching and political murders in the context of 1868, but in any case the footnoted source is a compilation of lynchings, not murders in general, and the current wording in the Klan article is "murders," which satisfies me if it satisfies you. --Bcrowell 16:11, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
The footnoted graph is from a private user page. The underlying text discusses Blacks "WHO DIED IN RACIAL VIOLENCE." I am certainly not disputing this. But in 1868 there was a wave of political assassinations as part of the White supremacist "Redemption" movement to crush Reconstruction. I know of no scholar who calls all of these murders "lynchings." Not even the text on the user page, where many of the people are listed as being "murdered," not "lynched."--Cberlet 14:50, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
It's a compilation of primary source data, which is the best kind of data to have. I assume the text in each entry is from the reports of the coroner's juries, whose function wasn't really to judge whether it was a lynching or not. In any case, I don't see why this would still be an issue, since the article now says "murders" rather than "lynchings."

Don't call me pedantic...

...but the Greek word "kyklos" should have an acute accent.

Well, if we're getting pedantic, the diacritic in question (okseia) is either omitted or given as a dot in much modern Greek (though I dislike that style), and is optional in Romanisations. I doubt in any case whether using "kýklos" would improve the article significantly... especially as a search for "kyklos" in the article came up with nothing. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:49, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

But "kyklos" is here clearly an old Greek (not a modern Greek) word, and is written in Greek characters, not romanised. In my opinion, we should either write the acute accent or write "kyklos" with Latin characters.

The omission of accent marks in old Greek words is an old-fashioned, quite irrational and discredited British (and, I suppose, American) practice. See Allen, "Vox Graeca".

Ah, that explains why I couldn't find it (why did you type it here in Romanised form?). In fact omitting diacritics isn't, so far as I'm aware, old British practice; what makes you say that? (I think that it was Jane Austen who complained that, though she was allowed to learn Greek, she learnt it without accents, while the boys learnt the accents.) The modern Greeks generally write Ancient Greek without accents (or in the monotonic style), incidentally.
But if you feel so strongly, why haven't you changed it? That's what Wikipedia is all about. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the Jane Austen anecdote: that's amusing (and informative, too).

As for the (hopefully dead, or dying) tradition of omitting accent marks in writing old Greek (with Greek, not romanised characters), you're right: I was rather dogmatic. There's a good chapter about "The oral accentuation of Greek" (p. 149-60) in W. S. Allen's excellent treaty about old Greek pronunciation, Vox Graeca (III edition, Cambridge, 1987). The practice of not writing accents is (or was) not only, but also, British: in fact it's originally Dutch, founded as it is on the odd conceptions of the XVII century Dutch scholar Christian Henninius (Henning). Henninius believed that the printed accent marks meant nothing, and that Greek accent depended, as in Latin, on the quantity of the penultimate syllable: so, he taught to pronounce làmbano instead of the correct (and clearly indicated by the written accent) lambàno, anthròpos instead of ànthropos.

If Henninius were right, written accents would indeed be quite superflous. But the point is that Henninius was undoubtedly wrong: the accents began to be written by Hellenistic grammarians, and reflect the living usage of Greek speaking people in antiquity.

Your two questions (why didn't I write "kyklos" in Greek?, why didn't I correct myself?) are very reasonable, of course. But the answer is, simply, that I don't know how to do. Would you, or someone else, be so kind as to teach me how I could write in Greek?

Definitely, I've written too much about this. This is a good article, I liked reading it.

To be honest I'm not sure how to write it other than by going to Polytonic orthography and cutting and pasting (ύ). I'll do that now. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:51, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much.

Kyklos with the accent doesn't render properly in my browser. I've reverted it, since IMO it's more of a problem for, say, 10% of users to be unable to view the character than for 0.01% of users who know classical Greek to be annoyed. After all, modern Greek has dropped the accents, so the word won't even look unusual to people who speak modern Greek.--Bcrowell 19:56, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
On second thought, I've just transliterated it. Most English-speaking readers don't know the Greek alphabet anyway.--Bcrowell 20:31, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

The Klan conducted the 1880 census in Alabama?

"On my fathers side my Great Grandmother was full blooded Creek from Alabama. The Census of 1880 was conducted, in Alabama, mostly by members of the Klu Klux Klan. If you responded with anything other than white then you would get a visit later on. My Grandmother replied white and then passed lived as a white person until she was dying when she told her family of her heritage.

