WEBVTT - The KKK: Loathsome Cosplay Rednecks 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.560 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.239 There's Charles W Chuck Brian over there, and this is 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:31.200 stuff you should know about vile racist jerks. Boo meis jerk. Yeah, so, Chuck. 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:33.920 Do you remember when we did our two part episode 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.720 on The Simpsons and one of the first things I 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:40.680 said was like, I didn't want to record because all 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:42.360 I wanted to do is sit around and research the 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:46.200 Simpsons for the rest of my life. I felt basically 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.680 the opposite way about researching the Clan, like I didn't 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.440 want to record because I didn't want to research the 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:59.200 clan anymore. Yeah, that wasn't a fun one. Well, here's 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:03.600 my personal history here in regards to the clan is 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.080 and and now I'll this will be peppered throughout a 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.640 little bit because I grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia. 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:14.600 Oh that sounds familiar, which is very uh uh. You 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.080 know some of the early days of the second wave 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:18.960 of the Clan, which you know, we'll get to all 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:23.240 this garbage in this episode. But um, some Mountain was 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:27.000 kind of one of the larger national seats and one 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:31.479 of the leaders of the clan in Stone Mountain had kids, 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.560 or it was either kids or grandkids that went. I 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:36.240 guess I had to be grandkids that went to my 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.520 elementary school. Then the Venables, and I was like, you know, 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:42.640 I heard about the Venables, and I knew about their 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.960 story and that his granddad was the grand Wizard, and like, 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.720 it scared the crap out of me. I was scared. 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:54.480 And then I got older and I was like, these 0:01:54.520 --> 0:02:00.840 are just dumb cosplaying rednecks. And then I got a 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.680 little older still and I was like, well, that's not 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.200 fair either, and I tried to start in my life 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:10.440 look at things to the lens of minority people's even 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.200 though you can't you know, as a as a white man, 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.720 but you can do your best to walk a mile 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:17.560 and someone choose and see what it might be like. 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:19.600 And then I was like, I can't dismiss it as 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.760 rednecks cosplaying, because they killed people and lynched people, and 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.720 it was a fear of feared group two black people, 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.520 and you know, all kinds of other minorities. As we'll 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.120 see as they as they kind of progressed. But I 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.480 felt it was dismissive to say they're just a bunch 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.160 of dumb rednecks and don't give them that power. Uh So, 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.240 you know, it's just interesting to sort of go through 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.040 that evolution as a kid growing up in the South who, 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:53.280 no doubt in my lineage and ancestry have horrible things 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.080 that happened in the Deep South that I had to 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.360 rectify as like, you know, just because I'm related to 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:04.000 great great great grandparents who probably did awful things, doesn't 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:06.480 mean that I'm that person or you know, no, not 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.200 at all, not at all. You certainly aren't that person 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.160 at all, I can attest, but you have to come 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.000 to terms with it as someone who is the opposite 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.160 of those people, for sure. And I think it is 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.120 wise of you and very thoughtful of you to be like, no, 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.079 I can't just you know, use I guess white privilege 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:26.000 to dismiss the clan because it does kind of infringe 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.720 on like the impacts that they've had on people of 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:30.960 color in the United States. For sure. I think that's 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.680 very insightful. At the same time, yes, the Clan are dumb, 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.200 redneck cous players. They're just ones who will also get 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:43.440 whipped up into into violence and carry out horrific acts. 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.080 So they're dumb redneck cause players who you really have 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.320 to keep an eye on and then break the backup 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.440 as an organization by putting them in prison whenever they 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.120 do something like that or start to Yeah, and as 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:56.480 we see through their history, depending on when it was 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.200 and which sort of iteration, because there's there's been at 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:04.040 least three, uh, some were more violent and dangerous than others, 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:08.720 and some were sort of like cosplaying rednecks. Um not 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:10.880 to you know, of course that doesn't excuse it. It's 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.320 just like a fun social club or anything like that. 