Compare And Contrast The Ku Klux Klan And The Anti-War Protests Of 1960s

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Known for being an abolitionist and one of the most important African American leaders of the nineteenth century, Frederick Douglass once said, “The thing that worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.” Instances of rebellion orchestrated by groups of people can be traced from our earliest records of history all the way to today’s modern era. People in a society gather together and form a rebellion against whom they believe to be the oppressor. Using both violent and nonviolent tactics, these social groups continue to rebel until they achieve their goal of gaining some prosperity or desired success. The Ku Klux Klan and the anti-war protests of 1960s are two examples of social groups, that rebelled against their oppressor. The …show more content…

The Ku Klux Klan first emerged in Pulaski, Tennessee following the Civil War. As we know today, the mere mention of the Klan triggers fear as the KKK is known for its various tactics of violence that came in the form if lynchings, murders, and mutilations. Following their emergence, the KKK were quickly symbolized and portrayed as the protectors of the South, following the defeat of the Southern states in the Civil War and the beginning of the period of Reconstruction by the federal government (Gurr, 1989, p. 132). During the 1920s, the KKK achieved its greatest political success and growth outside of the South. During this period, the membership of the Klan heavily expanded to the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Oregon, to which the KKK obtained two to two and one-half million members at its apex. During this time, Klansmen were holding public parades and initiations throughout the nation while projecting their racist beliefs of purifying American society with native-born White Protestant males along with their White supremacy. With their massive growth, their