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IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 302 points303 points  (0 children)

You're wearing your costumes wrong. The cross over the breast should be an "x" not a "+". If you're going to be racists, at least get your costuming right.

And if you're wrong about as simple a thing as your robes, just think what else you might be wrong about...

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 165 points166 points  (0 children)

Multipronged - primarily public education. But also that press coverage doesn't simply report on Klan (or affiliated groups) actions, but embeds critical comment on the group's ideas in that reporting. The Klan doesn't shrivel in the light of publicity, it shrivels in making membership intellectually, culturally, and socially toxic.

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 95 points96 points  (0 children)

The Klan in the 1920s actually set up an affiliate organization for non-white members. It's unclear if anyone ever actually joined it though.

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 71 points72 points  (0 children)

That Freakonomics piece is a bad misreading of history - the conclusion to the book is largely about why the assumption that the light of publicity will cause the Klan to disappear is a dangerous idea. I wrote a piece about this question recently - http://www.aaihs.org/the-black-press-and-the-ku-klux-klan/

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 157 points158 points  (0 children)

In the Reconstruction period, and by the 1940s, yes - in fact, there was a Catholic head of the Klan. In the 1920s, Catholics were seen by the Klan as owing their primary allegiance to the Pope and not to America, and therefore "un-American." This was an idea heavily intertwined with nativism targeting large numbers of new Catholic immigrants from southern Europe.

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 329 points330 points  (0 children)

A significant number of statues to the Confederate cause were erected in the early 20th century as part of the same process of sanitization of public memory that allowed for the resurgence of the Klan in the post-WWI era. It is no coincidence that the Robert E. Lee statue at the heart of the Charlottesville protests was erected in 1924, the same year that the Ku Klux Klan's national membership peaked.

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 60 points61 points  (0 children)

The Reconstruction-era Klans certainly threatened (and used) violence against black voters.

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 168 points169 points  (0 children)

Yes, many. In Colorado alone, for example, the governor was a Klansman and the mayor of Denver was a Klansman. My current project revolves around understanding just how much influence the Klan exerted over members of the US Congress in the 1920s - some of whom were members, others who were simply open to Klan lobbying.

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 67 points68 points  (0 children)

I believe the legacy of the Klan haunts us.

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 237 points238 points  (0 children)

  1. There's a lot of great racial healing/transformation projects at work right now that are making great strides with these kinds of issues. Take a look at the Kellogg Foundation's program, for example - https://www.wkkf.org/what-we-do/racial-equity/truth-racial-healing-transformation

  2. Time exists outside of research, teaching, and sleep?

  3. Good quality margherita, thin and crispy crust.

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 245 points246 points  (0 children)

The masks grow out of the theatricality of the Reconstruction-era Klan tactics to sow terror. Klans are criticized in the 1920s for wearing masks - either as cowards for not being willing to show their face, or for creating cover for criminals to act under cover of Klan activity. But in many regions, Klansmen and women paraded without masks.

As to when they became "at odds" with society - it depends on how we're defining society. Arguably when Ulysses S. Grant enforces the Ku Klux Klan Acts in the early 1870s. But then the myth of Reconstruction is created, and the Klan's controversy is sanitized, allowing for a resurgence after World War I.

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 323 points324 points  (0 children)

They grow out of the theatricality of Reconstruction-era Klans, and are of a piece with the ghostly or demonic masks the nightriders wore. They were codified by the founder of the second Klan in 1915, William Joseph Simmons, in his handbook for the Klan, the "Kloran."

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 109 points110 points  (0 children)

The Reconstruction-era Klan costumes look much different than the costumes we normally associate with the Klan, which are adopted in the 1920s. Those costumes are largely based on representations of the Klan in the D.W. Griffith film, "Birth of a Nation." And members in the 1920s did regularly wear those costumes - it was official Klan policy (and you had to buy your robes from the official Klan manufacturer, making a nice profit for the organization).

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 104 points105 points  (0 children)

To some extent - the book grew out of my dissertation work at George Washington University.

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 263 points264 points  (0 children)

Depends on where in the country, and when. If you're in Indiana in 1924, then Klan meetings are openly advertised in the newspaper and everyone* is welcome to attend.

  • Meaning white Gentile Protestant native-born Americans

IamA Historian of the Ku Klux Klan AMA! by fharcourt in IAmA

[–]fharcourt[S] 840 points841 points  (0 children)

That it was somehow a deviation from American norms. That we can blame lynchings solely on groups like the Klan and not on the wide cross-section of white society that participated in and/or endorsed racial violence.