Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, I'm Robert Evans and this is yet
Speaker 1: again Behind the Bastards, the podcast where we tell you
Speaker 1: everything you don't know about the very worst people in
Speaker 1: all of history. Now, today we are on part two
Speaker 1: of our series on the KKK, Part part my guest
Speaker 1: with me, as with Part one Katie and Cody the
Speaker 1: Stuffed News. How much network of that's the one that's here.
Speaker 1: We are. So, how you guys doing? Still still got
Speaker 1: a cold? Still good, I'm still doing well, still happy.
Speaker 1: It's two days after you heard our last episode, but
Speaker 1: it's just minutes after we recorded the last one. But
Speaker 1: in those minutes we've grabbed us a dorito or three.
Speaker 1: There are so many derritos in here there. They are interesting,
Speaker 1: they're delicious. I mean, how do you guys like the
Speaker 1: tapato ones? That's spicier than I expected, Because that's spicier
Speaker 1: than tapatio is. It's got a real kick if that's
Speaker 1: what you're looking for. Tapatia is my go to U sauce.
Speaker 1: So I'm like at crystals. I grew up with crystals hot.
Speaker 1: You know who would not have liked tapatito doritos? K
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I was hoping that was a seamless transitionless
Speaker 1: transition to the KKK. Well, then we should keep talking
Speaker 1: about tapatio. I was hoping for another reason to not
Speaker 1: like the KKK. So in Part one we talked about
Speaker 1: the Original Clan, which was a terrorist organization that started
Speaker 1: as a bunch of drunk frat boys pretending to be
Speaker 1: ghosts and turned into a murder gang headed by a
Speaker 1: former rebel general. Finding how that works. Part two we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the rise of the KKK in
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, which was an order of magnitude larger
Speaker 1: than it was in the eighteen sixties and a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot weirder. This is not going to go
Speaker 1: where you think it's going to go. This is a
Speaker 1: weird story. Keep saying that a lot harder. It's hard
Speaker 1: to a magic super excited because it's already weird. It's
Speaker 1: already weird. Our Grand Magus and our you know queen.
Speaker 1: There there's no queen, Imperial Emperor. There are some king
Speaker 1: Kleigels in this one. I don't know what a klegal is.
Speaker 1: I do. It has to deal with the Grand the
Speaker 1: Grand Kegels. The Grand Kegels came later. We're not part
Speaker 1: of the clan. They didn't come later that. That was
Speaker 1: very good, Cody, that was very witty. W We're gonna
Speaker 1: check out for the rest of the episode. You know what,
Speaker 1: just dial tone for the rest of it. You guys
Speaker 1: got your dose a comedy. You want to go get
Speaker 1: a drink. Thanks for stopping by, stopping by, all right,
Speaker 1: here's the episode. In nineteen nineteen, a pamphlet started circulating
Speaker 1: amongst the townships and villages of the American countryside. On
Speaker 1: its front was a drawing of a klansman on a
Speaker 1: rearing steed. The title was the Ku Klux Klan Yesterday, Today,
Speaker 1: and Forever. The flyer's purpose was to announce the glorious
Speaker 1: rebirth of the KKK. It opened up by defending the
Speaker 1: first clan, the ku Klux Klan. The Invisible Empire was
Speaker 1: the great idea that's capitalized of American reconstruction. We say
Speaker 1: American reconstruction for the reason that all America was affected
Speaker 1: by reconstruction influences. It actually says influences, and I guess
Speaker 1: that the racists. This is what the President models his
Speaker 1: tweets after. I was going to say more capitalizing and
Speaker 1: like the South most of all, yes, but nevertheless all
Speaker 1: all is capitalized for the great threat. Great threat is
Speaker 1: capitalized to the white race that loomed on the horizon
Speaker 1: of the South, would have spread through the entire nation
Speaker 1: had not the white robe of the ku Klux Klan
Speaker 1: kept unrevealed those courageous and devoted hearts that were consecrated
Speaker 1: to saving the Anglo Saxon civilization of our country, protecting
Speaker 1: the homes and well being of our people, and shielding
Speaker 1: the virtue of womenhood. The original ku Klux were not
Speaker 1: outlaws all caps or moral degenerates all caps, nor did
Speaker 1: they perpetual outlaw rate, which is a great way we
Speaker 1: don't use that. I really like this is the clan
Speaker 1: and they're terrible, but I really like satisfy claimant. They
Speaker 1: were men of moral and social standing, and their leaders
Speaker 1: were men of sterling character and unquestioned culture. They reverently
Speaker 1: bowed to the soul of real law all caps, and
Speaker 1: swore to enforce its principles of justice, protection, and the
Speaker 1: pursuit of happiness. That strong arm fought valiantly for the
Speaker 1: preservation of the integrity of the race against the cruelty
Speaker 1: of base, unjust and tyrannical legislations and insufferable conditions, no joke.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's formative literature for Trump. Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: he grew up reading this. He's definitely got some better
Speaker 1: words in there. I think. I mean his dad's there's
Speaker 1: rumors that he was in the clan during this. I mean,
Speaker 1: like this is the kind of and they've got drafts
Speaker 1: of these things, like laying around the Trump household when
Speaker 1: he was a kid. They got the moral degeneracy there that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although I got a promise, this is not gonna go
Speaker 1: where you're thinking now. I read a book for this episode,
Speaker 1: to the Second Coming of the KKK by Lynda Gordon.
Speaker 1: I want to advocate reading both of the books for
Speaker 1: this podcast because they're both good. But Lynda Gordon's book
Speaker 1: is really special. It is almost unbelievably dense. I've rarely
Speaker 1: in my life encountered so much information from so many
Speaker 1: different sources consolidated into a single book of this size.
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of in awe of the amount of
Speaker 1: work she must have put into it, and like how
Speaker 1: like it's it's really good. We're only using fractions of
Speaker 1: it for this episode, but it is a fantastic book,
Speaker 1: so I really recommend giving it a read if you're
Speaker 1: interested in the history of American radical right wing extremism. Now,
Speaker 1: this book claims that the second KKKS rise was directly
Speaker 1: inspired by the release of a movie, Birth of a Nation.
Speaker 1: In Birth of a Nation was a fanciful story about
Speaker 1: the first KKK and how they saved white women from
Speaker 1: Ray Peppi Friedman. It was the first film ever shown
Speaker 1: at the White House. Woodrow Wilson fucking loved it, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: it is like writing history with lightning, and my only
Speaker 1: regret is that it is also terribly true. Maybe America's
Speaker 1: where as present if you're getting this guy's opinion on it,
Speaker 1: what with the whole Nazism and and that with what
Speaker 1: with a lot of things. William Joseph Simmons, a doctor
Speaker 1: from Atlanta, Spanish American war veteran and minister, was a
Speaker 1: huge fan of the movie. When he got back from
Speaker 1: serving garrison duty during the war, he drifted around a
Speaker 1: number of jobs, showing no aptitude for anything, and joined
Speaker 1: fifteen different fraternal orders. Now, today, for rats are just
Speaker 1: something that a chunk of college kids do, But back
Speaker 1: in the day, there was very little going on, and
Speaker 1: most men were in a fraternal order of some type.
Speaker 1: Many were in multiple It was an extremely popular way
Speaker 1: to have something to do and feel like part of
Speaker 1: a community. So community is important, very important. Simmons was
Speaker 1: desperate for a community, but none of the groups he
Speaker 1: joined fit the bill. He was a fan of Birth
Speaker 1: of a Nation, and he'd been inspired by the lynching
Speaker 1: of Leo Frank, a Jewish man falsely accused of rape
Speaker 1: and murder. None of them, Bill, they weren't quite evil
Speaker 1: and fired by the lynching of It's not really inspired me, Like,
Speaker 1: what about? What about it? Simmons started reading about the
Speaker 1: original clan. He bought a copy of the original KKK prescript,
Speaker 1: mixed in a little bit of Masonism, and tried to
Speaker 1: start up his own fraternal order, essentially cause playing as
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan. Simmons is KKK was just as
Speaker 1: racist as the original, but was also differently bigoted. It
Speaker 1: ranted against quote the hairy claw of Bolshevism, socialism, syndicalism,
Speaker 1: i w W, is UM and other isms. I w W.