AndrŽ Cramblit"

Do you mean 'full blooded Greak?' Thats a really sad story, and just goes to show how terrible some parts of the world are. racooon

Whiteboys

New International Encyclopedia says that Whiteboys was the name given to peasant associations in Ireland, formed after 1760, for the purpose of visiting revenge on landlords, tax collectors, and the clergy.

"Their depredations took place at night and those engaged in them were protected by blackened faces and white garments."

New International Encyclopedia says that similar organizations of a somewhat later period assumed the names of "Hearts of Steel," "Hearts of Oak," and "Rightboys."

I tend to believe that these types of organizations and the Ku Klux Klan arise from inborn traits that lead to survival of the toughest people. Mr. White of the U. S. Congress read the statements of the first Ku Klux Klan group, so their statements are a part of the Congressional record. Basically, they made it known that they were not going to be ruled by Negroes, if and when they were out-voted. TooPotato 13:00, 8 October 2005 (UTC)


http://www.dartmouth.edu/~napage/alums/nativenews.html http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/FRENCH-INDIAN/2000-02/0950899253

If you want to talk tough, the Israeli Defense Forces has got to be the toughest organization in existence. The Jewish nation has existed as a pre-eminient military force since before the "white man" descended from the trees.Loomis51 00:10, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


When I was exploring a site called [http://www.stormfront.org Stormfront], I heard a quote just like that from a similar sort of organisation member (I was exploring the site, and now lead an anti-stormfront crusade on the Bungie.net forums); Now, let's talk about the Jews. They're all big and strong, and have AK-47s. Thats the kind of rubbish you will see regurarly on that site. I have a Jewish friend at school; Hes not big, defnetly not strong, and DEFINETLY doesnt have an AK-47. He likes science, an is a straight level 8 (Grade 8 in America? Im Scottish, so I dont know). And though Israel contains the Jewish 'home city', countless millions of Jews are European to the core.racooon

this nfo will find it's way back on the page

According to former Klan Leader Johnny Lee Clary todays Klan is against:

abortion homosexuality drug use They are for prayer in the schools and the use of the Bible in the classroom.

Please sign your posts.
If you're going to put it back in, please:
  1. Proofread it properly.
  2. Use the same style of footnoting as in the rest of the article. (Otherwise it makes all the later footnote numbers messed up.)
  3. Place it in the correct context so that it doesn't sound like a claim that the Klan is no longer about race.
  4. Give some justification for using this particular former Klan leader to make general statements about the Klan, and/or make it clear that he's not some kind of spokesman for the Klan as a whole.
--Bcrowell 04:04, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Film advert

This text added recently is out of context and reads like an advert for an upcoming TV show.

“The Klan,” a video news program distributed by the Ku Klux Klan that will be airing on MCTV in Midland Ohio. The first airing will be on October 22nd at 11:30 pm. According to their website, they bring “a message of hope and deliverance to white Christian America. A message of love, not hate.” On their site articles can be found asking people to sign anti-gay marriage petitions, articles claiming that ‘race-mixing’ is unholy, and articles stating Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist party suporter.

Consider revising.--Gaff talk 01:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I've deleted it.--Bcrowell 02:57, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Conflict with Other Article

The article for Bowling for Columbine says "In fact the NRA was founded by anti-Confederate, anti-KKK Union officers, and Ulysses S. Grant, who as U.S. President signed the order declaring the KKK illegal, later became the NRA's eighth president" as a response to the idea that "Moore is also criticized for a cartoon depicting a Ku Klux Klan member becoming the NRA and saying that the NRA was formed "the same year that the Klan became an illegal terrorist organization" but this article says "Founded by veterans of the Confederate Army, its main purpose was to resist Congressional Reconstruction, and it focused as much on intimidating "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" as on putting down the freed slaves". Which is correct? Frankly the latter makes a lot more sense but if anyone could clean up which ever article is actually wrong, it would be great. -- VarunRajendran

How do those contradict? One is about the founding of the NRA, the other about the founding of the KKK. The NRA and KKK were on opposite sides. Ken Arromdee 18:58, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Why the Holocaust denial image has been removed?

