The Black Legion

A detailed Summary of The Black Legion

>From the early 1870's to the late 1920's, the southern United States was ravaged with a racial hate group and secret brotherhood known as the Ku Klux Klan. At the time, the South was dominantly populated by ignorant and uneducated white people still clinging to the days of slavery. However, the enlighetened and progressive North had an even stranger organization terrorizing people during the 1930's. Detroit, Michigan, the capitol of the automobile industry, was suffering from the Great Depression. What arose from this was a secret organization who also believed in violent tactics to achieve their goals. Similar to the KKK they wore hoods and robes, although, they wore black rather than white.

The Black Legion had a broader agenda than the Ku Klux Klan. The Black Legion considered not only blacks, Jews and Catholics enemies but also welfare workers, welfare recipients and union organizers. This was during the Great Depression/New Deal era so many members were workers laid off and eager to lay blame and retalliate on others. "The native-born white people of America are menaced on every hand from above and below. If America is in the melting pot, the white people of Ameri

aristocrats but also the "undesirables" that were supposedly occupying their jobs. Those who knew the Black Legion was bad knew the consequences if they tried to go public with any Black Legion crimes. This made it hard to find people that were willing to help endite the Black Legion.

me members just loved violence and joined for pure leisure. According to historian Thomas Jones, the Black Legion "made the Ku Klux Klan look like a cream puff." They drove cars, as opposed to the Klan's trademark of riding horses, and rather than limiting themselves to hanging, they focused on the gun. Most members spent a lot of time at shooting ranges and owned many guns. Unlike the KKK's simple brute tactics, the Black Legion had many diabolical schemes that seemed to be taken out of a comic book. Some of the Legion's leaders were investigating ways to plant typhoid germs in cheese and milk for some neighborhoods. Maurice Sugar, a civil rights lawyer, claimed that he had unncovered a paln the legion was developing to release cyanide gas in synagogues during Hanukkah in 1935.

The legion had various fronts to cover up their operations. They had a gun club that met at a firing range to cover up their firearms. Their political front was called the Wolverine Republican Club, who was upfront with its prejudice view. Its motto was "We will fight political Romanism, Judaism, Communism, and all 'isms' which our forefathers came to this country to avoid." This was stated in many promotions throughout Detroit.

The Black Legion grew nationally and was governed by 13 districts and each was governed by a Major General. The overall leader was known as Dr. Shepard. Even though they began spreading crimes nationally, the FBI had little to no knowledge of their existence because with the legion in each state noone was actually commiting a crime that was not beyond state jurisdiction, so the FBI was restricted from this.

The Black Legion is, essentially, many "underground" associations rolled into one. They have roots in the KKK, have many McCarthist tactics, and even have attributes that relate to the Mafia. The Black Legion became a very popular organization in Detroit. Victims of the Black Legion could not go to police because many police officers were Black Legion members themselves. When Black Legion members were arrested, they were usually soon released with few charges if any. At one point, even the Mayor of Detroit, Orville Hubbard, was accused of being in the Black Legion. the However, after a while, the FBI began noticing the Bl

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Approximate Word count = 1725
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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