What is the KKK?

Jessi Salas, staff writer|December 15, 2022

A large group of Klansman gathering to do a cross burning.

Have you ever wondered what the KKK is and who they are or what they are? This article is here to inform you about their past and history. I think it’s important to know about certain groups and this is a very important group that I think everyone should eventually learn about because of the deep impact they have made on society. 

Before I talk about the things that they did and do, I will first teach you about who they are and what they are. First the KKK stands for Ku Klux Klan and it is a white supremacist hate group that was immediately founded after the Civil War in the US and lasted until the 1870’s.

One of their first leaders was Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was a confederate general during the Civil War. When the Ku Klux Klan was founded at the end of the United States Civil War, it was made to repress the rights and freedoms of African Americans and in earlier times they were targeting newly freed slaves to achieve domination over the Blacks. 

Even after 150 years, it is still an active, domestic terrorist organization. In newer days the Klan’s primary targets were and still are African Americans,  Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Catholics, as well as immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Muslims, and atheists. One way the Klansman intimidate these groups of people is through cross burning.

21st Century Learning teacher, Red (Leticia) Ortiz  said, “I know that the KKK is a hate group that targets African Americans and Jews the most. I also know they are some sort of brotherhood that come together and terrorize people because of who they are. These people brainwash others to join and think that African Americans should be targeted.”

According to mtsu.edu, cross burning is when a large group of Klansman gather together in white hoods and robes to burn a cross, but this practice can only be protected by the first amendment if it is not a direct threat to others. This means that the Klansman can keep on doing this as long as no one is hurt or directly threatened in any way or else there will be consequences to  these cross burning gatherings.

According to FBI.gov, one tragedy caused by the KKK is when in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963 a dynamite bomb exploded in the back stairwell of the downtown Sixteenth Street Baptist Church causing four African-American girls to pass away and more than 20 to be left injured inside the church and this was just one of the many acts of racial hatred caused by the KKK. 

 

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