KKK Becomes Strong Again in 1920s

The early 1920s were the gilded age for the Ku Klux Klan, as many successful and powerful people were either openly Klansmen or sympathetic to the cause. The organization boasted a membership of 3 million nationwide, including prominent community leaders from coast to coast. The growth was fueled by the 1915 release of the silent film Birth of a Nation, which portrayed members as heroes, coinciding with the widespread xenophobia following the devastation of World War I.

The first iteration of the KKK had come into existence after the Civil War and was associated with violent attacks on African Americans. After coming under fire during Reconstruction, it had collapsed by the 1870s. With the so-called second coming of the Klan in the 1910s and 1920s, the group tried to emphasize a nativist, American-first agenda. When Col. William Simmons announced the rebirth of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915, he put out advertisements celebrating “The World’s Greatest Secret, Social, Patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary Order” and a “High Class Order for Men of Intelligence and Character.” This sort of camaraderie, along with the nativist message, resonated with many white Protestants in an era that had seen the mass migration of African Americans from the South to the North and an influx of Jewish and Catholic immigrants from Europe.

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