Speaker 1: The International Workers of the World are very influential grouping unions. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: He believed that these forces were quote seeking in an
Speaker 1: insidious but very powerful manner to undermine the very fundamentals
Speaker 1: of the nation. Yeah, first letter in nations capitalism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew this was going to be right into the
Speaker 1: vein for you. So when the KKK had last ridden,
Speaker 1: socialism had not really been a buzzword in America. Marx
Speaker 1: and Ingles had only published the Communist Manifesto in eighteen
Speaker 1: forty eight, and ship traveled slowly back then. Social democratic
Speaker 1: parties were starting to become a thing in Europe by
Speaker 1: the late eighteen sixties, but most of the US was
Speaker 1: off doing its own thing. The assassination of William McKinley
Speaker 1: by a Polish American anarchist in nineteen o one really
Speaker 1: helped to pour gas on that whole fire. Simmons started
Speaker 1: advertising for KKK two, this time It's Clannier. In nineteen fifteen.
Speaker 1: He fully reloaded or Electric Boogaloo. You know, you pick
Speaker 1: your you pick your own sequel title, KKK Harder, you
Speaker 1: know whatever there's there's. In his promotional materials, he described
Speaker 1: it as quote a classy order of the highest class, capitalized,
Speaker 1: no class man, no roughnecks, rowdies, nor yellow streaks. Real
Speaker 1: men whose oaths are inviolate are needed. His oats are inviolate,
Speaker 1: inviolate in violent. Yeah, they're not going to break their
Speaker 1: oaths and their bond class of higher class, very good class,
Speaker 1: very classiest men. It was not exactly an instant hit.
Speaker 1: Only a few dozen people signed up at first. Simmons
Speaker 1: went out of his way to find a few very
Speaker 1: old former clansmen to join. He proclaimed himself the Imperial
Speaker 1: Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and
Speaker 1: started holding meetings. Now, unlike the original clan, they didn't
Speaker 1: start off doing anything out in the world. This was
Speaker 1: just a place where grown men went to engage in
Speaker 1: weird ass quasi magical rituals with other masked men. It
Speaker 1: was LARPing. LARPing as the KKK, who were themselves larpert
Speaker 1: circle circles, circle circle circles inside of circles exactly. Now.
Speaker 1: In order to codify some of these rituals and established
Speaker 1: standards for his new organization, Simmons published the KKKS Holy
Speaker 1: Book in nine guys want to guess what it was? Called?
Speaker 1: The uh Clanmicon, the tone of the the Martian demon
Speaker 1: clanonomy Goblin. What is it? The Kloranl's that's so bad.
Speaker 1: You can find the whole chloron online. It's it's it
Speaker 1: is beyond parody. Everything about this episode is beyond parody.
Speaker 1: I'm just I can't tell you how excited I am
Speaker 1: literally jumping out of his now. Yeah again, you can
Speaker 1: read it for yourself if you decide that as an
Speaker 1: experience that will spark joy in your life. It is online.
Speaker 1: I'll put the link in the thing. It's all there now.
Speaker 1: The Kloran promises education in character spelled with the K
Speaker 1: and no age, honor and duty, not spelling, though not
Speaker 1: definitely not spelling never been one of the KKK strong points.
Speaker 1: To give you some info on the organization's founding principles,
Speaker 1: I would like to read y'all the Ku Klux Creed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, of course it's stilled with a K. We
Speaker 1: The Order of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
Speaker 1: reverentially acknowledge the majesty and supremacy of the Divine Being,
Speaker 1: and recognize the goodness and providence of the same. We
Speaker 1: recognize our relation to the government of the United States
Speaker 1: of America, the supremacy of its constitution, the Union of States,
Speaker 1: they're under and the constitutional laws thereof, And we shall
Speaker 1: ever be ever devoted to the sublime principles of a
Speaker 1: pure Americanism and valiant to the defense of its ideals
Speaker 1: and institutions. We avowed the distinction between the races of
Speaker 1: mankind as same has been decreed by the Creator, and
Speaker 1: we shall ever be true to the faithful maintenance of
Speaker 1: white supremacy, and will strenuously oppose any compromise thereof in
Speaker 1: any and all things by the Creator. Citation needed. One
Speaker 1: of the things that has pointed out in the fantastic
Speaker 1: Linda Gordon book The Second Coming of the KKK is
Speaker 1: that this was not radical the time, the KKK was
Speaker 1: speaking very much to the majority of white Americans, and
Speaker 1: that is very important for everything that comes. The ideology
Speaker 1: of this group is not fringe in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. They're preaching to the choir. They are not
Speaker 1: radicalizing people, and that's critical. No one's getting radicalized here.
Speaker 1: Everyone's a white supremacist while I'm gonna start a white
Speaker 1: supremacy group. Yeah. Now, about two thirds of the Kloran
Speaker 1: is made up of incredibly dense, utterly preposterous ceremonies. I'm
Speaker 1: going to read a quick and random exerpt from the
Speaker 1: clans naturalization ritual A k A. Their induction of new members,
Speaker 1: so you can have an understanding of the special tenor
Speaker 1: of this ni unreadable tone. Cody, you look so excited.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read all the titles. So starting off,
Speaker 1: we have the Clad speaking with K L A D D.
Speaker 1: Were the aliens from the world of selfishness and fraternal
Speaker 1: alienation prompted by unselfish motive desire the honor of citizenship
Speaker 1: in the invisible empire and the fellowship of klansmen, to
Speaker 1: which the klexter responds, Has your party been selected with care?
Speaker 1: To which the Clad responds. These men are known or
Speaker 1: vouched for by klansmen in clonclave as symboled clon. The
Speaker 1: Cluxter responds, have they the marks? The Clad asks or says.
Speaker 1: The distinguishing marks of a klansmen are not found in
Speaker 1: the fiber of his garments or his social or financial standing,
Speaker 1: but are spiritual, namely, a chivalric head, a compassionate heart,
Speaker 1: a prudent tongue, and a courageous will, all devoted to
Speaker 1: our country, our clan, our homes in each other. These
Speaker 1: are the distinguishing marks of the klansmen, Oh, faithful Clxter,
Speaker 1: and these men claim the marks. The Clxter next says,
Speaker 1: what if one of your party should prove himself a traitor,
Speaker 1: to which the claud says, he would be immediately banished
Speaker 1: and disgrace from the invisible empire without fear or favor.
Speaker 1: Conscience would tenaciously torment him, Remorse would repeatedly revile him,
Speaker 1: and direful things would befall him. The cluster asks, do
Speaker 1: they know all this? The claud says, all this, they
Speaker 1: now know, they have heard, and they must heed. Klexter says,
Speaker 1: faithful clad, you speak the truth. I'm gonna be gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of caves. It's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of kys going on, a bunch of bunch of real dorms.
Speaker 1: It's not even that racist, Like there's a little bit
Speaker 1: about white supremacy in there, but it's mostly just really
Speaker 1: dense nonsense rituals, likening sprint here and there like you
Speaker 1: do with cilantro. Yeah. Yeah, Now, the first two thirds
Speaker 1: or so of the Kloran are made up of frustrating,
Speaker 1: stupid rituals. How you open and closed meetings etcetera. Then
Speaker 1: at the end of the book, Simmons wrote a lecture.
Speaker 1: It reads like a particularly bad D and D source
Speaker 1: book written by a racist. Here's him describing the South
Speaker 1: prior to the rise of the First Clan. Ignorance, lust
Speaker 1: and hate, all capitalized sees the reigns of the state,
Speaker 1: capitalized and riot, rapine and universal ruin reigns supreme. The
Speaker 1: highest form of cultured society was thrust down at its
Speaker 1: noble neck, was forced under the iron heel of pernicious passion,
Speaker 1: who yielded a potent scepter of inquisitorial oppression, and the
Speaker 1: very blood of the Caucasian race was seriously threatened with
Speaker 1: everlasting contamination. I would have been a would have been
Speaker 1: a pretty good clan. Later back, Yeah, you really really,
Speaker 1: I got that voice down, I know it. Don't don't
Speaker 1: explore that too much spoil We're about to get to
Speaker 1: in Evans really prominently here. Yeah. An important thing to
Speaker 1: realize about the nineteen twenties clan is that while they
Speaker 1: were racist, they were first and foremost a social order.
