A White Man’s World

Abstract

Abstract Abstract: For most of the post-Reconstruction era, whites enjoyed political, social, and economic dominance in America, and lynchings and other brutality was common. When challenges arose from immigration and, especially, civil rights, white supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan arose to combat them. Such groups, however, saw themselves as defenders of the social order and often worked with law enforcement or with its tacit approval. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, however, shattered white dominance. Through peaceful resistance, it transformed American politics and led to outrage against once-tolerated white supremacist violence. This, in turn, led to political pressure on the U.S. government to end the violence, and the FBI, at times working with and through state officials, began a devastating crackdown against various Klan chapters and like-minded groups. Government lawsuits and those of civil society organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center impoverished many white supremacist organizations, creating new strains on the overall movement. Together, such efforts reduced the political influence of white supremacists and would make them more radical, opposed to the order they once championed.