Ku Klux Klan Effect

The Effect of The Ku Klux Klan

The members of the white terrorist group known as the Ku Klux Klan would not accept blacks as equals. They dressed in white robes designed to frighten victims, hiding their identity and generally representing that whites were superior. The Ku Klux Klan is an extremely violent racist group that had a negative effect on not just America as a whole but on many individual minority groups.

The Ku Klux Klan were one of the the many groups of people who were to influence the Jim Crow Laws that brought into legal code the belief that African Americans, Jews and Catholics were inferior. “It is a common myth that the KKK targeted only the Blacks – also hated were the Jews, Catholics, liberals etc” (The KKK and Racial

The Ku Klux Klan did not accept African Americans as equals after being set free from slavery, they thought they should still be working for and not with a white American. (“The KKK And Racial Problems”) African Americans were being lynched and beaten for having a white man's job, not working for a white and, of course, just for being black. “Many different groups had emigrated to America over the years. One group – the Blacks – had been brought there against their will and after the success of the northern states during the Civil War and the freeing of the Blacks from slavery in 1865, a sinister group was established which was designed to spread fear throughout the Black population that still lived in the southern states” (The KKK and Racial Problems). Free African Americans were never accepted in the Southern states of America, especially by the members of the KKK. However, the KKK not only targeted the African Americans. They targeted other minority groups such as Jews and Catholic; however, African Americans were the ones that were the poorest and so they were far easier for the KKK to target. African Americans not being registered to vote and generally not being educated caused them to be called names and tortured. “In the 1920’s Black Americans started to turn to the ‘Back to Africa’ movement which told blacks that they should return to their native

Jill Kauffman says "Any secret organization of persons that shall prowl through the country or towns of this state, by day or by night, disguised or otherwise, for the purpose of disturbing the peace, or alarming the peaceful citizens of any portion of this state” (Ku Klux Klan). This indicates that the government wanted to abolish the group and their reign of terror as soon as possible because they knew that the Ku Klux Klan were making a negative impact and affecting America for the worse. “From 1866 through 1871, men calling themselves ‘Ku-Klux’ killed hundreds of black Southerners and their white supporters, sexually molested hundreds of black women and men, drove thousands of black families from their homes and thousands of black men and women from their employment, and appropriated land, crops, guns, livestock, and food from black Southerners on a massive scale” (McAndrew). People from all different backgrounds, race, cultures etc. were being affected by this group. The Ku Klux Klan have made a negative impact on America and have influenced the government and the people in power who could act against them to do so. The racial violence and terror of the Ku Klux Klan influenced the government and people of America to act