DIFFERENCES IN THE KLU KLUX KLANS By: Jennifer Christensen

 “Gender and sexuality were compelling symbols” that existed in both Klu Klux Klans (11).  Each Klan “summoned white men to protect threatened white womanhood and white female purity.” (11).

 A main difference is how the Klan’s each used womanhood as a symbol.  “The first Klan used symbols of imperiled womanhood to represent assault on Southern white men’s racial privileges and regional autonomy. The second Klan, too, tried at first to use white womanhood to symbolize threatened religious, national, and racial supremacy. But newly won female enfranchisement and women’s political experience complicated this strategy.” (12).

 The first KKK: “was organized in Tennessee immediately after the Civil War, it summoned defeated sons of the Confederacy to defend the principles of white supremacy against interference by the northerners and retaliation by freed black slaves.”(12).  “Gangs of Klansmen threatened, flogged, and murdered countless black and white women and men” (12). They were all about violence and inflicting fear in the people.

 “The KKK was particularly expert in the use of sexual violence and brutality. Klan mobs humiliated white Southern Republicans…by sexually abusing them. Klansmen routinely raped and sexually tortured women, especially black women, during “kluxing” raids on their households….Lynching, torture, and sexual mutilation intimidated Klan opponents and terrorized its enemies.” (13)

 This first klan fell apart very quickly, they had an “elaborate hierarchy…lacked direction and political focus.” (16).

 After a few decades it was reborn. It started to come around again in 1915 but by the mid 1920’s there were nearly 4 million men and women in the Klan. They really focused on “white protestant supremacy”(17).  The definition of manhood no longer focused on violence, but as a fraternal brotherhood (19). They wanted to protect women and motherhood by hurting any abuser’s, drunkard fathers, or just lazy fathers.

 They focused more out in the open by gaining members with wonderful speakers, parades, and activities.  They spread propaganda about blacks, catholics and jews about how horrible they are and you should have nothing to do with them.

 Women eventually joined to help endeavor the women’s rights movements and provided activities for wives that needed something to do.  This Klan did not last very long due to problems within their own leaders and just led to its own collapse.

Bibliography  Blee, Kathleen M. Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s. Berkeley: University of California, Print.