Speaker 1: Their meetings probably weren't any more racist than the average
Speaker 1: Masonic meeting at the time. We have minutes from a
Speaker 1: lot of individual clavern meetings. Individual groups were called a clavern,
Speaker 1: and many of them never because they were so cool.
Speaker 1: Lynda Gordon points that that many of them never even
Speaker 1: brought up racial subjects other than in like passing. So
Speaker 1: the Second Clan was racist, but not more racist than
Speaker 1: mainstream society. It didn't stand out now. Simmons ran the
Speaker 1: clan for five years, and as with every other endeavor
Speaker 1: in his life, he was bad at it. During his reign,
Speaker 1: the group had only one public outing, a march of
Speaker 1: the Veterans Parade that included twenty black men. He paid
Speaker 1: to put on robes in order to pat out his numbers,
Speaker 1: like whatever you do, do not take this, not take
Speaker 1: but as a point, like it's not the racism is
Speaker 1: in the focus, because he's clearly like, wow, I just
Speaker 1: want us to look big, right, want my club to
Speaker 1: be cool. I want everyone to show up my cool club.
Speaker 1: That's very cool, very cool. So he did make enough
Speaker 1: money to buy Baptist Lanier University in Atlanta because it
Speaker 1: was heavily in debt, and he tried to turn it
Speaker 1: into a whites only university for racists. Twenty five people
Speaker 1: enrolled and it went bankrupt. So Simmons was forced to
Speaker 1: go looking for help. Fraud universities, huhd universities. So Simmons,
Speaker 1: he's going bankrupt the KKKS and severe debt. He's got
Speaker 1: to go find help. And he found it when he
Speaker 1: met two veterans of the fairly new PR industry, Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Tyler and Edward Young Clark. They ran a publicity agency
Speaker 1: that had already helped the Anti Saloon League on its
Speaker 1: rise to prominence. Clark's dad had been a Federate colonel
Speaker 1: and on the Atlantic Constitution and influential newspaper. Elizabeth was
Speaker 1: his wife. She'd grown up poor and married at fifteen.
Speaker 1: And if you ignore the whole helping to found the
Speaker 1: KKK of it all, she's a pretty inspiring feminist story.
Speaker 1: It's hard to know that other party. It's really harding
Speaker 1: clan part. Here's the second coming of the KKK quote.
Speaker 1: The team saw a lucrative client and Simmons's new clan group.
Speaker 1: The minute we said ku klux, Tyler recalled editors from
Speaker 1: all over the United States began literally pressing us for publicity.
Speaker 1: By nineteen twenty, she and Clark had convinced Simmons that
Speaker 1: they could grow his new clan, that it had national potential.
Speaker 1: To realize that potential, it had to multiply its bigotry.
Speaker 1: The alleged threat from black people would not reverberate among
Speaker 1: Northerners at a time when so few African Americans lived
Speaker 1: outside the Southeast, so Simmons hired them, signing a contract
Speaker 1: that gave Clark and Tyler an astonishing eighty percent of
Speaker 1: any revenue they brought in from new recruits. Since Simmons
Speaker 1: had gotten nowhere with his new organization, he undoubtedly thought
Speaker 1: that he had nothing to lose in giving them fourfeits
Speaker 1: of anything they could bring in. Tyler and Clark became
Speaker 1: in practice head of the clan for two years now.
Speaker 1: They turned Simmons into a polished speaker, engendering and exploiting fear.
Speaker 1: He would warn that degenerative forces were destroying the American
Speaker 1: way of life. These were not only black people, but
Speaker 1: also Jews, Catholics, and immigrants, the big city dwellers who
Speaker 1: were tempting Americans with immoral pleasures sex, alcohol, in music,
Speaker 1: notably jazz. Choice of music there, interesting choice of music.
Speaker 1: We're almost to the big reveal very excited. Like the
Speaker 1: original clan, the Second KKK used newspapers to stoke the
Speaker 1: buzz around their organization. Simmons would give exclusive interviews where
Speaker 1: he came across as super suave and cool, and the
Speaker 1: clans membership would grow. Newspapers ran advertisements that included KKK
Speaker 1: application forms, press releases ran like rain on front pages
Speaker 1: of the nation. By the summer of nineteen twenty one,
Speaker 1: the new KKK reported a membership of eight hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand. Now this is almost certainly an exaggeration, but
Speaker 1: the real number was surely in the hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 1: Incredible growth over roughly a year of PR blitzes. And
Speaker 1: this is where it gets fun. The story sort of splits.
Speaker 1: One half is the tale of the various assault and
Speaker 1: murders and attempted political coups by clansmen over the next
Speaker 1: several years, and the other story, the bigger story, is
Speaker 1: the tale of the clan's true purpose. It was an MLM,
Speaker 1: a multi level marketing scheme. It was amid the KKK,
Speaker 1: the Second KKK. It was a motherfucking cayramids. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: Wait if he didn't literally read the headlines like the
Speaker 1: dapper k there's a shipload of those. Yeah. Now we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about how the clan became a pyramid scheme,
Speaker 1: but first we're gonna talk about some things that are
Speaker 1: legitimate products and services, the products and services that advertise
Speaker 1: on this show and or content platform. M hmm, I
Speaker 1: did it by Derrito's We're back. We just had a
Speaker 1: handful of tapatio de ritos, which are spicing our way
Speaker 1: through this tale of racism and profiting off of phrase
Speaker 1: so grifting racists. What excuse me, M L limbs in
Speaker 1: the far right, I am surprised. I'm going to leave
Speaker 1: right now because I'm so spurious. I've had a great
Speaker 1: Harvard paper called Hatred and Profits under the Hood of
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan. I'm gonna quote from that now.
Speaker 1: The organizational structure of the Ku Klux Klan in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, designed by the Propagation Department, was a hybrid
Speaker 1: that combined features of other fraternal orders with a multi
Speaker 1: level marketing firm, with two distinct sets of reporting hierarchies
Speaker 1: that operated more or less independently. One hierarchy was made
Speaker 1: up of the clan's members from the lowliest rank and
Speaker 1: file to the highest leadership. This hierarchy corresponds to the
Speaker 1: social club aspect of the clan, the arm that intimidated
Speaker 1: the blacks and foreigners and attempted to influence political outcomes.
Speaker 1: In addition, however, was a nearly invisible parallel hierarchy of
Speaker 1: clan recruiters organized like a modern multi level marketing firm,
Speaker 1: which represents the financial arm of the plan. This highly
Speaker 1: incentivized sales force was responsible for recruiting new members to
Speaker 1: the clan, and almost all of the financial rewards accrued
Speaker 1: to either the handful of top leaders or the individuals
Speaker 1: in this auxiliary hierarchy. It was a money making scheme
Speaker 1: made up like PR hacks is fascinating. Yeah, it's sucking wild, right,
Speaker 1: I hadn't have so many emotions, some of them confect
Speaker 1: with each other. Uh, this is amazing. It's a great scam.
Speaker 1: It's an objectively great scam effect an effective scam. Um.
Speaker 1: Take note. Clark and Tyler, the PR agents who made
Speaker 1: the KKK grade again, brought in more than eight hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars in their first fifteen months. That
Speaker 1: is roughly ten million dollars and slightly over a year. Now,
Speaker 1: Simmons got a much smaller cut of this, but he's
Speaker 1: still got rich. They even gave him a twenty five
Speaker 1: grand bonus, which was like three dollars. Good for him.
Speaker 1: He he was like six years you know. Now, this
Speaker 1: money came from a variety of places, which I will
Speaker 1: get to in a second, but it's important to know
Speaker 1: that Simmons, Clark, and Tyler were all pushed out by
Speaker 1: nineteen two. Simmons was bought out and another new guy
Speaker 1: named Hiram Evans was made the Imperial Wizard. He'd been
Speaker 1: hired as a recruiter initially, but once he was the
Speaker 1: Imperial Wizard, he was able to fire Clark and Tyler,
Speaker 1: which he did so. The people responsible for actually getting
Speaker 1: the second KKK off the ground weren't around for most
Speaker 1: of what happens next, but they set all of this
Speaker 1: into motion and they got rich off of it. The
Speaker 1: KKK would have died with Simmons indebted and disgraced, but
Speaker 1: that is distinctly not what happened. These two pr wonderkins
Speaker 1: had created an incredible profit making model, one that would
Speaker 1: act as a cash spigot for a bunch of greedy
Speaker 1: racists and caned millions of Americans in the process, so
Speaker 1: tail as oldest time, tailor as oldest time. First off,
Speaker 1: here's how the clan was organized is from that Harvard
Speaker 1: paper quote. The Grand Wizard or Emperor just the nominal
Speaker 1: chair of the body, with the Imperial Wizard acting as
Speaker 1: the chief executive and aided by a fifteen member Imperial Cloncilium.
