The Second Klan's Character

The idea

How large and how respectable the second Klan was are questions the sources answer differently. The anchor says that by nineteen twenty-four it had six million members in the South, the West and particularly the Midwest, more than the nation's labour unions held. Digital History says two Atlanta publicists built it into a national organisation of three million members in three years, paying recruiters part of every ten-dollar induction fee, and that it helped elect sixteen United States senators. The Yawp says only that the revived Klan had millions of new members. The sources agree on its targets: African Americans, Catholics, Jews and immigrants, and, Digital History adds, bootleggers and divorcees. They agree on its causes: a depression in agriculture, Black migration north, and nativism after the war. Digital History adds that Klan members saw themselves as defenders of Prohibition, traditional morality and what they called true Americanism, and the anchor says its public face drew mainstream support.