Ku Klux Klan Paper
America isn't a very open minded country in general. They have a "my way or no way" attitude, and it shows in examples like the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan itself was based on ignorance and bigotry. They established the Klan because they were bored, but little did they know how much their small club would impact American history. The Klan started slowly with few members but then it grew to 550 000 at the official end of the Klan. The Ku Klux Klan's eventual collapse and early declined in active protests against blacks was due to the probing congressional investigation, the surge of disobeying members in the late 19th century and the Klan's lack of respect people had for them by 1870. By the early 1868's the Klan was having organizational problems because they were expanding, once again, very rapidly. Congress had been keeping an eye on the Klan because they had been gotten many complaints about the activities that the Klan participated in. Due to the shear amount of complaints that the government got congress started to keep their eye on the Klan. By keeping an eye on them in reality they were conducting an investigation. This was not a fully frontal one but in fact a quiet one, until congress spotted a moment of weakness or rebell
There were problems outside the Klan that couldn't have been helped by any members. Bands of people who wanted to take their rage out on blacks would dress up in Ku Klux Klan like robes and go around harassing and killing blacks even though they were not members of the Klan. The result of these internal problems that the Klan had was simple for most Wizards, resign with their dignity. None of the Wizards wanted to be in power when the Klan was collapsing. The holes that were formed by the leaders stepping down allowed poor and violent Wizards to take their place. This eventually lead to the new Wizards re-organizing the Klan so that they could have everything their way. The resulting organization of the Klan was very poor with many laws being removed and the members of the Klan's identity at risk of being revealed. Now all these small facts seemed inconsequential to the leaders of the Klan, or Wizards. The reality was that it was unnerving the lower ranked Klansmen. They were starting to get nervous about the probing Government officials, for when they were brought in for examinations the questions were leading and some witnesses coached to get others to admit Klan secrets. As I mentioned before they didn't fall to easily for the trick questioning but they did get quite hassled by the authorities. This didn't help the Wizards of the Klan either because after being hassled the Klansmen would often take their aggression out on blacks. By the end of the Congressional investigation, which essentially achieved nothing but a vote or two, the Klansmen were ready for a revolution against their country or the Klan. In conclusion the Ku Klux Klan was an innocent group of people that weren't particularly racist. They were doomed to fail from the beginning though. Any clan, group or club that's main idea is to harass a certain group is going to get out of hand and will either destroy itself, as the KKK did, or will be broken up by the law. The Klan made people rethink the free speech laws, but we never changed them, as we shouldn't have. The Klan was not only a group that was showing hate toward blacks, it represented all the racism in America and what it could be. If Americans do not become more open-minded America may yet have another revoluti
Some common words found in the essay are:
Klux Klan's, Klan Wizards, Klux Klan, Ku Klux, Wizards Klan, Memphis Saloon, None Wizards, Wizard Forest, Klan Klan, America Klan, ku klux, ku klux klan, klux klan, klan people, eye klan, started lose, klansmen robes, acts violence, klan started, keeping eye, rebellion klan,
Approximate Word count = 1519
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