Speaker 1: These included the Claliff first vice President, the classic second
Speaker 1: vice president of the Cloak card lock Shore, the clud Chaplain,
Speaker 1: the click Rap Secretary, the Clayby Treasurer, the Clad Clayby,
Speaker 1: the clad Conductor, the clarago a tin Man inner Guard,
Speaker 1: the Clexter, the outer Guard, the Clonsole General Counsel, the
Speaker 1: Nighthawk Courier, and the four cloakn auditors. These individuals were
Speaker 1: responsible for keeping the clan's books, providing in house legal advice,
Speaker 1: and serving as a clan cabinet. Did you like bananas
Speaker 1: plug racism into like a random letter generator and just
Speaker 1: like what some of those are even based off real word?
Speaker 1: What is the click rap like claf okay, like you
Speaker 1: clearly the chlorine? What the fund is a clud or
Speaker 1: I'm still stuck on the cleat um. I'm also ashamed
Speaker 1: to share an initial with this. It has been ruined
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, you only got one K. Though you
Speaker 1: only got one K. If you were the KKK, you'd
Speaker 1: have like a shiploaded ka clad clo. Yeah no, and
Speaker 1: that's still one shy and I don't even want to
Speaker 1: go down that. Back back to the story, the clan's
Speaker 1: worldwide operations were split up into several realms, one for
Speaker 1: each state, each run by a Grand Dragon. The states,
Speaker 1: the states, I don't know. Man. At the bottom of
Speaker 1: the organization were the Ghouls, organized into claverns, which were
Speaker 1: headed by Exalted cyclopses. Not did you see does a
Speaker 1: the goals Exalted cycles The Exalted Cyclops heads a clavern. Yeahs,
Speaker 1: like like they know, like like gnomes, Like like why
Speaker 1: would you just like say you were goals. Goals make
Speaker 1: up a clavin Googles, Googles make up a clavern. There
Speaker 1: the rank and file of the clansmen, sorry, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: and they're headed by a grand Grand Cyclops. Is absolutely
Speaker 1: more than I ever wanted to know. I Exalted Cyclops,
Speaker 1: these are like getting get that right to these things.
Speaker 1: I'm never going to forget and I'm not copy about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it's stuck there forever. Now. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: think about the KKK is a political or militant organization.
Speaker 1: Outside of the silly names, this structure makes sense. But
Speaker 1: once you understand the financial dimensions, well, it becomes very
Speaker 1: clearly a Pyramids game quote. Clan members generated an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of revenue each Google paid a ten dollar initiation
Speaker 1: fee equivalent to a hundred and ten and two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven dollars six fifty to buy an official clan robe,
Speaker 1: which costs roughly two dollars to make, an annual membership
Speaker 1: fee of five dollars, an imperial tax of a dollar
Speaker 1: eighty and Klansmen were also encouraged to purchase other clan
Speaker 1: sanctioned merchandise, including swords, bibles, helmets, dry cleaning, and life insurance.
Speaker 1: Joined the clan was not a cheap undertaking. Using the
Speaker 1: numbers above, the first year of membership cost twenty three
Speaker 1: thirty roughly two hundred and fifty dollars in two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven dollars, and subsequent years were six dollars and eighty
Speaker 1: cents approximately seventy five dollars in two thousand eleven dollars.
Speaker 1: At its peak in nineteen four, the clan conservatively generated
Speaker 1: annual revenue from all sources of at least twenty five million,
Speaker 1: equivalent to three hundred million in current dollars. Only a
Speaker 1: small portion of this revenue was required to fund basic operations.
Speaker 1: It was a Pyramids game, it was it was. It
Speaker 1: was a racist Pyramids game. And I'm sorry. The dry
Speaker 1: cleaning was that for the rope. You gotta keep those
Speaker 1: white robes clean. You ever worn a white robe, quick, Katie,
Speaker 1: it's gonna haven't you know? I haven't a white as
Speaker 1: about it though. Yeah. The problems that come from wearing
Speaker 1: drink shoppy one you like, bloody up somebody everything, It
Speaker 1: shows everything everything, especially racist. Where the swords like Brandon,
Speaker 1: It's like yeah, yeah, there were course there were branded swords.
Speaker 1: Fullest question. This economic growth was possible thanks to an
Speaker 1: enormous sales force started nineteen twenty one by r PR
Speaker 1: Friends and soon over a thousand people strong. Each Grand Dragon,
Speaker 1: the state clan heads got to fifty out of each
Speaker 1: ten dollar membership fee. Members also paid a one dollar
Speaker 1: yearly tax, which went to the Grand Dragon. Fifty cents
Speaker 1: of every six dollar and fifty cent clan roade went
Speaker 1: to him as well, So the Grand Dragons make bank,
Speaker 1: and so did the sales force. The US is split
Speaker 1: into nine domains, with a goblin in charge of recruitment.
Speaker 1: For each, the goblin hires a King Klegal who hires
Speaker 1: a bunch of Klegal's the regular grunt sales force of
Speaker 1: the endeavor. They made four dollars off of each membership.
Speaker 1: The remaining three fifty was sent up the recruiting structure,
Speaker 1: with the person in charge of sales in the state,
Speaker 1: the King Klegal getting a dollar, the regional sales overseer
Speaker 1: a great Goblin, got five cents, the national sales overseer
Speaker 1: and Imperial Kleigal got a dollar twenty five, and the
Speaker 1: two most powerful men in the clan, the Imperial Wizard
Speaker 1: and the Grand Wizard, split se They were doing that
Speaker 1: for the whole country. Kleigels were paid for recruiting new members,
Speaker 1: and once someone joined, none of the ongoing revenues went
Speaker 1: to the sales force, so the big cheeses. The ongoing
Speaker 1: revenue is where it's at, so the salesforce gets a
Speaker 1: cut of the initial went whenever recruits someone and then
Speaker 1: the big cheeses get anything else that they buy. So
Speaker 1: the Invisible Empire sold robes, flags, dry cleaning services, candy,
Speaker 1: every kind of thing. Imagine, I'm gonna quote again from
Speaker 1: the second Coming of the Ku klux Klan quote a
Speaker 1: klux ER's nifty knife every word in that has felt
Speaker 1: with a K, which was described as a quote real
Speaker 1: hundred percent knife for hundred percent Americans could be bought
Speaker 1: for a dollar five. A member could buy a broach
Speaker 1: for his wife, A zircon studded fiery cross. A larger
Speaker 1: cross that a man could wear on the watch chain
Speaker 1: he displayed across his chest cost two ninety. For only
Speaker 1: five dollars, you could get allegedly a fourteen carrot gold
Speaker 1: filled ring with a tin care It's solid gold clan
Speaker 1: emblem on a fiery red stone. Also for sale, we're
Speaker 1: phonograph records and player piano rolls with clan songs. Advertisements
Speaker 1: for this merchandise appeared to newspapers across the country and
Speaker 1: in flyers at large clon vocations. The Clans for Profit
Speaker 1: Life Insurance Plan claimed three million dollars with the policies
Speaker 1: in nine, a dubious figure. It claimed to provide burial
Speaker 1: insurance as well, but the service never actually materialized because
Speaker 1: it was a scamp. Now the KKK also offered a
Speaker 1: spectacular vacation getaway. I found an ad from sometimes It's well,
Speaker 1: just you wait, I'm gonna hand you the ad Katie,
Speaker 1: and you can describe it to the readers. Now. It's
Speaker 1: from some time in the twenties Duke University, which is
Speaker 1: where I found this host. It didn't know exactly win
Speaker 1: and it talks about you know what, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna describe this ad Katie, a right to
Speaker 1: all the clans and clansmen of Texas. And then there's
Speaker 1: like a little image it says cool Coast Camp, the
Speaker 1: healthiest road to the coolest summer. Are all those words
Speaker 1: spelled with a K, Cool Coast every yes, every single
Speaker 1: one that you could imagine, and the coolest summer, Cool
Speaker 1: Coast Clan Camp, the healthiest road to the coolest summer.
