June 10, 2021
Volume 51 - No. 23
A Look in the Mirror – Past, Present & Future
The following history of the “Ku Klux Klan” and the “White Citizens’ Councils” has been compiled and edited from a number of sources, primarily from the vast research of the Internet as well as personal experiences during the “Jim Crow” era. Historically speaking, this look back on a dark and shameful period of American life reveals an ugly side of our society.
This writer has been a witness, spending short periods of several months working in southern Georgia and northern Florida. First, in the U.S. Navy stationed at NAS (Naval Air Station) Glynco near Brunswick, Georgia, (October 1958 to February 1959); and as a school teacher in Chattahoochee, Fla, (September 1967 to February 1968).
For a small-town Midwestern Yankee these experiences were a culture shock. In the deep South I witnessed the daily life of that era – that of “Jim Crow Law.” Additionally, from 1963 to 1966, I was a police officer in an Arizona metropolitan department, where I was part of a law enforcement agency that was well-led, well-trusted and admired by the public. There were no police brutality claims nor were there any backlash or riots against that department. I have witnessed a good deal of prejudice in my 80-plus years as well as decent, impartial treatment by society in general.
It should be said that racial and religious prejudices aren’t unique to America, but for more than 200 years they have occupied a good portion of our conscience, or at the very least, sub-conscience and, all too often, comments, hurtful words and physical violence put upon and hurled at peoples of minority ethnic groups.
Targets of American prejudices, in particular include, Jewish people (the religion), and various immigrants from European nations, the Irish, Hispanics Asians, and native Americans. In recent years sexual preferences and orientations have come into prejudicial focus. But all of these combined don’t equal discriminating thoughts and actions toward African-Americans, especially by many Anglo-Americans.
Ironically today, people of color and most other ethnic minorities are accepted into many levels of society. Housing, employment, management, and election to local, county, state, and federal offices are easily found … at least in most northeast, midwestern and western states … to a lesser degree in the old South. But recent racial violence has caused various backlashes by minorities, which appears to be resurrecting old preju-
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dices that are being introduced to current young people who, here to fore, had little or no knowledge of prejudicial experiences. Added to that, the forced introduction, particularly African-Americans, to various levels of management, earned or not, into many corporate entities do not help ease a tense atmosphere throughout the country. Young people are not born with bigotry, it is learned and taught. Unfortunately, things are bound to get worse before they get better. Tom Morrow
The Creation of the “Klan.”
A disgruntled group of southern Democrats, upset over the defeat of the Confederacy during the Civil War and the Resurrection period that followed, organized themselves into a terror-hate organization calling themselves the “Ku Klux Klan. Their primary targets were/are African Americans as well as Jews, immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Catholics, Muslims, atheists and liberal-thinking individuals. That pretty much covers everyone except white folks, but even Caucasian people were/are Klan targets if they support(ed) any of the above groups –
Rise and Fall of the Klan Continued on Page 2
especially African-Americans.
The Klan appealed to many problems of various groups of the day. These included: a chaotic multitude of antiblack vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers, coercive moral reformers, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline, common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even a few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal