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The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Catholics, as well as immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Muslims, abortion providers and atheists.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white supremacist groups, for its classification of hate groups and other extremist organizations, and for promoting tolerance education programs. The SPLC was founded by Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin Jr., and Julian Bond in 1971 as a civil rights law firm in Montgomery. Bond served as president of the board between 1971 and 1979.
In modern times, cross burning or cross lighting is a practice which is associated with the Ku Klux Klan. However, it was practiced long before the Klan's inception. Since the early 20th century, the Klan burned crosses on hillsides as a way to intimidate and threaten black Americans and other non-whites.
The Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKA) is a white supremacist, white nationalist, neo-Nazi paramilitary organization. Until the late 2000s, it was the second largest Klan group in the United States, and the largest at one point in the early 2000s. In 2008, the IKA was reported to have at least 23 chapters in 17 states, most of which were small.
Alma Bridwell White was the founder and a bishop of the Pillar of Fire Church. In 1918, she became the first woman bishop of Pillar of Fire in the United States. She was a proponent of feminism. She also associated herself with the Ku Klux Klan and was involved in anti-Catholicism, antisemitism, anti-Pentecostalism, racism, and hostility to immigrants. By the time of her death at age 84, she had expanded the sect to "4,000 followers, 61 churches, seven schools, ten periodicals and two broadcasting stations."
The Pillar of Fire International, also known as the Pillar of Fire Church, is a Methodist Christian denomination with headquarters in Zarephath, New Jersey. The Pillar of Fire Church affirms the Methodist Articles of Religion and as of 1988, had 76 congregations around the world, including the United States, as well as "Great Britain, India, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, the Philippines, Spain, and former Yugoslavia."
Louis Ray Beam, Jr. is an American white supremacist, conspiracy theorist and neo-fascist. After high school, he joined the United States Army and served as a helicopter door-gunner in Vietnam. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Once he returned to the United States, he became a Klansman, leading a maritime Louisiana KKK element and Klan rally in Texas against government help to Vietnamese immigrant fishermen. He was also the leader of the Texas Emergency Reserve, a militia that was disbanded by the courts in 1982 as a result of a lawsuit filed under Texas anti-militia law by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The lawsuit was brought by SPLC after the militia harassed Vietnamese fishermen during the 1981 fishing season. Beam was using Camp Puller near Houston to train militia in 1980, including children as young as eight years old, in armed guerrilla tactics; the camp was shut down after publicity led to protests, and parents complaining that they were not aware of the children's activities at the camp. The Boy Scouts Council of Houston rejected a charter request from the troop at Camp Puller. Videotape shown during the shrimper hearing had Beam saying, "We're going to assume authority in this country." He was later acquitted in a separate case of conspiring to overthrow the government. He moved to Idaho afterwards. He became active with Aryan Nations in the early 1980s. He is considered to be the first important proponent of the strategy of leaderless resistance within the white supremacist movement.
The United Klans of America Inc. (UKA), based in Alabama, is a Ku Klux Klan organization active in the United States. Led by Robert Shelton, the UKA peaked in membership in the late 1960s and 1970s, and it was the most violent Klan organization of its time. Its headquarters was the Anglo-Saxon Club outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee (JBAKC) was an anti-racist organization based in the United States. The group protested against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other white supremacist organizations and published anti-racist literature. Members of the JBAKC were involved in a string of bombings of military, government, and corporate targets in the 1980s. The JBAKC viewed themselves as anti-imperialists and considered African Americans, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans to be oppressed colonial peoples.
Heroes of the Fiery Cross is a book in praise of the Ku Klux Klan, published in 1928 by Protestant Bishop Alma Bridwell White, in which she "sounds the alarm about imagined threats to Protestant Americans from Catholics and Jews", according to author Peter Knight. In the book she asks rhetorically, "Who are the enemies of the Klan? They are the bootleggers, law-breakers, corrupt politicians, weak-kneed Protestant church members, white slavers, toe-kissers, wafer-worshippers, and every spineless character who takes the path of least resistance." She also argues that Catholics are removing the Bible from public schools. Another topic is her anti-Catholic stance towards the United States presidential election of 1928, in which Catholic Al Smith was running for president.