Speaker 1: To read some of this things, yeah, you're getting a
Speaker 1: little bit of that ad copy. While I greetings we
Speaker 1: the grand Dragons of the Realm of Texas and the
Speaker 1: great Titans of the five Provinces in Texas, Knights of
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan hereby officially endorsed the annexed proposition
Speaker 1: of Klansmen C. T. Gilliam of this is the realm
Speaker 1: of Texas, the realm of Texas. Really into that he
Speaker 1: proposes to give a high class service to the Klansmen
Speaker 1: of Texas at a minimum cost. Yeah. Right. That goes
Speaker 1: on back to you what a knife? That says knife?
Speaker 1: You know my favorite things to heart against it being
Speaker 1: like you don't know, you, you don't know, you don't
Speaker 1: know what it's cut. The clan would have hated Swiss,
Speaker 1: They would have hated a swisser because Swiss army knife.
Speaker 1: That's like race mixing for tools. They're a threat to
Speaker 1: knife civilization. Now. The Cool Coast camp AD is a
Speaker 1: really fun document to read. For one thing, it brags
Speaker 1: repeatedly and pointedly about how much shade their beaches because
Speaker 1: everybody is really white. Guess what it recommends as the
Speaker 1: most sensible thing to wear. She a big Mexican sombrero.
Speaker 1: What is that? Like? Those are the exact words, Those
Speaker 1: are the exact words, Mexican sombrero. Oh, there is no
Speaker 1: shortage of bigotry in the ad, but it is kind
Speaker 1: of the classic wholesome, mainstream nineties American bigotry as opposed
Speaker 1: to what we would expect from the clan today. I'm
Speaker 1: going to read, for example, a section idled the family
Speaker 1: that's sort of advertising this camp to the rest of
Speaker 1: the family. Wonderful Mother's This camp spelled with the K
Speaker 1: is deeded to you. So cool, so RESTful, no work whatsoever,
Speaker 1: no drudgery, no worry. The fiery Cross guards you at nights,
Speaker 1: and an officer of the law with the same Christian
Speaker 1: sentiment guards carefully all portals. Beautiful daughter, A beautiful camp
Speaker 1: needs beautiful ornaments, no dust to avoid, shades natural and
Speaker 1: shades artificial to keep away the freckles. Cool with a
Speaker 1: K in every way, the time of your life, and
Speaker 1: all caps. Put a bug in Daddy's ear and hug
Speaker 1: him tight. He will let you come. The sentiment reflected
Speaker 1: through humanity by the rays of the Fiery Cross makes
Speaker 1: you as safe in our camp as at home. And
Speaker 1: mother's arms. Mother's arms is capitalized too. The prize of
Speaker 1: a concrete Lizzie no idea, I have no idea. No.
Speaker 1: The only thing with the sea that spelled with the sea,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the concrete Lizzie is. But that
Speaker 1: was the prize given any person who could find a
Speaker 1: more wonderful spot in America that this is a sex thing. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's a fucking thing. They were all funk guys in
Speaker 1: the K a concrete Lizzie age. Oh no, all right, yeah,
Speaker 1: at a low cost, at an affordable cost cost. It's
Speaker 1: affordable cost because Texas coast is kind of shitty. The
Speaker 1: realm of Texas, Texas does not have a nice coast.
Speaker 1: Speaking as a Texan, don't go to Galveston, all right,
Speaker 1: that wasn't a concern. Good good. The KKK recognized that
Speaker 1: children represented an incredible potential market so far untapped by
Speaker 1: the powers of commercial racism. They opened three auxiliary groups
Speaker 1: for children. The Junior KKK, starting in ninety three, was
Speaker 1: literally just a child's version of the KKK. One new
Speaker 1: Junior k KK chapter announced its opening by blowing a
Speaker 1: horn and lighting across and the leather j on fire.
Speaker 1: Oh no no. For young girls, there was the try
Speaker 1: K club. Club is spelled with the K, modeled after
Speaker 1: popular sororities at the time. Now, there was plenty of
Speaker 1: racism in the try K. Historian Christina du Rocher described
Speaker 1: the central message of their propaganda as quote, white girls
Speaker 1: should remove themselves from contact with all blacks, a passive
Speaker 1: way of preserving white supremacy. But the tri K Club
Speaker 1: was first and foremost a social club. I found an
Speaker 1: illustrated collection of the KKK sheet music on Google Books
Speaker 1: because Internet, and it included the ritual of the tri
Speaker 1: K Club, which seems like it was probably patterned off
Speaker 1: the Cluron. It includes a pledged song of this racism sorority.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read just the first verse. We pledged you
Speaker 1: our friendship true through happiness and tears. The tie that
Speaker 1: binds our hearts to you will hold throughout the years.
Speaker 1: Beneath this flag that waves, above this cross that lights
Speaker 1: our way, you will always find a sister's love in
Speaker 1: the heart of each tri K. I'm I got no,
Speaker 1: this is this is good for? Yeah? Yeah, burning cross
Speaker 1: is a little weird. Yeah it was. Yeah. You don't
Speaker 1: know how why it's lit up. It's just illuminated in flame. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's weird. How prescient you're saying that is about to
Speaker 1: be now. Hiram Evans, who ousted the pr People at
Speaker 1: the end of nineteen twenty two, and became the next
Speaker 1: Imperial Wizard. Still wanted to make money, but he was
Speaker 1: also someone for whom straight up racism was a huge
Speaker 1: part of the appeal. Here's the second coming of the KKK.
Speaker 1: His first career as a dentist might seem modest. One
Speaker 1: of his rivals liked to call him a tooth puller,
Speaker 1: and he took advantage of the impression, calling himself the
Speaker 1: most average man in America so as to normalize the clan.
Speaker 1: His short, plump stature added to his everyman image. In fact,
Speaker 1: he was capable of serious violence, and Dallas, where he
Speaker 1: joined the clan in nineteen twenty, he had organized black
Speaker 1: squads that kidnapped and tortured at least one black man. Dallas,
Speaker 1: by the way, used to be known as the most
Speaker 1: racist city in America around this time, the city of hate,
Speaker 1: and it was actually a really cool story. The Dallas
Speaker 1: Morning News crippled the clan in that city by like
Speaker 1: having reporters find where their meetings were and takedown notes
Speaker 1: of all of the license plates they saw to like
Speaker 1: figure out which elected members and who was in the clan,
Speaker 1: and like published that ship like morning News did a
Speaker 1: lot of damage to the k docs, the docks, the
Speaker 1: fucking fascists. Yeah, did a great job. So yeah, Dallas
Speaker 1: Morning News is anti fall. I guess Evans decided that
Speaker 1: the clan should be more than an MLM, It should
Speaker 1: be a political party. He moved the KKKS headquarters to
Speaker 1: d C and established a magazine, Fellowship Forum, that was
Speaker 1: not explicitly tied to the KKK, but existed to further
Speaker 1: its political aims. The Fellowship Forum build itself is standing
Speaker 1: for pure Americanism. There were also in a number of
Speaker 1: the documents I read the sentiment America First, which I
Speaker 1: apparently came from the KKK before it became the center
Speaker 1: of Charles Lindberg's organization. You found that on a lot
Speaker 1: their documents. There was also just recently come out that
Speaker 1: there was talk about a wall at one of the
Speaker 1: big colon vacations they held like a guy talking about
Speaker 1: we need a silver wall and keep out immigrants, but
Speaker 1: he was not talking about one at the Mexican border.
Speaker 1: He was talking about a wall of laws to stop
Speaker 1: people from like Italy. They really hated Catholics, um so racist,
Speaker 1: but different different fundamental concepts. Lifted dress it up a
Speaker 1: little differently, put it over there, one of the Mexicans,
Speaker 1: because they need stay in the shade when you go
Speaker 1: to the cool coast. Scared. Oh good god. Soon after
Speaker 1: chaking charge, Evans realized that the leader of the Indiana KKK,
Speaker 1: David Stevenson, had some potential. He put him in charge
Speaker 1: of recruitment for seven states. Here's that book again. I'm
Speaker 1: nobody from nowhere, really, but I've got the biggest brains,
Speaker 1: he boasted. I'm going to be the biggest man in
Speaker 1: the United States. But Stevenson was a fraud several times over.
