The Ku Klux Klan

I saw a report this weekend on the RedNeck, it's a group of white Americans mainly from the south of the country racist and Donald Trump fan.

They usually live in the countryside and are relatively narrow-minded compared to other cultures.

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In this report, it was shown that some of them were part of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Ku Klux Klan or KKK is a white supremacist organization of the United States founded on December 24, 1865.

It is part of the extreme right at the political level, but it has never been a political party, but rather an organization defending the interests and prejudices of the traditionalist, racist and xenophobic elements of some White Protestants, the White Anglo -Saxon Protestant who claim to be an ethnico-religious community and support their claim of white supremacy over a very peculiar interpretation of a verse from the Book of Genesis (Gen 9,27) and the racist doctrines of the anthropology of the nineteenth century.

The Ku Klux Klan preaches the supremacy of the white race over other races such as blacks who for them are the descendants of former slaves, Chinese and Japanese immigrants, the Arab community, Mexicans, Cubans and Puerto Ricans, and other peoples of the world. 'Latin America.

He also advocates anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-orthodoxy, anticommunism and homophobia. The members are conservative and xenophobic.

The Ku Klux Klan is currently headed by Thomas Robb (pastor of the Christian Revival Center and national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan) and has his headquarters in Boone County, Arkansas 30 km north of Harrison which is the county seat and also considered by many media as the most racist city in the United States.

History

The name Ku Klux Klan comes from the Greek word kuklos which means circle. It is one of the founders, James R. Crowe, who has the idea of separating the word in two and changing the end, which gives Ku Klux (lux means light). As the founders all have Scottish ancestors, another founder, John C. Lester, proposes to add the clan word at the end, replacing the C with a K, so as to standardize the first letter of the three words.

The creation of the Ku Klux Klan was originally a direct result of the defeat of Confederate troops against the Yankees at the end of the American Civil War and was part of a tense period in the history of the United States with the the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, the Black massacres in Memphis and New Orleans in 1866, and the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson from 1867 to 1868.

The Ku Klux Klan was founded on the night of December 24-25, 1865, by seven idle young Southerner officers living in the city of Pulaski, Tennessee.

In 1867, the founding text of the first Klan is written, it is called the Prescript.
The association is inspired by fraternities of students, American tradition coming from Europe and in particular the British and German universities, from where the use of Greek terms and a parodic ritual of the Masonic lodges.

https://steemit.com/fraternity/@lndesta120282/student-fraternities

Gradually, the Ku Klux Klan becomes more and more important and seeks to be structured with the more or less open help of civil or military notables of the former Southern Confederation. The Klan will turn into a secret southern resistance army.

Thus, Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Confederate army cavalry general, was chosen as leader and organizer in 1867. Forrest then took control of the organization by proclaiming a Constitution, which set goals and operation Ku Klux Klan.

Although the official purpose of this formation is humanitarian, merciful and patriotic, it sets as its real goal the maintenance of the supremacy of the white race in the republic.

The victory of the northerners has several consequences: the maintenance of the former Confederate States of 1860 in the Union, the abolition of slavery, the rural economy of the ruined South.

The Klan is opposed to new laws that grant blacks rights closer to white than before. The desire to leave the southern inhabitants political autonomy vis-à-vis the federal state is an important lever used by the Klan.

The Ku Klux Klan wishes to have an impact on the outcome of the elections. It will influence by all sorts of means: intimidation, blackmail and corruption to impose its candidates in the Democratic Party, then to triumph them in elections for the institutions of secessionist states.

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For this, Forrest will travel around the country to hold meetings. Each of his appearances will be followed by a wave of violence against blacks. KKK members burst into their homes to whip them or even kill them while hanging them on trees. Some pregnant women are disemboweled and castrated men. Whites who rub shoulders with or instruct blacks are also targeted by the Ku Klux Klan and the carpetbaggers (an individual from the North of the United States who came to settle in the South).

Following the assassination on May 18, 1870, of Republican Senator John W. Stephens in the middle of the court and the growing violence of the Klanists, the federal government officially reacts against this terrorist organization.

On April 20, 1871, The Klan Act was passed in Congress of the United States to abolish the Ku Klux Klan. The President of the United States at the time, General Ulysses S. Grant, instigator of the Ku Klux Act, declares martial law (establishment in a country of an exceptional judicial state, in which the army ensures law enforcement in place of, or in collaboration with, the police.

The head of state invokes martial law, which means that the army general takes power for a period of time. delimited) in 9 counties of South Carolina. Several thousand KKK members are arrested. Most are released for lack of evidence. The Ku Klux Klan as an active organization disappears quickly. It is officially banned in 1877.

Culture

There is a lot of folklore around the Klu Klux Klan: members wear a pointed hood or white hood on their head and a big matching dress on the body. Their horses are disguised also this way.

Their first rides were aimed at terrorizing the blacks, making them believe that they were devoid of education and very superstitious, that they are the ghosts of the Confederate soldiers who died in battle and came to take revenge.
An urban legend claims that the Marlboro tobacco company belongs to the Ku Klux Klan. Despite the similarity of the Marlboro logo with a K, the rumor is unfounded.

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Dress code

A hierarchy and a distribution of ranks are established during ceremonies.

We differentiate the members with the colors of their dress, here are some of them :

• Imperial Wizard or Grand Wizard: the most important rank of the Ku Klux Klan: purple color dress
• Great Dragon: Head of State: Green Color Dress
• Exalted Cyclops or Klavern: responsible for a city: black dress with a red scarf and four red chevrons on the sleeves
• Kleagle: Director of Public Relations and Recruitment Officer for Chaplains and Cyclops: red dress
• Klansman: a simple member of the Ku Klux Klan: traditional white dress
• Nighthawk: security officer: black dress
• Chaplain: preacher: white dress with red scarf

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I hope this article has allowed you to know a little more about the KKK. Personally, I do not share their vision at all. The mix of cultures and nationalities is very enriching for me.