Anti-Immigration and the KKK

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Anti-Immigration and the KKK

• Created by Heather Dorey
• Hohokam Middle School
• Tucson, AZ

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"Our unity is threatened by hordes of immigrants
. . . who bring foreign ideas and ideals into our
land," he intones. "Two things must be done
first, we must stop influx of foreigners second,
we must through education, bring all people to
common program of acting and thinking."
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How did the KKK begin?

• Began in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 by former
  Confederate veterans as a social club
• Focused on the ideas of white supremacy and
  opposition towards Reconstruction
• Attempted to control freedmen through threats and
  violence

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Second Era Begins - 1915

• KKK resurfaces under the leadership of William J.
  Simmons and a renewed sense of nativism
• This new Klan spread from the south into the rest
  of America
• Focused not just on African-Americans but anyone
  who was un-American including immigrants, Jews,
  and Roman Catholics.

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William J. Simmons, Imperial Wizard
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• Membership grew to between 2 and 5 million people
• Included ordinary, respectable, white middle
  class Americans
• Film Birth of a Nation is released in 1915
  showing the KKK as Americas savior

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• In 1924, writer Stanley Frost wrote the following
  about the KKK
• The Ku Klux Klan has become the most vigorous,
  active, and effective organization in American
  life outside business.

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• In 1925, more than 25,000 KKK members marched in
  Washington, D.C.

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1925 KKK Manual

• Purpose

"To unite white male persons, native-born,
Gentile citizens of the United States of America,
who owe no allegiance of any nature or degree to
any foreign government, nation, institution,
sect, ruler, person, or people whose morals are
good whose reputations and vocations are
respectable whose habits are exemplary who are
of sound minds and eighteen years or more of age,
under a common oath into a brother hood of strict
regulations."
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End of the 2nd Era - 1930

• Corruption amongst Klan leaders and the Great
  Depression caused the organization to slow down
  but they never went away
• Regained strength once again during the Civil
  Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s,
  membership about 20,000

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Ku Klux Klan Today

• Once again gaining strength
• Focus immigration, gay marriage, and urban
  crime
• http//www.kkk.bz/
• http//www.adl.org/PresRele/Extremism_72/4973_72.h
  tm