KKK

Question 1

Why did it get traction

Answer 1

Immigration
Rapid urbanisation, inflation, unemployment and industrial unrest
Red scare
Immigration laws favoured white Americans
Eugenics

Question 2

Second KKK-business side

Answer 2

1920-Simmons joined with Elizabeth Tyler and Edward Clarke
Used modern business ideas and sales techniques
Paid initiation fee of $10 and robes cost 6.50

Question 3

KKK’s aims

Answer 3

Anti-black rights 
Anti-Catholic 
Anti-communist/trade unions 
Support of prohibition 
Support of purity of women 
Support of Protestant church

Question 4

Second wave Klan facts

Answer 4

1921 membership of 100,000 by 1925 it had 5 million
Attracted blue collar and lower middle class of northern and western mid-west towns and cities
Prominent in urbanising cities
Concerned about housing shortages and rapid social change as well as competition for jobs

Question 5

KKK influence

Answer 5

1924 had success in local and state elections (Maine Ohio and Colorado)
Klan member elected as governor in 1924 in Indiana
Local police and judiciary were KKK supporters
1924 Klan had control of Anaheim
Also successfully opposed Al Smith a catholic democrat
1926 Bibb Graves won Alabama governors office with Klan support (former Klan member)

Question 6

Decline of the Klan

Answer 6

1924 lost its main national fund raisers (Tyler died and Clarke went to prison for assault on a woman)
1925 Grand Dragon DC Stephenson was convicted of rape and second degree murder
Politicians revoked their support
Internal leadership divisions
Dissolved in 1944 after taken to court by IRS for non-payment of tax

Question 7

Lynching

Answer 7

3,724 people lunches in United States from 1889 to 1930
4/5 were black less than 1/6 were accused of rape
All lynchers were white natives
Victims tortured,mutilated, dragged and burned suggests sadistic tendencies
Tens of thousands of lynchers only 49 indicted and only 4 sentenced

Question 8

Start of new Klan

Answer 8

1915 film the birth of a nation by DW Griffith
Romanticised the Klan as guardians of the pure Anglo-Saxon heritage of America
This inspired WJ Simmons to set up a new Klan to save white Christian civilisation in America

Question 9

Growth of intolerance before WW1

Answer 9

Between 1920 and 1925 5 million Americans joined the KKK
Because:
Heightened nationalism because of the war
Increased immigration
Red scare
BW Griffith film “birth of a nation” which glorified Klan
Fear of jazz music
Reorganisation of the KKK