Role of anti-civil rights groups

Question 1

the Ku Klux Klan - early period

6 points

Answer 1

1. national organisation
2. established 1867
3. intimidation (voting/ schools) and lynching
4. attacked workers of freedman’s bureau.
   1960s attacked civil rights workers
5. 1871 membership 1/2 million in South
6. declined in 1870s -
   strong federal response (southern juries wouldn’t convict) 1877 Hayes-Tilden troops withdrawn. states allowed to make discrimination legal = less need for klan

Question 2

the Ku Klux Klan - 1915

7 points

Answer 2

1. back in 1915 - encouraged by 1915 film ‘the birth of a nation’ (portrayed Klan as heroic)
2. extends hostility to Jews, Catholics, foreigners.
3. 6 million members 1924
4. declines (scandal involving Grand wizard) by 1944
5. various groups 1950s onwards use name and methods but no longer a mass organization
6. 1961 members attack freedom riders with approval of Southern police authorities
7. execution of Klan member in 1981 for a lynching 16 years earlier - clear message

Question 3

lynching (not formal organisation but white americans organise and publicise lynching)
3 points

Answer 3

1. 2,700 lynchings 1885-1917
2. murder of 14 yr old Emmett Till 1955 - all white jury acquit murderers
3. assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers 1962 - local authorities did little to find murderers

Question 4

White Citizen’s Councils

4 points

Answer 4

1. formed after Brown v. Board of Education 1954
2. protest about school desegregation
3. intimidation of AA trying to vote. hostile actions against civil rights initiatives
4. decline 1960s