How do kkk hats stand up

KKK leaders found the Tar Heel State fertile recruiting ground, despite -- or perhaps because of -- the state's progressive image, which enabled the Klan to claim that they were the only group that would defend white North Carolinians against rising civil rights pressures.

While this message resonated in rural areas across the state's eastern coastal plain, the KKK built a significant following in cities like Greensboro and Raleigh as well. Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports active KKK groups in 41 states, though nearly all of those groups remain marginal with tiny memberships. So, while the KKK originated after the Civil War as a distinctly southern effort to preserve the antebellum racial order, its presence has extended well beyond that region throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

Why do KKK members wear white hoods and burn crosses? Some of the most recognizable Klan symbols date back to the group's origins following the Civil War. The KKK's white hoods and robes evolved from early efforts to pose as ghosts or "spectral" figures, drawing on then-resonant symbols in folklore to play "pranks" against African-Americans and others. Such tricks quickly took on more politically sinister overtones, as sheeted Klansmen would commonly terrorize their targets, using hoods and masks to disguise their identities when carrying out acts of violence under the cover of darkness.

Fiery crosses, perhaps the Klan's most resonant symbol, have a more surprising history. No documented cross burnings occurred during the first Klan wave in the 19th century. However, D. Dixon, Jr. The symbol was quickly appropriated by opportunistic KKK leaders to help spur the group's subsequent "rebirth. Through the s, Klan leaders regularly depicted the cross as embodying the KKK's Christian roots -- a means to spread the light of Jesus into the countryside.

A bestselling 45rpm record put out by United Klans of America included the Carolina Klan's Bob Jones reciting how the fiery cross served as a "symbol of sacrifice and service, and a sign of the Christian Religion sanctified and made holy nearly 19 centuries ago, by the suffering and blood of 50 million martyrs who died in the most holy faith.

Has the KKK always functioned as a violent terrorist group? The KKK's emphasis on violence and intimidation as a means to defend its white supremacist ends has been the primary constant across its various "waves. However, during the periods of peak KKK successes in both the s and s, when Klan organizations were often significant presences in many communities, their appeal was predicated on connecting the KKK to varied aspects of members' and supporters' lives.

Such efforts meant that, in the s, alongside the KKK's political campaigns, members also marched in parades with Klan floats, pursued civic campaigns to support temperance, public education, and child welfare, and hosted a range of social events alongside women's and youth Klan auxiliary groups.

Similarly, during the civil rights era, many were drawn to the KKK's militance, but also to leaders' promises to offer members "racially pure" weekend fish frys, turkey shoots, dances, and life insurance plans. In this sense, the Klan served as an "authentically white" social and civic outlet, seeking to insulate members from a changing broader world.

The Klan's undoing in both of these eras related in part to Klan leaders' inability to maintain the delicate balancing act between such civic and social initiatives and the group's association with violence and racial terror.

Indeed, in the absence of the latter, the Klan's emphasis on secrecy and ritual would have lost much of its nefarious mystique, but KKK-style lawlessness frequently went hand-in-hand with corruption among its own leaders. More importantly, Klan violence also often resulted in a backlash against the group, both from authorities and among the broader public. Discover the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst who helped bring down gangsters and break up a Nazi spy ring in South America.

Her work helped lay the foundation for modern codebreaking today. I n the summer of , hundreds of wildfires raged across the Northern Rockies. By the time it was all over, more than three million acres had burned and at least 78 firefighters were dead.

It was the largest fire in American history. Although public mortification was presumably the point of the practice, over the years, capirote wearers began to make their hoods longer and longer, finally completely covering their faces. Thus their form came about centuries before the advent of the Ku Klux Klan. It is difficult to reconstruct how klansmen dressed in this period, as we have no photographs.

In general, the original Klan seems to have been too disorganized and decentralized to have a uniform, and its adherents marked themselves in different ways. The regalia we associate with the Klan today was adopted during the group's second iteration, in the early 20th century. One William J. Simmons of Atlanta was obsessed with fraternal societies, which were very much in vogue during the beginning of the 20th century, the height of the Temperance Movement, as wholesome alternatives to the saloon.

Simmons belonged to over a dozen organizations, worked for one of them, the Woodmen of the World, and dreamed of starting his own fraternal organization one day. In , inspired by Thomas Dixon Jr. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc. In the Frame Art history. This white hood carries many meanings. Share using Email.

By Kelly Grovier 13th April The pointy garb worn in Spain in the run-up to Easter will horrify many who see it. But this strange costume can mean many different things, writes Kelly Grovier.