sábado, 29 de noviembre de 2008

viernes, 28 de noviembre de 2008

The begining of the end .







When we talk about the K K K It’s important to have in mind that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) became the main enemy of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1920 they gave a conference in Atlanta (one of the “most active Ku Klux Klan areas in America”) to show that they would not be intimidate. After the First World War the Ku Klux Klan became against the Jews, Socialist, Roman Catholics, Communists and foreigners.

In 1964 the NAACP the Congress of Radical Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized the “Freedom Summer”. They main idea of this “Freedom Summer” was to try to cut off with the “white unfair ideas”. They did Freedom Schools in Mississippi. 3,000 students attended these schools promoting future educational programs. This Freedom Schools became a target for the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time this movement killed three men: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner (the principal black leaders of Freedom Schools)

The Civil Rights Movement became a very big problem for the Ku Klux Klan. It’s important to have in mind that the K K K started to be judged because they were breaking those rights. As consequence of that many leaders of the K K K went to jail sentenced to life in prison what made that the Ku Klux Klan started to lose power.




The Ku Klux Klan


When we talk about the Ku Klux Klan is very important to know what is it; The Ku Klux Klan was a racist and anti-Semitic (against Jewish people) movement founded in 1886. His principal objective was to maintain the white supremacy. The founders of this movement were: Captain John C. Lester, Major James R Crowe, John D Kennedy, and Calvin Jones. All of them were part of the confederate Civil War Veterans.

The “first branch “of the Ku Klux Klan was established in Pulaski-Tennessee in May 1886. One year later many organizations of local Klans were established in Nashville. Nathan Forrest was the first “grand wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan, an outstanding general of the American civil war. The members of this movement used white masks, white cardboard hats and white sheets as a drape.

When this movement started, his principal objective was to stop black people from voting. When the “white” governments were established in the South of the United States the Ku Klux Klan started to kill successful black businessmen.

The Radical Republicans like Benjamin Butler asked the President of the United States, who at the moment was Ulysses S. Grant, to take action against the Ku Klux Klan because of their criminal intentions. They started an investigation and they found that this kind of organizations involve in their membership a lot of white population of each social and economical class. They also found that the Klan had a constitution in which they established that every member needed to had a gun, a Ku Klux Klan gown and a signal. At the same time they noticed that this movement made their criminal actions in the night, breaking into the houses of black people, many times torturing them in a very inhuman way.