I didn't see any discussion about removing Image:KKK holocaust a zionist hoax.jpg. Unless there is a good reason for the removal, it goes back. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 11:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Wasn't there a copyright issue? IIRC, the image was deleted because of copyvio, and then I deleted the reference to it from the article, since it was no longer actually showing up as an image. I see that it's back now, with a fair use tag. I guess that's reasonable.--Bcrowell 21:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It probably was removed because no one really believes it didn't happen Jmorello

Scholarship on 2nd KKK

There has been a total revolution of scholarship on the 2nd KKK in recent years. I corrected the article to reflect the new scholarship and added the best books, removing titles that are obsolete or (like the Truamn references) of minor importance. Detailed discussion of the Birth of a Nation and Wilson's reaction to the movie belong under the film entry, not the KKK. A brief reference is more than enough. Historians have noted that the political power of the KKK was vastly exaggerated at the state level. It was never claimed to be important in national politics. Historians have discovered the Klan did not have an organized role inside the 1924 Democratic convention, so it is inaccurate to claim otherwise. The original draft relied very heavily on popular nonscholarly writings; such reliance degrades the quality and believability of Wikipedia. Likewise false insinuations that various presidents belonged to the KKK makes this a rumor mill rather than a reference source. RJensen Rjensen 21:16, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Could you add some references and footnotes to back up your interpretation? You seem to have added a lot of text without supplying any footnotes at all.--Bcrowell 22:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes: I did add these items:

  • Horowitz, David A. Inside the Klavern: The Secret History of a Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s.

(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999), based on the minutes of a chapter in Oregon.

  • Lay, Shawn, ed. The Invisible Empire in the West: Toward a New Historical Appraisal of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press: 2003).
  • Moore, Leonard J. Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928 (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 1991).
  • Maclean, Nancy. Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan. (NY: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Rjensen 22:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It's great to have someone like you working on the article who is well informed on the subject, and has a fresh perspective. The only problem I see here is that you haven't provided any footnotes connecting any of your text to any of these references. As things stand, you're making a vast number of controversial claims in the article, none of which can be verified, because we don't know where you're claiming a particular piece of information came from.--Bcrowell 22:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Here's an abstract of a very good summary of scholarship: Coben, Stanley. ORDINARY WHITE PROTESTANTS: THE KKK OF THE 1920S. Journal of Social History 1994 28(1): 155-165. During the 1980's and early 1990's a large literature appeared that contradicts, at most important points, previous work on the huge, nationwide Ku Klux Klan of the 1920's. The recent literature, unlike its predecessors, depends heavily on analysis of data found on Klan chapter membership applications. This article reviews nine of the most recent contributions to the revisionist literature. All of these authors found that Klansmen, in a great variety of regions, had the general characteristics of that area's white, native-born male Protestants, except that Klansmen were greatly underrepresented among both elite business leaders and unskilled workers. These predominantly middle-class Klansmen were ordinarily nonviolent outside the South, and much more concerned with moral reform - especially prohibition enforcement - than with the minority groups, particularly Roman Catholics, toward whom they held and expressed traditional white Protestant prejudices. One article demonstrated that a major Klan objective in Georgia was preservation of paternalistic Victorian gender relations. In the northern, industrial areas where non-Protestants and nonwhites predominated, the Klan was either very weak or hopelessly outnumbered and faced with superior firepower. This made the vigilante violence common in Georgia an extremely hazardous activity, and even Klan parades and open meetings in these areas were often disrupted by violence. [abstract from America History & Life] Rjensen 22:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments! Wikipedia normally does not have footnotes.

Er, yes, good Wikipedia articles do normally have footnotes. This particular article has achieved featured article status, and one of the criteria for FA is footnotes: Wikipedia:What_is_a_featured_article. Also see Wikipedia:verifiability. It's true that many WP articles lack footnotes, and that's a problem.--Bcrowell 23:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I think all the points I made are from the standard scholarly literature --much of which is listed in the bibliography.

Providing the references is a good first step. But it's still important that you provide proper footnotes to them.--Bcrowell 23:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It indeed is a big change from the old view of the Klan. The reason is that historians just recently started looking at the detailed records. The KKK was organizationally very weak....you have to read the Horowitz book to appreciate that. Here are a couple more abstract from America History & Life that show same pattern:

Holley, Donald. A LOOK BEHIND THE MASKS: THE 1920S KU KLUX KLAN IN MONTICELLO, ARKANSAS. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 2001 60(2): 131-150. Abstract: Provides insight into local Ku Klux Klan activity and participation in the 1920's through an analysis of Klavern #108 in Monticello, Arkansas, which produced the most detailed records of any local Klan in the South. Documentation on the Monticello Klan (which lasted only from 1922 to 1925) shows that the officers and charter members included prominent businessmen, professionals, and community leaders. Nearly three-quarters of the charter members worked in white-collar professions. Their minutes do not reflect any attacks on racial, ethnic, or religious minorities, although they supported immigration restrictions. They worked for strict enforcement of Prohibition laws and "moral standards and family responsibility." Although other Klan groups were more violent and actively intolerant of minority groups, the homogeneous nature of Monticello, a largely white, Protestant area, negated the need for such activism. The Monticello group, perhaps because of the lack of racial concern that consumed other Klan chapters, was unable to support a long-term movement and disbanded after only three years. Based chiefly on Klan #108 documents, private collection, Monticello, Arkansas; other primary sources; and secondary sources; 2 figs., 2 tables, 47 notes.

