The Ku Klux Klan, commonly called the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist hate group whose primary targets are African Americans as well as Jews, immigrants, leftists, members of the LGBT community and, until recently, Catholics. The Klan has existed in three distinct eras at different points in time during the history of the United States. Each has advocated extremist reactionary positions such as white nationalism, anti-immigration and – especially in later iterations – Nordicism, antisemitism, prohibition, homophobia, Islamophobia, and anti-Catholicism. Historically, the first Klan used terrorism – both physical assault and murder – against politically active blacks and their allies in the South in the late 1860s, until it was suppressed around 1872. All three movements have called for the "purification" of American society and all are considered "right-wing extremist" organizations. In each era, membership was secret and estimates of the total were highly exaggerated by both friends and enemies.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 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, 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, Alabama. Bond served as president of the board between 1971 and 1979.
Zionist occupation government, Zionist occupational government, or Zionist-occupied government is the subject of an antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims Jews secretly control the governments of Western states. Other variants such as "Jewish occupational government" are sometimes used. According to believers, a secret Zionist organization controls international banks, and through them the governments, in order to collude against white, Christian, or Islamic interests.
Omar Bakri Muhammad is a Syrian Salafi Islamist militant leader, born in Aleppo, Syria.
Jon Ronson is a British journalist and documentary filmmaker whose works include The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004), Them: Adventures with Extremists (2001), and The Psychopath Test (2011). He has been described as a gonzo journalist, becoming a faux-naïf character in his stories.
Willis Allison Carto was an American far right political activist. He described himself as Jeffersonian and populist, but was primarily known for his promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.
Al-Muhajiroun is a proscribed militant Salafi jihadist network based in the United Kingdom. The founder of the group was Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian who previously belonged to Hizb ut-Tahrir; he was not permitted to re-enter Britain after 2005. According to The Times, the organisation has been linked to international terrorism, homophobia, and antisemitism. The group became notorious for its September 2002 conference "The Magnificent 19", praising the September 11, 2001 attacks. The network mutates periodically so as to evade the law; it operates under many different aliases.
This is a partial list of a few notable historical figures in U.S. national politics who were members of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office. Membership of the Klan is secret. Political opponents sometimes allege that a person was a member of the Klan, or was supported at the polls by Klan members.
Thomas Robb is an American far-right activist, Ku Klux Klan leader, and Christian Identity pastor. He is national director of The Knights Party, also known as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, taking control of the organization after David Duke.
Florence Mars was an American civil rights activist and author best known for her book Witness in Philadelphia about the murder of three civil rights activists in Mississippi.
The Secret Rulers of the World is a five-part documentary series, produced by World of Wonder Productions and written, directed by, and featuring Jon Ronson. The series was first shown on British Channel 4 in April and May 2001. The series details Ronson's encounters with conspiracy theorists. It accompanies Ronson's book Them: Adventures with Extremists, which covers similar topics and describes many of the same events.
Abie Philbin Bowman is an Irish comedian and journalist. His One Man Shows include Jesus: The Guantanamo Years, Eco-Friendly Jihad and Developing the Country as a Hole. He has worked on RTÉ programmes, including Arena, CAKE, Callan's Kicks and Irish Pictorial Weekly.
James P. Tucker, Jr., also known as Big Jim Tucker, was an American journalist and author of Jim Tucker's Bilderberg Diary, who, beginning in 1975, focused on the Bilderberg Group. Tucker died on April 26, 2013, from complications due to a fall, according to his obituary.
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004) is a non-fiction work by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring at them and stopping their hearts. The book is companion to a three-part TV series broadcast in Britain on Channel 4—Crazy Rulers of the World (2004)—the first episode of which is also entitled "The Men Who Stare at Goats". The same title was used a third time for a loose feature film adaptation in 2009.
The Indiana Klan was a branch of the Ku Klux Klan, a secret society in the United States that organized in 1915 to affect public affairs on issues of Prohibition, education, political corruption, and morality. It was strongly white supremacist not just against African Americans, but also Catholics and Jews, whose faith were commonly associated with Irish, Italian, Balkan, and Slavic immigrants and their descendants. In Indiana, the Klan generally did not practice overt violence but used intimidation in certain cases, whereas nationally the organization practiced political acts against minority ethnic and religious groups.
The New York World's exposé of the Ku Klux Klan brought national media to the operations and actions of the Ku Klux Klan beginning on September 6, 1921. The newspaper published a series of twenty one consecutive daily articles that discussed numerous aspects of Ku Klux Klan including rituals, recruitment methods, propaganda, and hypocrisies in logic. At least fifteen other newspapers nationwide picked up the coverage, which led to national discourse on the activities of the group. These publications included The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Boston Globe, Pittsburgh Sun, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), New Orleans Times-Picayune, Galveston News, Houston Chronicle, Seattle Times, Milwaukee Journal, Minneapolis Journal, Oklahoma City Oklahoman, Toledo Blade, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, Syracuse Herald, Columbus Enquirer-Sun and the Albany Knickerbocker Press. The New York Times ran ads for the article series to increase exposure, while other large papers like the Baltimore Sun quickly picked up the article series instead of advertising for The World. The Ku Klux Klan announced shortly afterward that it would take legal action against all the publications that ran the article series for libel, seeking total damages of over ten million dollars.
Ku Klux Klan (KKK) nomenclature has evolved over the order's nearly 160 years of existence. The titles and designations were first laid out in the original Klan's prescripts of 1867 and 1868, then revamped with William J. Simmons' Kloran of 1916. Subsequent Klans have made various modifications.
Daryl Davis is an American R&B and blues musician, activist, author, actor and bandleader. His efforts to improve race relations, in which as an African-American he engaged with members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), convinced Klansmen to leave and denounce the KKK. Known for his energetic style of boogie-woogie piano, Davis has played with such musicians as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, B. B. King, and Bruce Hornsby.
The Ku Klux Klan is an organization that expanded operations into Canada, based on the second Ku Klux Klan established in the United States in 1915. It operated as a fraternity, with chapters established in parts of Canada throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. The first registered provincial chapter was registered in Toronto in 1925 by two Americans and a Torontonian. The organization was most successful in Saskatchewan, where it briefly influenced political activity and whose membership included a member of Parliament, Walter Davy Cowan.
Thomas Linton Metzger is an American white supremacist, skinhead leader and former Klansman. He founded White Aryan Resistance (WAR) in 1983. He was a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Metzger has voiced strong opposition to immigration to the United States. He has been incarcerated in Los Angeles County, California, and Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and has also been the subject of several lawsuits and government inquiries. He, his son, and WAR were fined $12 million as a result of the murder of an Ethiopian by skinheads affiliated with WAR.