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:17.880 But um, it is fairly interesting. But I'm ready to 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.480 be done with this as well, so let's let's do it. Yeah. Well, 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:22.920 the thing that kind of strikes me about the clan 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:27.440 the most is they the clan enjoys its largest popularity 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.520 when America is feeling it's most racist. And usually America 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:36.560 feels it's most racist at times when um, the rights 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.960 of minorities or anybody who's not basically white Protestants are 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:46.040 being advanced in society. It's not an accident, right, Um, 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:50.120 but then the clan always always oversteps because America maybe 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.560 racist in America might be I can't even say why, 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:57.960 America is definitely based on white supremacism um or white 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:03.960 supremacy and enforcing that the but the the taste for 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.040 violence and the willingness to like kill people of color 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.479 just for being people of color is not a mainstream 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.599 thing fortunately, So the Clan has always been on the 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:15.840 fringe and always will be on the fringes. It's just 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.040 hopefully eventually society will learn it's less and like, you know, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.480 advancing the rights of people of color doesn't mean that 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.680 there has to be some spasm of anti minority sentiment 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.440 that inevitably leads to violence carried out by groups like 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.560 the Clan. I really hope we get to that point, um, 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.880 rather than just keep existing trapped in this cycle, you know, 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.520 And I think we will. I think we are approaching 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.359 that eventually. I don't know when it will be, but 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:47.680 I I feel like with each of these cycles that 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.120 we go through, there's less and less people who react 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.080 horribly the next time or the next time or the 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.440 next time, so that eventually that reaction will just kind 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.520 of fizzle out. That's my hope. Yeah. Uh. And it's 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.640 also interesting, Uh, I watched a documentary that wasn't really 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.960 do it's sort of like a uh, several part news 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.479 show from this British um might have been a BBC 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.839 crew that about the modern clan just from a couple 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:16.120 of years ago during like the ferguson Upper or Missouri. 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.760 And he went not undercover because he was um, a 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.400 British guy. He was interviewing him. He went he went 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.960 in deep uh with the clan there for seven months 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:31.760 and it's interesting to see the just the scattered ideology 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.040 and that kind of is a bit of a hallmark 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:38.040 of the clan period through their history. Is it seems 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.920 like there's never been a very codified thing of this 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.120 is who we are, because there's people in this documentary 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.600 that are like, you know, three of the members were 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.960 arrested for plotting to kill a black man, and the 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:51.880 people they talked to and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.279 they're out man. We're not into that. We don't want 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.800 to commit violence against black people. And we're not even bigoted. 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:02.039 We're just a superior race who who are white separatists, 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:04.680 but we don't want to you know, we might burn 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.719 across for our ceremonies, but we're not doing bombings and lynchings. 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.520 And we're not down with that at all. Uh, But 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:14.240 you also get the feeling that behind closed doors, they're 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.560 probably like, hey, I wish those guys would have been 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.840 able to carry that murder out right, and that that 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.280 seems to have been a transition that kind of went 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:26.760 in the seventies. Started in the seventies, I believe, where 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.280 there's like a a different public face to the clan 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.480 where they tried different like okay, well that everybody hates 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.360 the clan, what if we what if we explain it 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.000 like this? What if we put it like this in 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:42.440 society is like, no, that's nice. Try it's not gonna work, 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.120 all right? Should we get into this in the origins? Yeah, 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.760 so so, like you said, there's been three iterations of 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.480 the clan, and this the first iteration of the clan 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:57.200 started out is they think basically a social club made 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:01.880 up of UM disgruntled Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee in 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:06.280 eighteen sixties six. And this group of veterans got together 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.400 at a time where um, there was a real trend, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:15.000 a craze basically for secret societies in the nineteenth century. UM, 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:19.280 apparently in the the eighteen nineties up to the nineteen 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.320 thirties is called the Golden Age of fraternalism, where something 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.880 like a third of American men were members of a 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.480 secret society or something based on like actual, real ancient 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.160 secret societies like the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians. These are 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.199 just kind of fake ones that gave you a reason 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.400 to like leave the house on Tuesdays and Thursdays and go, like, 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.480 you know, have whiskey down at the Moose Lodge, and 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.679 groups like the Moose and the Elks and the Knights 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.600 of Columbus Um, they all grew out of that. And 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.480 in fact, Woodmen of the World Insurance UM, it's called that. 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:54.640 It's kind of a weird name if you think about it, 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.920 but Woodmen of the World UM was a secret society 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.439 from the nineteenth century and they would sell their members 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.000 insurance policies. And that's where that insurance came from. So 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.000 this is kind of like the context of where the 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.760 ku Klux klan of originally came from in the nineteenth century, 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:14.880 this crazer trend for secret societies. Yeah, and by all accounts, 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:17.920 it was started on Christmas Eve, like you said in 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:23.040 Pulaski in eighteen sixty five by six men Calvin Jones, 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:30.079 Richard Reid, Frank McCord, uh, John Kennedy, and John uh 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.880 Kessler I think, and then I believe it or not. 