Erickson, Christine K. "KLUXER BLUES": THE KLAN CONFRONTS CATHOLICS IN BUTTE, MONTANA, 1923-1929. Montana 2003 53(1): 44-57. Explains how the political and social conditions in Butte, Montana, constrained the effectiveness of its Ku Klux Klan (KKK) chapter during 1923-29, making it an unusual example of the Klan in Montana in particular and the West in general. The Irish immigrant mining culture and Protestant response had already created a religious division in the community, reflected in the antagonisms between mine owners William A. Clark and Marcus Daly. However, the Democratic-Catholic community predominated numerically in Butte. Consequently, when the Butte KKK was chartered on 26 December 1923, it had to maintain a high degree of secrecy. It recruited its members from mainly the business community, many of whom also belonged to the secretive, anti-Catholic Masonic lodge. The Klansmen tried to effect change in the educational system, in local and national elections, and in the practices of bootlegging and consumption of alcohol, but the demand for secrecy and their failure to overcome Catholic voters' hostility crippled their efforts, so that their main focus was turned toward such fraternal activities as financial assistance for needy members and their families, as well as concern for details in their rituals. Based on newspapers, KKK documents, other primary sources, and secondary sources; 13 photos, 8 reproductions, 46 notes.

McVeigh, Rory. STRUCTURAL INCENTIVES FOR CONSERVATIVE MOBILIZATION: POWER DEVALUATION AND THE RISE OF THE KU KLUX KLAN, 1915-1925. Social Forces 1999 77(4): 1461-1496. Abstract: Examines the phenomenal rise in the early 1920's of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, which drew its members primarily from the middle class and was characterized by nativism, racism, religious bigotry, coercive moralism, and economic conservatism. The Klan's rise is best understood as a response to the sudden devaluation in the economic and political "purchasing power" of the Klan's recruits. Guided by microeconomic logic, the Klan used cultural appeals to stimulate demand for what its members had to offer in exchange within economic and political markets. It also used cultural attacks to restrict the supply of competitors. [Abstracts from America History & Life] Rjensen 23:03, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Let me add that the legal story in Kansas shows in great detail how the KKK actually operated: "Kansas Battles the Invisible Empire: The Legal Ouster of the KKK From Kansas, 1922-1927," by Charles William Sloan, Jr. Kansas Historical Quarterly Fall, 1974 (Vol. 40, No. 3), pp 393-409 Rjensen 01:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Giving quotes and references here on the talk page doesn't really help. The real issue is the lack of footnotes for any of the material you've added. Without footnoting specific facts, there's no real verifiability.--Bcrowell 02:04, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
It's great that you've started adding footnotes. However, you need to use the same style as the footnotes in the rest of the article, or the numbers don't come out right. E.g. in the Earl Mayfield footnote, you need to do a ^ , and then have the link within the footnote.--Bcrowell 03:50, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

contraddiction?

This article appears to contradict itself, but the person who put this message on the page didn't know how to use the template. Was it started by the Irish lawyers or the middle class people under the section "The first Klan"??? — user 67.181.63.245

The reason we mention the founders were educated is to get in the Greek angle. The founders ethnic origins was not a factor in the history of the KKK and should be left out. No contradictions remain. 05:42, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

A lot of them were of Scottish descent, which is relevant because it's the origin of the "klan" part of the name. The second Klan also used a lot of self-consciously Scottish or Celtic symbolism and mythology. Why is there a contradiction between being a lawyer of Scottish descent and being middle class? --- I don't get it. They weren't all lawyers, of course, but the first meeting was in a law office. The fact that they were educated is relevant because it shows that they weren't a bunch of ignorant rednecks who met in a cow pasture; it shows the character of the original organization, which was even somewhat elitist, and it helps to explain how people like Forrest could feel later on that their supposedly high-minded organization had been coopted by a bunch of ruffians and banditti.--Bcrowell 22:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Disturbing Image Warning?

I'm not sure if Wikipedia uses this kind of thing, but many people could find the picture of a hanging body (after the lynching) very disturbing as well as useless to the article. Any other opinions?

