https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam By: Javier Rodriguez & Maria Aguyo en-us 2017-05-11 15:48:39 UTC 2023-07-12 14:12:51 UTC hello@padlet.com rodrijav012 https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296582 Robert C. Byrd, a Democrat, was a recruiter for the Klan while in his 20s and 30s, rising to the title of Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of his local chapter. After leaving the group, Byrd spoke in favor of the Klan during his early political career. Though he claimed to have left the organization in 1943, Byrd wrote a letter in 1946 to the group's Imperial Wizard stating "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." ]]> 2017-05-11 15:57:46 UTC https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296582 rodrijav012 https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296736 The Ku Klux Klan is an American hate group, also known as the KKK, that generally promotes the supremacy of the Christian Caucasian ethnicity. They operate primarily in the Southern region. ]]> 2017-05-11 15:58:16 UTC https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296736 rodrijav012 https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296796 A group including many former Confederate veterans founded the first branch of the Ku Klux Klan as a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866. The first two words of the organization’s name supposedly derived from the Greek word “kyklos,” meaning circle. ]]> 2017-05-11 15:58:25 UTC https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296796 rodrijav012 https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296885 Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks.]]> 2017-05-11 15:58:43 UTC https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296885 rodrijav012 https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296907 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 ore politically sinister overtones, as covered 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.

D.W. Griffith's epic 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, which adapted Thomas F. Dixon, Jr.'s novels The Clansman and The Leopard's Spots to portray the KKK as heroic defenders of the Old South and white womanhood generally, drew on material from The Clansman to depict a cross-burning scene. The symbol was quickly appropriated by opportunistic KKK leaders to help spur the groups subsequent "rebirth." ]]> 2017-05-11 15:58:46 UTC https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296907 rodrijav012 https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296952 One of the rituals they are most famous for is burning the cross.  Modern Klan groups are careful to refer to their ritual as "cross lighting" rather than cross-burning and insist that their fires symbolize faith in Christ. The Klan had a specific way of introducing the youth into the lifestyle of the Klan. They have a youth program called "The Knights Party Youth Corp". This is another way in which the Klan uses propaganda just like the Neo- Nazis did during the Holocaust. ]]> 2017-05-11 15:58:58 UTC https://padlet.com/rodrijav012/v050g0q8bgam/wish/171296952