The Good Citizen was a sixteen-page monthly political periodical edited by Bishop Alma White and illustrated by Reverend Branford Clarke. The Good Citizen was published from 1913 until 1933 by the Pillar of Fire Church at their headquarters in Zarephath, New Jersey in the United States. White used the publication to expose "political Romanism in its efforts to gain the ascendancy in the U.S."
Samuel Green was a Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1940s, organizing its third and final reformation in 1946.
The Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy is a 144-page book written by Bishop Alma Bridwell White in 1925 and illustrated by Reverend Branford Clarke. In the book she uses scripture to rationalize that the Ku Klux Klan is sanctioned by God "through divine illumination and prophetic vision". She also believed that the Apostles and the Good Samaritan were members of the Klan. The book was published by the Pillar of Fire Church, which she founded, at their press in Zarephath, New Jersey. The book sold over 45,000 copies.
Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty was a book published by the Pillar of Fire Church in 1926 by Bishop Alma Bridwell White and illustrated by Branford Clarke. She claims that the Founding Fathers of the United States were members of the Ku Klux Klan, and that Paul Revere made his legendary ride in Klan hood and robes. She said: "Jews are everywhere a separate and distinct people, living apart from the great Gentile masses ... they are not home builders or tillers of the soil." Her book became popular during the United States presidential election of 1928 when Al Smith was a candidate.
Branford Edward Clarke was an Evangelical preacher, poet and artist who promoted the Ku Klux Klan through his art which was drawn for the Pillar of Fire Church and their publications.
The Ku Klux Klan has had a history in the U.S. state of New Jersey since the early part of the 1920s. The Klan was active in the areas of Trenton and Camden and it also had a presence in several of the state's northern counties in the 1920s. It had the most members in Monmouth County, and operated a resort in Wall Township.
Guardians of Liberty is a three volume set of books published in 1943 by Bishop Alma Bridwell White, author of over 35 books and founder of the Pillar of Fire Church. Guardians of Liberty is primarily devoted to summarizing White's vehement anti-Catholicism under the guise of patriotism. White also defends her historical support of and association with the Ku Klux Klan while significantly but not completely distancing herself from the Klan. Each of the three volumes corresponds to one of the three books White published in the 1920s promoting the Ku Klux Klan and her political views which in addition to anti-Catholicism also included nativism, anti-Semitism and white supremacy. In Guardians of Liberty, White removed most, but not all of the direct references to the Klan that had existed in her three 1920s books, both in the text and in the illustrations. In Volumes I and II, she removed most of the nativist, anti-Semitic and white supremacist ideology that had appeared in her predecessor books. However, in Guardians Volume III, she did retain edited versions of chapters promoting nativism, anti-Semitism and white supremacy.
Known as the Crann Tara in Gaelic, the burning cross represented a signal fire, a method of communication among the clans and the rallying symbol of ancient Scotland and of the Highlanders in times of war.
Thomas Linton Metzger was an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi skinhead leader and Klansman. He founded White Aryan Resistance (WAR), a neo-nazi organization, in 1983. He was a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Metzger voiced strong opposition to immigration to the United States, and was an advocate of the Third Position. He was incarcerated in Los Angeles County, California, and Toronto, Ontario, and was the subject of several lawsuits and government inquiries. He, his son, and WAR were fined $12 million as a result of the murder of Mulugeta Seraw, 28, an Ethiopian student, by skinheads in Portland, Oregon, affiliated with WAR.
References
- ↑ Anti Defamation League, The Ku Klux Klan, a Legacy of Hate at "United Klans of America -- Rise and Fall". Archived from the original on 2007-09-26. Retrieved 2007-09-18.. Retrieved October 28, 2007.
- ↑ "Lawsuits prove to be a big gun in anti-Klan arsenal," The Boston Globe, June 17, 1993
- ↑ "Collection: Digital Archive: Fiery Cross". Indiana University Libraries. 30 August 2006. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