One relevant WP policy is here: Wikipedia:Profanity. IIRC, this has been shortened and changed a little since the last time I looked at it. Basically, most wikipdians seem to feel that that the images should necessary to the topic, and they should be something the user can reasonably expect based on the topic. If it's an article on pornography or urology or the Ku Klux Klan, you kind of expect to see some pictures that might be explicit, violent, or scary; if it's an article on fuzzy bunnies, then that kind of image would be out of place.--Bcrowell 22:07, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Well... when I think of the KKK I actually expect to see burning crosses and men in pointy white hoods, which is indeed what greets me when I open this page. Lynchings come some way further down the list. I think the commenter was probably referring to the photo of Michael Donald, which is the only one that is obviously likely to be disturbing to sensitive readers; but it might, I suppose, be considered useful emphasis for the point that this kind of thing has happened within our lifetimes, and the fact that readers have to scroll past four or five other pictures of hanging bodies to reach it could perhaps be considered ample warning... — Haeleth Talk 00:54, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The Michael Donald lynching isn't just an example of KKK violence persisting into modern times. It's also an event of great historical importance, because it ended up causing the bankruptcy of one of the biggest Klan groups.--Bcrowell 01:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

No national leaders in KKK?

I believe that no national politician in the 1920s acknowledged membership in the KKK. That is important: no one in Washington spoke on behalf of the group (and many spoke against it). Hugo Black belonged for a while, as a young lawyer who did not hold office. Likewise Senator Byrd was a local leader in the 1940s, long before he held office. Truman of course was a minor figure in the early 1920s. Chief Justice White had belonged to the first KKK as a young man; not the 2nd. No federal judge in the 1920s has ever been identified with the KKK.(-Rjensen [post snipped in half by bcrowell])

A sentence can be literally true and yet highly misleading. As you've acknowledged, there were Klansmen in national politics in the first half of the 20th century. Nothing in the original statement referred specifically to a narrow timeframe in the 1920's. And in any case the Klan was a secret fraternal organization, so of course its members who were involved in politics didn't usually acknowledge their membership. Even Nathan Bedford Forrest publicly denied being a member (while saying that he could muster 40,000 klansmen on 5 days' notice!).--Bcrowell 05:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Wade

By the way, we ought to be real careful about using poor sources like the Wade, "Fiery Cross." See the Amazon.com site where the Publisher's Weekly review sums it up as "This doggedly researched history of the American racist group is bloated with cliches, overstatements, colloquialisms, sensationalistic accounts of sexual atrocities and nonsensical connections." The author Wade is a psychologist who has not read the history journals. Rjensen 04:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I took the liberty of splitting this apart from the "No national leaders" section, since it's an entirely different topic. If you disagree with a specific factual claim for which Wade is used as a reference, the way to handle it is simply to say "While some interpretations say blah blah blah [reference to Wade], other historians[reference to other publication] have an interpretation that blah blah blah."--Bcrowell 05:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

footnoting

Rjensen, please use a little more care in editing the footnotes and references. New footnotes need to conform to the style already in use throughout the article. Also, you deleted some references which were referred to in the footnotes, which meant that the footnotes weren't performing their function of allowing the facts in the article to be verified.--Bcrowell 04:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

My apologies. I will try to be careful. Please delete references to junk sources like Wade. He is not a historian and repeats every nasty story he finds without making any effort to see what histoerians have said. Dependence on Wade drags down Wikipedia. There are pleanty of good sources, like Chalmers, to use. Rjensen 05:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

It's definitely a weak point in the article that it depends so much on two secondary sources (Horn and Wade). That's simply because those were the most comprehensive books I had available at the local public library. If there are specific factual assertions in the article that are footnoted to Wade, and you agree that they're factual but want to use a reference to some other publication instead, then sure, just go ahead and change it to a different reference. If there's a statement in the article that's footnoted to Wade, and you think it's false, we can discuss that too, but I suspect this would apply to almost none of the footnotes. AFAIK, the most controversial thing Wade says that many historians disagree with is the stuff about Harding's initiation into the Klan, and I believe the main KKK article doesn't even mention Harding at this point. (I actually e-mailed Stetson Kennedy, to ask him if he could verify that Alton Young had said these things on his deathbed, and whether he believed them, but I never got a reply. I think he's very elderly, and a relative deals with his e-mail for him.)--Bcrowell 05:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, BTW, if I want to read one recent book on the second Klan, and get the most bang for the buck, can you suggest what book I should buy or get through interlibrary loan?--Bcrowell 05:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

On 1st KKK, Trelease. On 2nd KKK 2 books and two online free sources (esp the Kansas item):

