Between 1882 to 1968, 4,743 people were lynched by the mobs in the United States. African-Americans represented 3,446 of those lynched (Rathbone 2). After the American Civil War a new hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was formed. In the 1920s the KKK referred to themselves as a family friendly organization, but terrorized minority groups such as African Americans, Catholics and Jews, and inevitably failed to reach their political goals. For such a violent organization the Klan was extremely prevalent in families. In the effort to include children that were not yet old enough to become a Klansman alternative groups were created. One of these groups was the Junior KKK, which accepted boys from the ages of 12-18. For girls, they had a the TriK Club, and for children under the age of 12 they could join the Kradle Roll. Upon sifting through the Newaygo County Michigan records it is noted that 72% of the 1,244 Klansman were married or had been widowed. Many community leaders had also …show more content…
In Atlanta the KKK expressed violence through “whipping, tar and feathers, and using acid to brand ‘KKK’ on blacks and Jews or anyone Anti-American” according to Mark Rathbone in his article titled “African Americans in the 1920s”. Another example of violence occured on May 31, 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Tulsa riot broke out because an African-American was wrongfully accused of sexually assaulting a white woman. The KKK took to the streets and destroyed nearly 1,300 homes. It appeared that the Klansmen were searching for reasons to instill violence, even if there was no credible evidence of guilt against the accused. “From the late 1910s through the 1920s, Klansmen carried out hundreds of beatings and whippings, and dozens of murders.”(Rothman). Corresponding to what Joshua Rothman has written, the Klansman acted with savagery by attacking anyone they perceived as an unacceptable human in their