Klansmen Research Articles

A KU KLUX KLAN CIPHER

A KU KLUX KLAN CIPHER

White Sheets in Mecosta: The Anatomy of a Michigan Klan

Certainly one of the most significant signs of the spread of intolerance in the early 1920s was the phenomenal growth of the Ku Klux Klan which built hundreds of klaverns in the United States, including at least ninety-three chartered in the state of Michigan alone. Though Indiana ranked first, Ohio second, Illinois fifth and Michigan eighth for membership in the KKK, apparently there is no detailed study of a mid western klan.1 Indeed, the study of individual klan organizations remains largely untouched. Historians have had only limited opportunities to analyze local klan organizations because membership lists or membership cards rarely exist to provide the raw material for such research. Even the several excellent studies of the past twenty years treating the klan contain very circumscribed evidence. Kenneth Jackson in his The Ku Klux Klan in the City listed the occupational distribution for only three Illinois cities: 110 KKK members of thousands in Chicago, 73 in Aurora and 180 of certainly many more in Winchester, and 399 of apparently 3,000 in Knox County, Tennessee.2 William Toll, in a study of Tillamook, Oregon, identified 161 klansmen of not more than 600 members3 by occupation. Larry Gerlach, in Blazing Crosses in Zion, studied eighty-seven known or

The appeal and behavior of the ku kiux klan in object relations perspective

Abstract The conspicuous and peculiarly ruinous behavior of the Ku Klux Klan may provide an example of psychosocial pathology that can be usefully analyzed via an extension of object relations theory. This largely theoretical paper employs the concept, pioneered by Klein, of the split maternal presence and advances the theoretical hypothesis that this split is projected into social life. Some deprived and psychologically damaged adults experience the “maternal presence” of society as split and have special requirements for group support. Under certain circumstances, groups like the KKK may meet those requirements. In addition, the eruption of group violence of the KKK type may be explainable by analyzing the psychodynamics of group regression to an infantile level and the accompanying arousal of the “unmanageable mother.”

The Ku Klux Klan

In recent years there has been a pronounced increase of racist violence against blacks and other minorities in the United States. Much of the violence has been perpetrated by one of America's oldest hate groups-the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The most publicized of these incidents was the killing of 5 anti-Klan demonstrators in Greensboro, North Carolina, in November 1979. The Klansmen and Nazis accused of the Greensboro homicides were twice acquitted by all-white juries despite strong evidence of their culpability. 1 And Greensboro is not an isolated example. The KKK has participated in many other acts of violence across the country. This article will discuss the origins of the KKK and review some of the previous empirical research on racism and authoritarianism. We will present the results of a survey that examined the KKK and its ideology. Presentation of the survey results will examine the degree of support for the Klan, the social location of those who liked the Klan, and finally evaluate why people support or oppose the Klan.

Rights for the nazis, communists and ku klux klan: An empirical analysis of student perceptions

This article presents an empirical study which examines the willingness of students on a Southern campus to extend First Amendment rights to members of the Communist Workers Party, the American Nazi Party, and the Ku Klux Klan. The rights under study include the freedom of the press, freedom of speach, freedom to assemble and march, and freedom to run for public office. The rights were first examined as abstract principles available to everyone, and then as rights available to groups whose philosophies the students might oppose. A variety of situations were examined on a 68-item questionnaire.

A Klansman Joins the Court: The Appointment of Hugo L. Black

A Klansman Joins the Court: The Appointment of Hugo L. Black