Rjensen 05:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. I found a cheap copy of the Chalmers book for sale on alibris, and have ordered it. It does seem to be viewed by some people as being a whitewash of the Klan, but I'm happy to read it and get another point of view.--Bcrowell 17:27, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Redcaps

The linked article redcaps imho doesn't mention the organisation hinted in this article - could anyone add more information there?

mainly a fraternal organization that brought people together

Rjensen edited the third paragraph in the lead to include the following characterization: "This second Klan was mainly a fraternal organization that brought people together." This is wildly inappropriate and misleading. Yes, they were a fraternal organization. No, they weren't "mainly" a group whose function was to bring people together.--Bcrowell 16:49, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

no footnotes for statements about inflation of membership figures

The article used to include many carefully footnoted statements about the Klan's membership. Rjensen has inserted text saying "but it wildly exaggerated its numbers to seem stronger." I'm changing this back until Rjensen can come up with a footnote to a specific reference that makes this a verifiable statement.--Bcrowell 16:52, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's Talk

I was not aware that edits to this page were controlled by Bcrowell. When did this happen?--Cberlet 17:04, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Cberlet -- What's the problem? --Bcrowell 17:20, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
You seem to delete without discussion all the edits you don't agree with; or that talk about matters you have not personally read about. I sort of think that is a problem. --Cberlet 17:35, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think that's a fair characterization. When I look at Bcrowell's contribution history, I see that he is considerably better than most editors at explaining his edits. Which particular edits strike you as poor? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:47, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
The way he just deleted all of my edits was a bit abrupt?--Cberlet 17:59, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Help me with this, then. Are you referring to an apparent disagreement with the use of the word "era"? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:08, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi Cberlet - I'm not sure what you mean by "all of my edits." Are you talking about the "era" stuff? I explained my reasoning for that in my edit summary, but to recap and expand on them: (1) I've read half a dozen books on the Klan, and none of them used the "era" terminology, so I don't think it's standard. (2) The sentence explaining it didn't explain it very well -- why six eras? I don't think this is at all a standard periodization. (3) The sentence explaining it was out of place as the second sentence of the very first paragraph of the lead. It's not an important enough topic to be discussed so prominently.--Bcrowell 18:13, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I actually do not think a curt statement on the subject line while deleting my edits counts as discussion, but I am glad to have a conversation with you here. I am delighted we have both read a number of books on the Klan-that alone is unusual on Wiki The use of "eras" to discuss the Klan is primarily based on more recent work than most of the books cited on the page. This is especially true since Klan leaders themselves began to use the terminiology, and it was picked up by scholars and watch groups. If you search the web using the phrase "fifth era klan" some of the hits trace to scholarly work and reputable sites. The fact that there have been more than two resurgent periods of the KKK does belong in the lead, even if you dislike the term "eras."--Cberlet 18:31, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
When you say "The fact that there have been more than two resurgent periods of the KKK does belong in the lead," doesn't the lead already make that clear? The second paragraph discusses the first Klan, the third paragraph discusses the second Klan, and the fourth paragraph discusses the later groups.--Bcrowell 18:35, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

<-------------I think it is very significant that each era of the Klan has produced very different type of social/political movements. I do not think this is made clear; and the section on the third-through-sixth era Klans is so meager as to not be very informative. --Cberlet 18:54, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Mississippi_Ku_Klux picture

The picture showing the three arrested KKK members seems to have a false caption. The middle member seems to be holding a modern pistol. 71.112.19.200 03:57, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Other occurances of this image on the 'net date it to 1871/2, but some of those use wikipedia as their source (sigh) [1][2] and here's a similar image from Harpers: [3] ... It need not be a pistol (though I see how it might look like an early semiautomatic, such as the Colt 1911, or an earlier version, say the 1900), it could also be a sap of some kind. Have you asked the user who uploaded it, User_talk:Ydorb, about how he came upon it? Ronabop 05:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

No account now, sorry. The following section has almost spam-like grammar. I don't know anything about System of a Down, so I am not sure what it is supposed to mean or how to fix it:

  • System of a Down's third album Steal this Album's eight single I-E-A-I-A-I-O is named after a Klan chant and is conspired to be a song racism from lyrics which include "Why?" saying it means why is there still racism.

Question?!

Hi, if anyone has any information on who was the founder of the KKK that has something to do with Forrest Gump? If you have, please can you leave a message?!