Speaker 1: He claimed to be the millionaire son of a wealthy
Speaker 1: businessman and who have earned a decoration for bravery in
Speaker 1: World War One. In fact, he was the son of
Speaker 1: a Texas sharecropper. His education at a parochial school ended
Speaker 1: with the eighth grade, and his stint with the army
Speaker 1: was as a recruiter in Iowa. He boasted of owning
Speaker 1: a wholesale coal supply and auto accessory companies, but in
Speaker 1: fact worked as a salesman for someone else's coal company.
Speaker 1: He married at least three women, drank, heavily, got into fights,
Speaker 1: beat his wives, and attempted to rape several other women,
Speaker 1: but the motherfucker could talk and convince people to join
Speaker 1: the KKK, so he stayed. Under his leadership. Twenty three
Speaker 1: percent of the native born white men in southern Indiana
Speaker 1: joined the KKK. He refused to be called by his name,
Speaker 1: going by the Old Man. Stevenson made millions off of
Speaker 1: his racist down line and was able to buy a
Speaker 1: mansion and a yacht. We'll come back to him later.
Speaker 1: He does get his just desserts. So he wasn't comfortable
Speaker 1: with all the lofty titles. The old Man, the old Man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the biggest man in America. Yeah. For
Speaker 1: a good long while in the early nineteen twenties, the
Speaker 1: Ku Klux Clan was everywhere. At its height, as many
Speaker 1: as four million Americans, roughly four percent of the country
Speaker 1: were members. It is to this day the largest explicitly
Speaker 1: racist organization in American history, if you don't count the Confederacy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: four million. Now, the clan did not draw in that
Speaker 1: many members by focusing on the racism up front. Was
Speaker 1: always there a calm backdraft in their propaganda and at
Speaker 1: every outing. But they knew you'd catch more flies with
Speaker 1: honey than with water. Enter the clon vacations. These were
Speaker 1: gigantic outdoor events, akin to massive state fairs or even carnivals,
Speaker 1: which they held in order to draw in new members
Speaker 1: and foster solidarity with clans members. Here's how the Nation
Speaker 1: described one such gathering. On July four nine, for instance,
Speaker 1: a crowd estimated it between fifty thousand and two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand attended a clan picnic in Cocomo, Indiana. The clon
Speaker 1: vocation boasted six tons of beef, fifty five thousand buns,
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred pies, and five thousand cases of soda.
Speaker 1: Children had their own play center, while adults could take
Speaker 1: their pick of entertainments, including a boys singing quartet, a
Speaker 1: talkie film so his performers, a six round boxing match,
Speaker 1: and a daredevil who performed aerial acrobatics on the wing
Speaker 1: of a circling plane. Yeah, all right, it sounds like,
Speaker 1: sounds like and that was the idea we hold this,
Speaker 1: not like we're going to try to get all the races,
Speaker 1: but like we're just holding throw a big party for
Speaker 1: white people and then maybe they want to join the
Speaker 1: clan and then we'll get more money. Yeah, thousand burgers.
Speaker 1: They also charged admission and stuff. They made a profit
Speaker 1: like fifteen twenty grand, which three dollars as a shipload. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they cleaned up. And the biggest of these was in
Speaker 1: twenty four had like two thousand people show up, the
Speaker 1: largest clan gathering ever and like a lot of people
Speaker 1: didn't know it was necessarily like, oh, this is like
Speaker 1: for the clan stuff. It's like no, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go to a fund. But it was like it was
Speaker 1: like it's the clan. It's yeah. It wasn't weird then,
Speaker 1: like that people met and fell in love there. I
Speaker 1: bet they did that. A lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: clan babies, a lot of clon vocation kiddies. Wasn't the
Speaker 1: reason pull like about like the number of people in
Speaker 1: America who like are okay with white supremacy and neo
Speaker 1: Nazis and stuff, And it was about four p s
Speaker 1: something like that, thank you. It's about i'd really like
Speaker 1: recently like last year, yeah, which is a lot of
Speaker 1: racists In fucking Toronto, twenty three thousand people voted for
Speaker 1: Faith Goldie and explicitly neo Nazi candidate Canadians, So and
Speaker 1: they're Canadians. Things are going well, things are going great.
Speaker 1: Wasn't like a fun barbecue to go to. So it's
Speaker 1: with thousands of buns, thousands of speaking of thousands of buns. Ads,
Speaker 1: we're back. We're talking about Clon Vocations, the KKKS primary
Speaker 1: method of recruiting new klansmen. I hate these words. Way
Speaker 1: too many ks being set up in here. I slightly
Speaker 1: cringe every time cringe with the k Yeah, clingel. Large
Speaker 1: cross burnings were also held at Clon vocations, but unlike
Speaker 1: the first and ladder types of cross burnings that were
Speaker 1: familiar with to day, these were not primarily hateful spectacles.
Speaker 1: So like a cross burning is like the most racist
Speaker 1: thing you can do. These were not like they were
Speaker 1: pro Protestant and everyone knew the clan was anti Catholic.
Speaker 1: But the cross burnings were more like a fireworks show,
Speaker 1: like they would they would compete to see who could
Speaker 1: build the biggest like crossing which were like fifty ft tasson,
Speaker 1: which were too big to even burn. They would like
Speaker 1: funk up. Sometimes they would make gigantic crosses and covering
Speaker 1: with light bulbs, like it was like a look at
Speaker 1: this cool thing that we're doing a little bit of
Speaker 1: that because they weren't like going to like black people's
Speaker 1: houses and putting them on their lawns. Like that may
Speaker 1: have happened out in the Sticks sometimes, but like the
Speaker 1: main purpose was to like entertain people. That was the
Speaker 1: goal of the Cross things. Um, so this context, but
Speaker 1: when you're out in the wild much more usually we
Speaker 1: will be getting to that. I will be talking about
Speaker 1: the violence and stuff. But from what I read, cross
Speaker 1: burnings not a huge part of the violence at that point.
Speaker 1: Like that was more of like a show anything that
Speaker 1: you did at the big events, and the violence was
Speaker 1: the violence. The clan did describe themselves as the Army
Speaker 1: of the Cross. And I do want to really point
Speaker 1: out how much anti Catholic bias was critical to this too,
Speaker 1: because they were super racist against Catholics as well as
Speaker 1: black people in Jews. And I guess you're not racist
Speaker 1: against socialist, but they didn't like socialist anybody that wasn't like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that wasn't a very specific kind of hardcaring member of
Speaker 1: the very legitimate organization. Yeah. The Klansmen also played highly
Speaker 1: publicized baseball games, often against teams of people that they
Speaker 1: defined in their propaganda as aliens. The second coming of
Speaker 1: the KKK notes quote the Youngstown clan team challenged the
Speaker 1: Knights of Columbus, and the clan played Wichita's crack colored team,
Speaker 1: the Monrovians. The clan lost. Finally, in areas of clan strength,
Speaker 1: it operated sandlot teams that played in recognized leagues, sometimes
Speaker 1: semi pro teams. Indiana, a clan stronghold, fielded a dozen
Speaker 1: such teams. These leagues might plan adiums, in the newspaper
Speaker 1: coverage might list all team members, no secrecy here. In
Speaker 1: Los Angeles the clan team played a three game charity
Speaker 1: series against the Benigh Breath team, and in nine in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. The clan played against the Hebrew All Stars.
Speaker 1: Newspaper coverage typically treated the clan team like all others,
Speaker 1: with no particular attention to clan politics. Thus, baseball function
Speaker 1: to normalize the clans that it could appear as a
Speaker 1: be nine club akin to the Elks, or again a
Speaker 1: labor union KKK playing the Benigh Breath ball. That was
Speaker 1: the thing that happened in history. Yeah. Now, while all
Speaker 1: this was going on, there were clavern's who took to
Speaker 1: the KKKS more traditional activities, violently oppressing minorities. A number
Speaker 1: of clavern's exercised vigilante justice. That is an important story
Speaker 1: which I've waited until the end to cover. That's because
Speaker 1: I think it's important to understand what the Second Clan
Speaker 1: was in context. The first Clan was awful and a
Speaker 1: clear terrorist organization, was viewed by most Americans as a
Speaker 1: terrorist organization, at least outside of the South. But the
Speaker 1: only real ethos of the Second Clan was making money.
