Melissa Marulanda Marulanda 01

Erin rogers

Writing 1010 Fall 2018

27 November 2018

Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan is an organization that is based upon white supremacy. White supremacy

is the white race believing that they are superior to other races. The Ku Klux Klan has been a

white supremacist group that has been around for a very long time, and has been portrayed in

many different lights throughout history. This group was started in December of 1865 and is still

around in present day. In this essay, I will go through how the Ku Klux Klan has been accepted

in the eyes of the world throughout its reign.

This organization was first brung up on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee. This

group started small, with only six member, but soon turned into a large violent group that was in

protest of reconstruction after the civil war. (Glass, Andrew.) Nathan Bedford Forrest was the

groups first Grand Wizard. A Grand Wizard is the nation leader of the the entire organization as a

whole, also referred to as Imperial Wizard’s. At the time of when this organization first started,

sleeves were beginning to be freed. This group was very violent, and would attack the free slaves

in rebellion to the reconstruction of this country. The members would make their costumes

themselves to instill fear into the weak, but also to remain anonymous so they would stay out of

trouble. The people in this group at the time would ruin other people's property, attempt murder,

and would even go as far as to run black farmers off their land.
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President Ulysses Grant was in office at the time, and in 1871 he passed the Ku Klux Klan

Act. The Ku Klux Klan act was an act that allowed the military to take action when these hate

crimes would take places. I was a way to bring the number of these hate crimes to a stop because

it was becoming an epidemic. This act was a way to intervene on all the unrest. The newly freed

African Americans were being terrorized, but they had freedom right? The hate wasn’t only

directed towards blacks only, white republicans were being terrorized also. There were ten times

more African American people being killed than white republicans, but they were still part of the

Klan’s focus. The Klan wanted influence in upcoming elections, so there actions were very

serious. The the Ku Klux Klan Act being passed, martial law was put on to nine southern states.

Martial law is the military being able to intervene in normal savilian law, and is normally caused

because a big outbreak of violence and the general public’s safety is at risk. In 1882 the Act was

deemed unconstitutional. By this time the Ku Klux Klan had gone away, and not as big of a

threat to the public. (History.com Editors.)

The 20th-century Klan’s were then reborn after the fall of the 19th-century Klan. The first

Klan that came to be was a smaller group, and it wasn’t as popular. It was more of a way to

remember the old group, and nothing major happened with them. The second Klan that emerged

in the twentieth century had more than 4,000,000 members nationally. Due to their high

numbers, it had done really well economically. Due to the amount of costumes and even the

memberships themselve of so many people this Klan was doing great economically. With this

klan, the famous burning of the cross became a symbol for them, it’s something very
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recognizable and is very much associated with the Ku Klux Klan. This Klan established itself as

one of the most influential groups of its time. (RICE, TOM.)

With the film The Birth of a Nation, the influence the Klan had on the nation grew intensely,

and is how they became so large in numbers. The Klan's methods of attracting popularity were

different than they were before, even using the police figures to bring upon the beliefs of the

Klan. In this film, the Klan was portrayed in a positive light, making them out as heros. The

black people in the film were white people in blackface and they were acting very aggressively

to white people, and that is how the Klan was seen as heros in the movie. With the release of this

film there was backlash from the black community, because how how black people were

portrayed in the film. This backash was toward the fact that the black people in the film were

white actors in blackface, and how sexually aggressive they were made out to seem towards

white women.

The Klan started up again because of all the immigration the country was facing at this time

in 1920. This was just a push for the Klan to start up again because they already had been very

fearful, and all the migration was just another reason to start up again.

During this time, the Klan was gaining support by the many films being made about the

Klan. A 1920 Fox film, The Face at Your Window was politically supported and was used as

propaganda for the Klan. Later, One Clear Call was made, and put the Klan into a positive light

that made them seem as if they were law enforcers. The Klan also produced The Toll of Justice

and The Traitor Within and used these projects as a way to make the groups that were trying to

show them as evil, or destructive look like they were attacking something good. In these films
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they try to get rid of the misrepresentation they were facing. They wanted to highlight what their

costumes were really for. With these films, the Klan tried presenting itself as a group that isn’t a

violent racist group.