Thanks Nicole xx xx xx

So Nicole, all you have to do is search "Forrest Gump" and "Klan" to quickly find the answer, (or read Nathan_Bedford_Forrest here on Wiki). A well-constructed search can find answers quicker than leaving a question on Wiki. --Cberlet 18:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Reverted some vandalism.

Hope I got the right revision...

The meaning of "Ku Klux Klan"

Why there is no text in the article talking about the meaning of the three words "Ku Klux Klan"? I do not believe they are proper English, as they cannot be find in a dictionary. Was there anybody who can look for such content?--Tomchiukc 01:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

the words are fake Greek made up on the spot by the founders (a couple of whom took Greek in college) Rjensen 03:27, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Ku Klux comes from the Greek "Kuklos", which means "circle". They added klan to the phrase because the initial six founders were of Scottish-Irish descent. Pepsidrinka 22:08, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Klan salute

I find this paragraph to provide intersting detail. I'd prefer a cite, but I happen to know the text is accurate. Why delete it?--Cberlet 15:32, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Klan Vocabulary

I added some more words to the vocab section. Suprisingly, in Steve Levitt's Freakonomics, he has a section of his book about the KKK and he introduces some background information regarding the origins, terminology, undertakings, etc. Now, the reference layout is very extensive on the article, and I'd be foolish to try to figure this out on my own. If someone could come and fix it, it would be much appreciated. I tagged the additions I made with comments and I provided the book citation at the bottom of the section, also in comments. Pepsidrinka 22:24, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Let's not glorify KKK

Let's avoid glorifying the KKK by excessive attention to its rituals and codewords. This is a problem in the Nazi world (where lots of people sell Nazi paraphernalia) and we don't want to see it echoed by Wiki. Rjensen 23:37, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

fake Wilson quote

The movie did use genuine Wilson quotges from a history book he wrote. The alleged quote by Wilson: "It is like writing history with Lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." is fake. The words are quoted onscreen at the beginning of most prints of the film made after 1937. The quote itself first appeared in a magazine article in 1937 quoting an unnamed Hollywood source. Wilson explicitly said he did NOT approve of the movie. His top aide wrote the NAACP: "...the President was entirely unaware of the nature of the play before it was presented and at no time has expressed his approbation of it."--Letter from J. M. Tumulty, secretary to President Wilson, to the Boston branch of the NAACP. See Roger Ebert's discussion which noites there is no evidence whatever that Wilson said that at: [4] Wilson explicity wrote that he "he disapproved of the “unfortunate production.” " [Woodrow Wilson to Joseph P. Tumulty, Apr. 28, 1915 in Wilson, Papers, 33:86.] The quote is show to be fake in Link, Wilson The New Freedom (1956) p 252-4. Rjensen 00:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not a fake quote. The quote is footnoted to a verifiable source. Wilson never denied he'd said it; he merely repositioned himself when his endorsement of the film became politically unpopular. As usual, Rjensen is trying to insert his own POV. I've deleted the following text from a footnote: "No reporter heard Wilson made the statement, andhis press aide denied it. Griffith may have invented it as part of his PR campaign." It's irrelevant that no reporter heard him make the statement, since that was never claimed in the article. There is no source for the statement that a press aide denied it later, and that conflicts with the information given in the source already referenced. The part about Griffith is pure speculation. The other statements that Rjensen quotes are from much later, after Wilson had already endorsed the film, Griffith had used his endorsement for a long period of time, and the White house had failed to say anything to contradict Griffith.--Bcrowell 16:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
The lightning quote first appeared from an anonymous source in 1937. There is no ecidence that Wilson made it. Did he endorse the film? in a way yes, by having its premier at the White House. Did he endorse the content? He officially said no. As for the quote, it was exposed as a fake by Link over 50 years ago. Wiki is not in the business of promoting fake quotes even if they are repeated in sources that have not read Link (the leading expert on Wilson). Editors have to make judgments about what the best sources are and reject false info. In any case the article is on KKK not Wilson. The whole theory of a link to Frank case is extreme extrapolation. In fact the KKK did NOT grow after that eosiode, it grew years later.Rjensen 17:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

hi!! =P how are you?!!! party hardy till ya feel smarty smarty!!!!!

More defiance anecdotes

These are always interesting- the Lumbee fighting back in North Carolina, that one politician in Alabama who dedicated his term to finding the people who murdered those little girls, even the Klan War where the illegal distillers and smugglers routed the Klansmen. Most of these are mentioned, but they're in extreme passing and provide very little detail. I'd add it myself, but, unfortunately, I don't know much myself (that's why I came here)...

What was the KKK's part in the Civil Rights Movement?