Speaker 1: The racism and bigotry was just there because in nineteen
Speaker 1: it's sold. If the same pr people that had hatched
Speaker 1: this scheme were around today, they may would have made
Speaker 1: a fraternal order that was super woken PC because there's
Speaker 1: more money there now. Like they were. I'm sure they
Speaker 1: were racist too, but that it wasn't about that. It
Speaker 1: was about making the money and the clan. Again it
Speaker 1: is it's important to understand if you're gonna understand the
Speaker 1: twenties that everyone knew the clan was racist, but everyone
Speaker 1: was racist, like the woke people were racist, like our
Speaker 1: grandparents were racist. Every everybody was. It was yeah, it's
Speaker 1: only a griff because of the money making structure, wasn't Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was not considered extreme ye, not radicalizing anybody or anything. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: now what we're going to talk about. The violent part
Speaker 1: was extreme, and that is an important factor, but that
Speaker 1: was an ancillary thing that happened because of the original
Speaker 1: KKKS history and because a lot of racists are violent.
Speaker 1: The violence was not primarily the goal of the organization.
Speaker 1: It was the Pyramids game. Yeah. So in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: urban crime rose by in the United States. Clan propaganda
Speaker 1: heavily emphasize these rising crime rates and build the clan
Speaker 1: as like their predecessors regulators. Much of this crime was
Speaker 1: driven by prohibition, and prohibition was a cause that KKK
Speaker 1: firmly supported. Also, women's voting rights. There's a feminist angle
Speaker 1: to the clan too. We're not gonna get into enough
Speaker 1: of it here, but there was a women's auxiliary KKK
Speaker 1: very popular, like the clan was because one of the
Speaker 1: two pr people who found this was a woman. Was
Speaker 1: one of the first organizations in American realized like, well,
Speaker 1: women are voting now, so they have political power. They
Speaker 1: also have more money now, so we should go after them.
Speaker 1: We should get that, we should get that fucking money.
Speaker 1: Well that did. Yeah. In the kkk K feminist icon,
Speaker 1: the KKKA is important, super important, not just men in
Speaker 1: the clan these days. Yeah uh. Some people even called
Speaker 1: the clan the mill wing of the Temperance movement. Generally,
Speaker 1: klansmen and individual Claverance were willing to use violence against
Speaker 1: black people, of course, but also any other bugbear of
Speaker 1: that era's right wing. They carried out a raid that
Speaker 1: arrested fifty two bootleggers in Anaheim, got a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five people arrested in Indianapolis, again bootleggers in the Northwest.
Speaker 1: They spent a lot of time threatening labor organizers. One
Speaker 1: Oregon Kleigel sent out this morning, if you are the
Speaker 1: mouthpiece of American labor in this locality, warn and do
Speaker 1: not endorse the above principles, then you should be a
Speaker 1: fit subject for a vigilance committee. I found another piece
Speaker 1: of sheet music in the KKK that looks forward, this
Speaker 1: regulator depiction of the KKK. It's titled there's a Klansman
Speaker 1: watching you. O. You guys want to sing this for me? Cody,
Speaker 1: that's all you get. Yeah, you're right, you did the
Speaker 1: other thing. And also you're the musician. There's a class
Speaker 1: of people patriotic in their work, always on their guard,
Speaker 1: always watchful, misspelled, and alert. They all make good citizens.
Speaker 1: They're friends of Uncle Sam. They fight for right with
Speaker 1: all their might. They're called the ku Klux clan. Um
Speaker 1: that the verse keep going, man, you will find them
Speaker 1: about in the country. You will find them in town.
Speaker 1: There as thick as bees in clover. You can't tell him.
Speaker 1: They're Oh, you may think that you're gone to fool them.
Speaker 1: Have a cow? What you do? The ku Klux clan
Speaker 1: or always watching, sure, watching you. There's a second verse
Speaker 1: that I will not do Wow. Wow, that was a virtue.
Speaker 1: Also performance. Let's that's how it goes. So where did
Speaker 1: they sing this again? What was records? They had records.
Speaker 1: They had a publishing press and a record press. Like
Speaker 1: you're having a dinner party, like, let's put on the
Speaker 1: new clan record. You guys heard there's a clan has
Speaker 1: been watching you fire. Yeah. Oregon and Oklahoma were particular
Speaker 1: centers of clan vigilance committee violence. The Second Coming of
Speaker 1: the KKK summarizes quote three Oregon cases known as the
Speaker 1: Oregon Outrages, captured widespread press attention when night writers terrified
Speaker 1: their victims with such lynching threats. JF. Hale A piano salesman.
Speaker 1: White was accused of illicit sexual affairs, and the would
Speaker 1: be Lyncher's demanded that he break off the improper relationships,
Speaker 1: and may have also been targeted because he owed money
Speaker 1: that a klansman was having trouble collecting. Sam Johnson, described
Speaker 1: as part Mexican, was accused of stealing chickens and being
Speaker 1: an idler. Arthur Burr, an African American bootblack, accused of bootlegging,
Speaker 1: received the worst treatment. Vigilantes abducted him and took him
Speaker 1: to the very crest of the Siskiyou Mountains, where they
Speaker 1: strung him up and let him down three times. Releasing him,
Speaker 1: they fired revolvers near his feet, demanding that he leave
Speaker 1: the era permanently, yelling can you run inward. Though charges
Speaker 1: were brought against three groups of clansmen, in each case,
Speaker 1: juries acquitted the culprits on the grounds that because the
Speaker 1: victims were morally bad, their vigilante punishment benefit of the community.
Speaker 1: By contrast, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kansas, and southern Illinois locations that
Speaker 1: were as much southern as northern experienced a great deal
Speaker 1: of actual clan of violence, whippings, tar and featherings, and lynchings,
Speaker 1: and all four places, some degree of racial segregation was
Speaker 1: in place, and clan violence helped to keep it in place.
Speaker 1: And Oklahoma, clan provoked violence became so widespread, with a
Speaker 1: reported one flogging for every night of the year, that
Speaker 1: the governor placed parts of the state under martial law.
Speaker 1: Clan efforts got him impeached in nineteen three. Oklahoma law
Speaker 1: officers sometimes handed suspects over to clan whipping parties or
Speaker 1: even participated in the beatings, and Kansas clansmen abducted an
Speaker 1: anti clan mayor, tied him to a and laid thirty
Speaker 1: stripes on his bare back, and bloody Williamson as one
Speaker 1: southern Illinois county became known the local clan and the
Speaker 1: Anti Saloon League merged into the Williamson County Law Enforcement League,
Speaker 1: which soon became run by the clan. Attacks on the
Speaker 1: operators of the wide open bars produced lethal battles in
Speaker 1: nine twenty five, involved a gunman and the deployment of
Speaker 1: military forces, and ended by forcing the anti clan sheriff
Speaker 1: out of office. These armed skirmishes killed twenty people. So
Speaker 1: do not want to be ignoring the violence is still happening,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't the overarching like, it wasn't the purpose.
Speaker 1: The clan was more about money. But also the violence
Speaker 1: was occurring within the society was fine with us. This
Speaker 1: is not a counter cultural act. Again, they were acquitted
Speaker 1: generally when they were brought to trial because most people
Speaker 1: were fine with what Most white people were fine with
Speaker 1: what they were doing taking care of business because the
Speaker 1: government's not gonna do it. So horribly violent, but not
Speaker 1: horribly violent against the wishes of the majority of their
Speaker 1: white Protestant country. And in fact, we're kind of saying
Speaker 1: as heroes by a lot of people, which was true
Speaker 1: only in the South. For the original KKK North was not.
