BACKLASH

History

Ku Klux Klan (KKK) activism and violence in the 1920s represented a reaction by some native-born, Protestant whites to the growing diversification of American society and an effort to impose their version of law and order on it. Based on the vigilante group that sprung up in the post-Civil War South, a new KKK emerged in 1915 at Stone Mountain, Georgia, when sixteen men lit a cross symbolizing the Klan's resurrection. Between 1920 and 1925 the group quickly grew until it had five million members. Klansmen, who viewed themselves as embodying "100 percent Americanism," shared an antipathy to blacks, Jews, Catholics, and immigrants.

KKK Methods

The Klan primarily used violent viligantism to terrorize so-called moral offenders, but it also worked through political channels. In the early 1920s the Klan dominated politics in Indiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado. It deadlocked the 1924 Democratic National Convention by successfully opposing the condemnation of the Klan by name. The group lobbied on the national level for laws restricting immigration. Because of its excesses, the organization lost most of its strength by the end of the decade.