This is a great question that a lot of teens would like to hear about if you know how this came along please tell me i would be happy to hear what you have to say about the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) i have done some research in trying to answer this question and came up with the fact that they did not like african americans at all and wanted them to have no say in the government at all

I've deleted the section on the Klan in popular culture. It had grown into an insanely long list of trivia. WP is not supposed to be a place to collect lists of things.--Bcrowell 15:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

lead

Someone has edited the lead to make it much shorter and insert a POV that we've seen a lot here: that the second Klan was mainly about temperance. I've reverted to the older, more detailed, more informative, NPOV version.--Bcrowell 16:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

second Klan

Someone has deleted a huge amount of detailed, carefully written material about the second Klan, in a transparent attempt to rewrite history. I've reverted to the earlier, more, detailed, more informative, NPOV version.--Bcrowell 16:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Much of the info on 2nd KKK does not directly relate to it at all. The KKK was important only after 1921 so the prior history of a minor operation in Georgia deserves little attention. It is not sources and does not appear to be based on recent scholarship. It gets Wilson all wrong for example, repeating the "lightning" myths that were refuted 40 years ago. So let's see proof of the importance. Rjensen 04:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

nomination for removal as FA

I've nominated this article for removal as an FA.--Bcrowell 04:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Flow of logic and Additional Info

The second paragraph feels a bit disjointed to me. I'm not sure if someone made a mess of an edit/deletion.

Also, I was at an exhibition of photographs of the clan today and one of them was of a Klan "marriage" with a "Kludd" or "Klugg" can't remember which. Had anyone else heard of this? Or was it just something made up for a foreign journalist??GiollaUidir 19:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Spinoza claims to be living in China, where internet access is of course regulated by the government. Perhaps before he accuses all of us of being Klansmen he will explain his own politics and POV--and also perhaps tell us the books he will be using to purify our thought. Rjensen 11:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Cross burning

  • The burning cross was a symbol used by the 2nd Klan to create excitement and boost membership. It was not used to terrorize anyone.

Is this definitively sourced? Are we sure that "It was not used to terrorize anyone"? -Will Beback 21:27, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense, it became a symbol of terrorism for Blacks and Jews. Well documented. It does not matter that its origin was faux Celtic.--Cberlet 04:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
The burning cross was used in the 1920s at Klan membership rallies. The detailed study by the NY World in 1921 had no reports of anyone being terrorized by the crosses. Rjensen 04:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Utter nonsense, it became a terror symbol. See: Nelson, Jack. (1993). Terror in the Night: The Klan’s Campaign Against the Jews. New York: Simon and Schuster.--Cberlet 04:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Misunderstanding: nelson's book is about 1960s when crossburtning was used for terror, But 1920s?? Rjensen 04:43, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Adding a KKK discussion board link...

I think it is relevant because the article is discussing the KKK. If someone wanted to learn about the KKK they should talk to KKK members as a option as opposed to someone who has never spoken to them. I think it is beneficial for people to acknowledge all viewpoints regardless of their radicalism. If there is a communist forum on the web I support adding a link to the communist page. It's good to ask questions and understand why people have certain viewpoints. I will add it again but I will add why in the talk page. Hope it will be accepted.

Additionally it doesn't mean someone will become a KKK member. If anything it will turn them away and they will understand radical viewpoints. I feel that the media only labels groups radical and never fully explains why people follow these ideologies. I feel that its informative and people can learn by asking questions. It is just a link to a board people will go at their own risk. I feel that it will improve the content quality greatly.

Jerry Jones 22:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Stormfront is not a KKK forum. Please do not call it that or add the direct link to it here. If you must include it in the article, please describe it properly and place it in the body of the text or in "See also". -Will Beback 22:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and placed it in a more appropriate location. -Will Beback 22:57, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

revert

I reverted to the version of 2005-10-20 in agreement with Dozenist and Alabamaboy, because generally it is a better-quality article. If you notice anything significant is missing, feel free to add it back. Ashibaka tock 00:54, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

no old version was full of misinformation -- like 1300 murders in 1868. It had a totally skewed view of the 2nd Klan as well. The new version is pretty high quality on the other hand. Rjensen 01:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
If you see any mistakes that you can cite sources to disprove, then correct them. It was agreed on Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Ku Klux Klan that this version is better. Ashibaka tock 01:39, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I think people might look at the incompetent list of sources in the old version. Not a single one of the scores of major modern studies is listed. That is doubtless the reason the old version is full of false info and interepretations rejected decades ago. The new version gives a full and balanced list of very high quality sources. Rjensen 02:23, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
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