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:39.640 The final guy's name was Jim crow No James crow No, Yeah, 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:46.120 in Pulaski, Tennessee. And um, they they were sort of 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:48.400 based on this one of those secret groups called the 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:50.679 Sons of Malta, but it seems like it was more 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.680 inspired by because they weren't around by the time the 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:58.440 Civil War ended. But they definitely sort of, um, kind 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.960 of cribbed some stuff from from the Malton's as far 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.200 as uh. And this is the whole thing with the 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:09.760 secret societies, like outfits and costumes and rights and initiations 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.040 and dumb names of leadership that you make up. It's 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:17.640 all a big part of it. I have never understood 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:22.040 the desire, and not just obviously the clan because UH 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:26.760 clearly not interested in that, but any fraternal group like that, 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.880 I just including fraternities in college. I just I never 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.680 got it. Yeah. Um, that Sons of Malta you mentioned 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.560 seemed to have been directly impactful. Um. I don't know 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.960 if there were members who were who were from the 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:42.520 Sons of Malta or how they heard of it. But 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:44.720 the Sons of Malta and then another group called the 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.760 Ku Close Adelphin and both of them seemed to have 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.920 been party cruise or cruise from Marti Gras in New Orleans. 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.360 And then this all Sons of Malta somehow made their 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:56.720 way up to Boston, and that's where they really kind 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:00.880 of got hold or got pop ler, I guess, but 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.800 neither one of those were racist groups from what I 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:07.280 could tell, UM, and from also what I could tell, 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.280 the Ku Klux Klan wasn't necessarily intended to be a 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:17.160 racist terrorist political organization, at least at first. But UM 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:23.000 shortly after they formed in eighteen sixty five sixty six UM, 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:28.559 the federal government passed the Reconstruction Acts UM, and reconstruction 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:33.079 definitely deserves its own episode. Really want to do one 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.640 or two on reconstruction at some point. But when they 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:42.720 passed that act, that UM that kind of changed or 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.920 gave focus to this what may have been like just 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.320 kind of a UM A group of racist people, and 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:55.000 turned them into a racist political terrorist organization. Now they 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.760 had something to do besides meat at the moose lodge 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.520 and that was to a forced white supremacy in the 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:07.160 Deep South through acts of violence and intimidation and terror techniques. Um. 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:09.400 And that was the first incarnation of the clan, and 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:13.520 they spread really quick from Tennessee down to um Georgia 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.280 and other neighboring states, thanks in part to personal visits 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:21.360 for organizing by a guy named Nathan Bedford Forrest Uh, 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.920 a Confederate general who is not a great guy. Yeah 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:27.440 he was. Uh, there are a lot of complications with 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:28.920 that guy. We'll we'll get to him in a sec. 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:34.360 But um the name KKK or ku klux Klan um 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.040 they think might have and there's no again. It's it's 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.800 been such a sort of willy nilly organization as far 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:44.040 as having a national, sort of codified presence that there's 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.080 not even like a website that I saw that you 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.960 can go to. It's all regional. Man, those are some 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:54.800 terrible websites. They're pretty bad. Comics sands everywhere. Yeah, they're 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.800 they're pretty bad. When this like a black background and 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.400 like pink fonts and stuff that spewing racist bigotry and 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.720 ideology and oh my god, it's pretty bad. I wanted 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:07.200 to like throw my laptop out in the window at 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.000 one point. UM. But they think it might have derived 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:14.600 from the Greek word uh key close k y k 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:20.000 l o s, which was basically denotes um what people 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:23.160 thought were like the natural cycles of government or types 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:26.559 of government that a civilization could have, which is pretty 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:28.559 haughty if you think about it. For the k k 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.440 k I mean of political philosophy that dates back to 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:37.319 the third century PC. That's it's really something. But ku 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.280 close is what it um k u k l os 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.559 is what it was sort of translated as and and 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.400 modern and well not the modern era, but back then 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.000 and uh clan with a K, Like what I saw 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.880 was it was originally ku klux one word and then 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.079 clan with a c uh. And they think that may 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.400 have come from maybe um Scottish clans. They play Scottish 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:05.360 music sometimes at their rallies, but that's not affirmed either. 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.880 But eventually I think that C was replaced with a K. 