The Ku Klux Klan has been shown in many different way in pop culture in present day.

Kodak Black’s Tunnel Vision music video has visual aids that connect back to the Ku Klux Klan.

(Black, Kodak.) This music video brings the burning of the cross, and is just a way to show how

influential the twentieth century KKK group really was for the nation, and how one symbol can

be associated with something for so long. The video can be interpreted in many different ways.

On social media, when the video first came out people thought that Kodak and his friends

dancing in front of the cross with the hanging KKK member in the back was just a distraction to

what is really going on in the country. Others perceived this video as Kodak Black as a black

man in America taking control, and not being afraid of the white supremacist views people still

have to this day.

Now modern day white supremacists present themselves in shockingly violent acts of

activism. In Charlottesville: Race and Terror it shows how a current white supremacist views

political and racial activism, and how he acts during protests. In the video, Christopher Cantwell,

the main focus of the video, he states, “we’re not non-violent, we’ll fucking kill these people if

we have to.” This is just another indication to the world how serious and threatening white

supremacy can be to primarily black people, but also to any other people of color. In the video,

there was an act of violence at the protest when there was a hit and run. The hate crimes haven't
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stopped since the founding of the Ku Klux Klan, they have just morphed into something that can

be done in modern days.

My prediction for the future of white supremacy is that it won’t stop. As of right now, white

supremacy has become more public, ever since Trump was elected. When this happened in 2016,

there was a cultural shift and in way it made white supremacists feel more comfortable to be

public with their beliefs. For the future, I predict that it will only increase, and they will only

gain more of a voice if the country continues on the path it’s on concerning race. I think that

there will be an even bigger spike in hate crimes, but also a huge spike in political activism. I

predict that there will be more and more people ready to fight for change. Current white

supremacist claim that they want this county to stay white, and I believe that with their

participation in political movements there will be nothing but violence. It’s clear that they are not

a non-violent group and will continue to threaten the safety of people of color. There has been a

lot of comedic movies that show the Ku Klux Klan as a joke, and that can be very misleading.

They may not be as direct, and accepted now in day and I don't think would be in the future. But

the way they present themselves now, and they have the power of social media now, it could be

very easy for people with these beliefs to connect. Now a days it is just so much easier to have

groups of people connect, and spread their beliefs with the rest of the world. The hate they spread

might not even be in the form of assault, but it could be in cyber-bullying. The Klan could easily

reach a bigger audience.

To conclude, the Ku Klux Klan is an organization who believes that the white race as a whole

are superior to people of color, focusing primarily on African-Americans. This group of white

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supremacists has been around since 1865, and is still being represented in pop culture in modern

day. They started off as a hate group who terrorized free ex-slaves in rebellion to the

reconstruction of this country. They have symbols, like the burning cross that are still being

associated with them to this day. The hate crimes haven’t stopped, but they have developed in

ways that better fit this day in age. They continue to have white supremacists support all over the

country.
Work Cited
https://www-cambridge-org.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/core/services/aop-cambridge-
core/content/view/S0021875808005537
RICE, TOM. “‘The True Story of the Ku Klux Klan’: Defining the Klan through Film.” Journal
of American Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, Dec. 2008, pp. 471–488.

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/ku-klux-klan-founded-dec-24-1865-232856
(Glass, Andrew. Ku Klux Klan: Dec. 24, 1865. Politico. December 23, 2016.)

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ku-klux-act-passed-by-congress
(History.com Editors. Ku Klux Klan Act by Congress. Feb. 9, 2010.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzSUgOmP66Q

(Black, Kodak. Tunnel Vision Official Music Video. Feb. 16, 2017. Produced by Metro Boomin.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIrcB1sAN8I

(Vice. Charlottesville: Race and Terror. Aug. 14, 2017.)