Speaker 1: It's a gaming of racist Batman exactly. And America has
Speaker 1: always loved the vigilante badass that's the punisher. But racist. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In nine the KKK even carried out an attack on
Speaker 1: the home of the young Malcolm X when he and
Speaker 1: his parents lived in North Omaha. Here's a quote from
Speaker 1: Malcolm's autobiography. It actually is how his autobiography starts. When
Speaker 1: my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later,
Speaker 1: a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan writers galloped up
Speaker 1: to our home in Omaha, Nebraska, one night, surrounding the
Speaker 1: house brandishing their shotguns and rifles, they shouted for my
Speaker 1: father to come out. My mother went to the front
Speaker 1: door and opened it, standing where they could see her
Speaker 1: pregnant condition. She told them that she was alone with
Speaker 1: her three small children, and that my father was away
Speaker 1: preaching in Milwaukee. The klansmen shouted threats and warnings at
Speaker 1: herd that we had better get out of town because
Speaker 1: the good Christian white people were not going to stand
Speaker 1: for my father's spread in trouble among the good Negroes
Speaker 1: of Omaha. With the Back to Africa preachings of Marcus Garvey,
Speaker 1: my father, the Reverend Earl Little, was a Batist minister,
Speaker 1: a dedicated organizer from Marcus Aurelius Garvey's u n I,
Speaker 1: a United Negro Improvement Association. With the help of such
Speaker 1: disciples as my father, Garvey, from his headquarters in New
Speaker 1: York City's Harlem, was raising the banner of black race
Speaker 1: purity and exhorting the Negro masses to return to their
Speaker 1: ancestral African homeland, a cause which had made Garvey the
Speaker 1: most controversial black man on earth. Still shouting threats, the
Speaker 1: klansmen finally spurred their horses and galloped around the house,
Speaker 1: shattering every window with their gun butts. Then they rode
Speaker 1: off into the night, their torches flaring as suddenly as
Speaker 1: they had come. It was terrifying. Yeah, it's horrifying now.
Speaker 1: Like all good and bad Pyramids games, the clan had
Speaker 1: to come to an end. It was finally brought down,
Speaker 1: not by the US government, because probably most of THEIS
Speaker 1: government's fine with it, but by the incompetence, greed, and
Speaker 1: corruption of its leaders. It's always, it's always that with
Speaker 1: these kinds of far right gangs. Philip Fox, editor of
Speaker 1: the Imperial night Hawk, a major clan newspaper, was sentenced
Speaker 1: to life imprisonment for murdering another clansman he considered a rival.
Speaker 1: Hiram Evans called it a personal affair. Governor Ed Jackson
Speaker 1: of Indiana, a klansman, was indicted for bribery. Officers of
Speaker 1: the Klan Bank were also indicted for embezzlement and grand larceny.
Speaker 1: There were countless scandals and arrests, a fight with the
Speaker 1: FBI that led to nineteen people being charged. Members caught
Speaker 1: drinking and bootlegging and paying for back out the abortions.
Speaker 1: They picked a fight with jed Gar Hoover. Not a
Speaker 1: smart guy to pick a fight with, really bad guy
Speaker 1: to pick a fighter in that period of time. They
Speaker 1: did not win that fight. The final nail in the
Speaker 1: KKK's coffin was the conviction of Indiana Grand Dragon Stevenson,
Speaker 1: who talked about earlier for kidnapping, raping, and murdering his secretary.
Speaker 1: Now only the classiest, high class. I mean, I was
Speaker 1: waiting to be like white collar, like a tax thing, saying,
Speaker 1: like a terrible thing. He did well. And here's here's what.
Speaker 1: It's actually even worse than it sounds because he did
Speaker 1: not technically murdered her. He raped her and assaulted her,
Speaker 1: and then she killed herself. But the jury convicted him
Speaker 1: of murder because they believed he'd ruined her, which is
Speaker 1: also why she killed her. Else, it's like even worse
Speaker 1: than just because it's the twenties and it was a
Speaker 1: garbage time to exist. Yeah, it's it's messed up. But
Speaker 1: Stevenson went to fucking prison. Uh I think so? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was convicted a second degree murder. Um. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: ninety seven, the KKK had gone from its high of
Speaker 1: like four million members to less than three d and
Speaker 1: fifty tho active members nationwide. It never quite went extinct entirely.
Speaker 1: Men continue wearing clan robes and being racist up until
Speaker 1: the modern day, but the giant money making and political
Speaker 1: enterprise that it once was fell apart. Are there still dues?
Speaker 1: I mean maybe an individual chapters, but there's no you know,
Speaker 1: not the structure of saying it was. Yeah, there's some
Speaker 1: people that try to be that, but like it's pretty
Speaker 1: shadows of themselves. The legacy of the KKK outside of
Speaker 1: its existence as an MLM and the vigilante violence had inspired,
Speaker 1: is unclear. During its height, the KKK was extremely politically active,
Speaker 1: but there is substantial debate as to whether or not
Speaker 1: it actually influenced politics on a mass scale. A number
Speaker 1: of clan backed candidates were a less did and the
Speaker 1: clan was a massive fundraiser, but that Harvard Studies analysis
Speaker 1: claimed that the actual political achievements of the group were
Speaker 1: fairly minimal just because those people were already gonna get elected.
Speaker 1: They weren't elected because there are clansmen. Everybody was fucking racist.
Speaker 1: They're just happy to be in the clan. However, in
Speaker 1: the conclusion of the second coming to of the KKK.
Speaker 1: Linda Gordon makes this note. Some scholars and contemporary observers
Speaker 1: have seen the nineteen twenties Northern Clan as a failure
Speaker 1: because it was short lived and because its campaigns against
Speaker 1: Catholics and Jews did not manage to confine them to
Speaker 1: second class citizenship, but transience is common to most social movements. Moreover,
Speaker 1: at the Clan Declient in part because it had triumphed
Speaker 1: in several respects. State eugenics laws providing for forcible sterilization
Speaker 1: of those of defective stock spread the thirty States, and
Speaker 1: those labeled defective were typically the poor and people of color.
Speaker 1: The biggest clan victory was immigration restriction, and Imperial Wizard
Speaker 1: events repeatedly claimed credit for its passage. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is pretty disappointing that their eventual like downfall er decline
Speaker 1: was not because people started to know better or like
Speaker 1: people stood up like this whole story. I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: thinking like, yeah, but when is it like oh this
Speaker 1: person like there's this big altercation and people started just
Speaker 1: public opinion started to change. Nope, it was they were
Speaker 1: fine with the racism and the vigilante murder. It was
Speaker 1: the abortion thing that really back Alley abortions really turned
Speaker 1: America against him through it. I know, the wall stuff,
Speaker 1: the immigration stuff. It's always so fascinating, Like why do
Speaker 1: you think these things aligned with Like maybe it's even
Speaker 1: like you recognize that other people who aren't white have
Speaker 1: invented things you like, like sombreros guys without Mexicans. How
Speaker 1: are you going to go to the cool coast you're
Speaker 1: able to go to the cool coast scamp. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have a bad time. You're gonna have a bad time
Speaker 1: with the cool coast scamp. You wouldn't got anywhere there
Speaker 1: playing the Benigh breathin baseball. Jeesus, that is fascinating. That
Speaker 1: was a twig. That was it. And now I know
Speaker 1: what MLMs too level marketing. Yeah, it's a really important
Speaker 1: in the politics of today. Yeah, I just hadn't heard
Speaker 1: that abbreviation Money Lives Matter. There is a direct line
Speaker 1: between the strategy behind the KKK and the strategy behind
Speaker 1: am Way, which is the source of the fortune of
Speaker 1: beth Sie of Vos. But we can't. We don't have
Speaker 1: time to talk about her. We don't have time to
Speaker 1: talk about her. Yeah, that sage us into the next episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we will be doing another thing very soon. Uh. Plugs, plugs, plugs, plugs,
Speaker 1: fus check us out on the internet, Twitter, Twitter, dot com,
Speaker 1: slash some more news. I was getting there, okay. It
Speaker 1: seemed like you were just like passing it off. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you said on the internet. That's pretty um are YouTube show.
Speaker 1: Also some more news our podcast, even more news. Yep.
Speaker 1: That on the Twitter personal Twitter, it's Katie Stolen. We'll
Speaker 1: get good at this one day. Give them money. Some
Speaker 1: more news Patreon dollars to go to there, go to there. Um.
Speaker 1: You can find me on the internet at I right okay,
Speaker 1: on Twitter, I have a book called A Brief History
Speaker 1: of Ice. It's not about the plan. It's about me
Speaker 1: putting a friend in the hospital with dangerous drugs. It's fun,
Speaker 1: it's a good time. Everybody. Everybody enjoyed it. Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can find this show at at Bastards pod uh
Speaker 1: website behind the Bastards dot com. Dorito's I Love You