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:15.360 It became kkk and these lodges started popping up um 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.800 all over right after the Civil War because kind of 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.240 like you said, once um of my adority gets a 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.200 little bit of freedom. Uh, there's a bit of an 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.160 uprising and clan membership. And that's what happened from the 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.720 first iteration is like, there we have these enslaved people 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.280 that are now free. We need to basically intimidate them 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.840 into feeling like they still have no freedoms even though 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.160 the loss as different. Right. So one of the first 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:43.600 things they did was, Um, you know when when reconstruction 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:45.960 came along and all of a sudden there were you know, 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:48.920 black people in the South could hold political office or 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.840 be judges or all this Like this was like flipping 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.120 a switch as far as the South is concerned, um. 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.320 And it's like I said, it laser focused like the 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.600 a times of the Ku Klux Klan, and that they 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:07.320 now took up an intimidation and terrorism campaign against black 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:11.040 people in South, against Republicans in the South. The Republicans 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:12.840 at the time were a much different party than they 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.560 are today, and that they were into the idea of 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:20.240 big government to support and enforce social justice. Um. And 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.840 then years later around the turn of the last century, 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:27.160 UM Williams Jenning Bryant was a candidate who was a 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.840 Democrat who basically ran on the Republican platform a big 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.760 government to enforce social justice. And then later on it 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.600 was cemented by FDR is a big kind of transition 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:43.800 or um um switch basically of ideologies between the parties. UM. 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.840 But at the time, if you were a Republican, you 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.320 were probably if you're in the South, you were probably 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:54.560 for UM equal rights for black citizens, and you were 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:58.080 a target of their intimidation campaigns as well, big time, 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.440 because not only were they of battling these politicians, but 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.120 UM voter intimidation was a very real thing, UH and 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:09.320 voter suppression, and they would UM, they would murder people, 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.280 UM like hundreds, maybe thousands of people in the South, 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.760 especially Louisiana. UM reports ahead of the eighteen sixty eight 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.240 election UM where that they murdered people for intimidation and 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.840 literally to keep them from voting. Yeah, dude. There was 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:27.080 one town called opal Loosis, UM, Louisiana, a town of 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.320 twenty five thousand, so it was pretty big. UM. It 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:31.000 was the county seat of the parish. You can't remember 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:35.280 what parish. But in two weeks, two hundred people were 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.560 murdered around the eighteen sixty eight election. Two hundred. That's 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.400 fourteen people a day in this town of twenty five 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:45.000 thousand people, UM, all because of terrorism. Carried out by 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:49.280 the KKK. Yeah, and Ed helped us put this together. 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:50.760 And Ed is keen to point out and I think 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:54.640 we should too, is that a lot of what the 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.520 Clan has always tried to do is is lead their 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:00.240 groups by fear. And you still see that to day, 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.320 not only through the Clan but other groups, like fear 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:04.680 of you know, that the immigrants gonna take your job, 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.040 or fear of this, fear of that, And back then 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.120 it was fear of um these enslaved people that are 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:13.520 now free rising up, you know, and and getting revenge, 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:18.840 and that didn't happen, like even though slavery happened, Like 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:23.600 once black Americans earned their freedom, they did not all 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.240 of a sudden say, oh yeah, well payback time, we're angry, 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.840 we're gonna come after you. They were happy to be 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:34.399 freed and just to try and live as regular people 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.800 with rights and society. And that wasn't the message that 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.239 the Clan was putting out. They were like, you need 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.359 to be afraid of them, even though there are no 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.320 accounts of that happening. It was just black people trying 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:50.320 to be regular, normal people, right. And the other problem 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:52.800 with that kind of thing is is like when somebody 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.680 does stuff like this, when they carry out a terror campaign, um, 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.080 it makes people wonder like, geez, well, what did the 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.800 other people do to deserve this? Well, the other people 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.480 didn't do anything to deserve this. And that's that's what's 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:08.720 called the false balance or balance fallacy, where there the 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.600 idea that there's you know, there's problems on both sides, 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.240 or there's good people on both sides. It's it's like no, 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:20.880 sometimes one side is the problem basically of the problem. 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.720 And I think that was really important of to point 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:25.440 out and for us to point out too, that there 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:31.120 was nothing that the the Clan was defending against except 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:37.280 white supremacy and black black suppression, the suppression of rights 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:40.879 among black people. That was it. It's as despicable as 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.359 it sounds. There was nothing gallant or good about it. 