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How Did Ku Klux Klan Persecution

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Om Patel Mrs. Belle Freshman English 22 October 2017 Ku Klux Klan: The Persecution of Thousands The Ku Klux Klan is the largest and most famous white supremacist group in the United States consisting of three Klans across its span of activeness. At the peak, there were approximately 6 million members. Later the Klan supported White Nationalism, Anti-Immigration, Nordicism, Anti- Catholicism, and Anti Semitism. With Nathan Bedford Forrest as their leader, the Klan thrived and killed over 7,000 people throughout the origins of the Klan, with almost none of these cases investigated because most of the police were part of the Klan. The Klan was created three times and terminated twice, with the final third Klan still growing continuously with …show more content…

This Klan was founded by William Simmons, and Hiram Wesley Evans became the Imperial Wizard in 1922. Evans had stated that the sacredness of “ Sabbath, of our homes, of chastity, and finally even of our right to teach our own children in our own school's fundamental facts and truths were torn away from us,” to express his reasoning for the rebirth of a new Klan. His inspiration gives the new life to the Klan was based on a movie called The Birth of a Nation. The Klan’s initial target was the African Americans just like the last Klan along with the Jews and Catholic immigrants. The African Americans were a greater target than the other races because of the increased wages they achieved after coming back from the first world war. Also, the veterans coming back from the war where they were racially discriminated against were longing to come back to a more accepting America. This made many people join the Klan and their views spread to the north and the south. Because of the rapid diffusion of the Klan, member count peaked at nearly 6 million. The diversity of the members were from members in the house or senate to local farmers. The members in the north and the south, because of their diversity, had had many different views to be carried out by the Klan. these different views and actions carried out by their regional leaders. One major action was when the Indiana Klan leader, David Stephenson, was convicted of kidnapping and murder. He had desperately tried to reduce the sentence by trying to talk to some officers who were known to be corrupt and was caught. Because of these actions, most of the members were scared they were going to get caught if they did the same actions and the nationwide Klan membership drastically plummeted to 10,000 from 4 million in 1930(“United States

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