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.479 There was nothing honorable bull about it. And in fact, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.840 they were so violent and so criminal and so despicable 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.080 that within three years of their founding, the Grand Wizard 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:00.520 of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest, who we Um mentioned earlier, 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.600 issued his one and only basically executive orders Grand Wizard, saying, 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:08.760 we have to disband and burn all of our stuff 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.960 because this has gotten out of hand. That's how violent 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.639 they had become and how despicable their acts had been. Yeah, 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:20.560 Forrest Gump's namesake. Yeah, Um, he was, like I said, 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:25.080 he was a pretty controversial remains a controversial dude. Uh. 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:27.720 And that he was one of the generals of the Confederacy. 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.000 And um, he was in charge when the Fort Pillow 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.920 massacre happened, which was, uh, something we can get into 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.720 in detail, maybe in a short stuff maybe, but um, essentially, 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.280 you know, hundreds of largely black soldiers who had given 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:44.040 up and surrendered were just massacred on this day at 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:48.320 Fort Pillow. And Um, he was known as a brilliant general, 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:51.040 the Wizard of the Saddle, which is what he was 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.679 called because he was a cavalry guy. Uh. And that 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.439 later became you know, they kind of gang that for 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:58.320 the clan as far as the Grand Wizard, they kind 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:03.480 of stole that from there. Um. But he uh, he 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:05.960 seemed to be a vile man. But then later in life, 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.800 like you said, um became disillusioned with the clan. Some 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:11.679 people said it was just because he didn't think they 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.199 were organized enough. Some people said it was because he 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:17.240 thought they got too violent. But in Memphis late in life, 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:21.639 he gave this big speech about um, you know, basically 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.120 trying to hold up the black man and give them 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:28.159 jobs and put them in positions of important positions in 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.239 our government, and to make them doctors and lawyers. So 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:33.080 I don't know if it was a change of heart. 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.639 There's been a lot of controversy since since then about 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:42.119 like should we honor this guy or you know, or 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.399 talk about like his entire life up until that moment. No, 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:49.399 I think it's it's like he he deserves to have 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.159 like his like it all spread out on the table. 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.480 But I feel like once you oversee like a massacre 0:20:55.600 --> 0:21:00.159 of of unarmed black soldiers came home, oversee like at 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:03.760 in a white supremacist terrorist group, that's pretty tough to 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.400 come back from. Even though I mean, it is definitely 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:08.560 worth noting and I think fair to note that he 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.400 did have at least something of a change of heart, 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.600 at least publicly. I saw that he wrote to uh, 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:18.000 I think the governor of Tennessee or somewhere and offered 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:23.760 to help destroy um white vigilantes who were harassing UM 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:28.160 black citizens because he thought it was uncalled for. So yeah, 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:33.520 he was a a unusual person over the span of 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:35.680 his life, but he still did some pretty horrible stuff 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:37.800 of course. And this, you know, this pops up anytime 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.199 there's um a debate over whether they should strip the 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.240 name from this or that, you know, because there's plenty, 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:46.679 plenty of stuff named for him. There's a high school 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:51.480 in Jacksonville, Florida that was named Nathan F. Nathan B. 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:58.320 Forest High School until two thousand fourteen. Yeah, two thousand fourteen, 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:01.080 there was a high school named after the basically the 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:04.919 founder of the Ku Klux Klan in Jacksonville, Florida. They 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:07.120 should just name all the high schools in Florida, Tom 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.400 Petty High School. It's he from Florida. He's from Gainesville. 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:13.560 I didn't know that. Yeah, big, big time music scene 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:18.399 down there back then. Okay, what happened to the music scene? Yeah, 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:21.080 I don't know. Maybe there're still this one. Who else 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.959 came out of Gainesville at that time? The Don Felder, 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:29.760 the guitar player for the Eagles, was Tom Petty's guitar teacher. Uh. 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.240 And then um like Leonard skinnerd hung out in Jacksonville, 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:35.960 and I think the Almond Brothers they were making guys, 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.600 but they hung out down there too. Okay, should we 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.400 take a break? Sure, all right, let's take a break. 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:44.600 I didn't think Tom Petty and the Almond brothers would 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:48.080 make a appearance in the Clan episode, but they did. 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:49.920 And we'll be back right after it to talk about 0:22:50.000 --> 0:23:22.760 the enforcement x all right. The enforcement x uh. This 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:26.280 is basically when the federal government stepped up starting in 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:29.680 eighteen seventy and said, you know what, we can't count 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:34.200 on these states, especially in the South, and we should 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:36.760 point out and ed Ed makes a good point of 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:39.359 pointing out that like there was racism all over the country, 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:41.600 always has been. There have been claim groups all over 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:45.320 the country, but in the South, it was in the government, 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:48.440 it was in the courts, it was in the school systems, 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:52.720 like it was nowhere else in the country. So the 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:55.879 federal government said, we can't count on the Southern states 0:23:56.280 --> 0:23:59.200 to do the right thing and to have real investigations 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:04.040 and prosecute people and to protect black citizens. So we're 0:24:04.040 --> 0:24:07.240