The Klu Klux Klan and Black Equality

Throughout all of American History there have been many significant and important events. Many aspects of the American economy changed during a period people refer to as the 1930's.

In the 1930s many things happened concerning social, political, and economical changes. Women's roles changed, new types of entertainment were introduced, and then there was the Great Depression. The 1930's was also the period between World War I and World War II.

Anyway WWI and WWII is a different matter, the matter now is about an organization, founded by a group of prejudicing, discriminative, whites called the Klu Klux Klan (KKK).

Now during American History, we all know that blacks used to be slaves, but thanks to the Civil War, and president Abraham Lincoln, the Thirteenth Amendment was passed and ratified, abolishing slavery.

Although slavery was abolished, black citizens were still not totally free, most people still thought themselves to be superior to them. Most all whites didn't want them around. In 1886 the Klu Klux Klan first came about, it was founded by six former Confederate solider.

These soldiers dressed up in ghost costumes to pretend that they were dead soldiers coming back from the dead to haunt people and seek revenge. The Klu Klux Klan was banished though, but in spite of that, a new KKK was founded in came back in the 1915.

So this is mainly just the background of the KKK, but now it is time to get on to the main point.

The KKK was a wrongfully founded organization that threatened, haunted and made others lives miserable, people who served in the KKK don't seem to be the kind of people who looked at life the way it is supposed to be seen as. The KKK was probably one of the main causes of the discrimative life of most whites in the 1910's-1950's

So say there is a white man and woman who walk into a new neighborhood and there they see some different kind of people whose skin is brown in contrast to their creamish skin tone, and as soon as the white couple see the people they feel some way about them, they just all of a sudden don't like the brown people, yet what have they done to them?

Take their pride? Their clothes? Their joy? No the blacks didn't do anything for them to hate them.

This example of discrimination is called Racism; and it practically defines the Klu Klux Klan.

And what's ironic about this, blacks don't feel that way about whites, at least most don't.

"What have we done to white folks to make them hate us so?" (Taylor 123) was the sympathetic cry of a young boy, in a book called- Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. The KKK did not only terrorize colored folks, but anybody who opposed them, even whites

Not all whites were prejudiced, some just didn't want to be near blacks, some would deal with them but not like them, and some would even feel as if they were just as equal as any other white man, like Atticus in To Kill A Mocking bird. (Atticus isn't real, but he is a good example) And lots of whites were happy to know that the KKK was gone when it did leave. "The Klu Klux's gone, it will never come back" (Lee, 147)

According to Wikipedia, the Klu Klux Klan basically preached racism, and had about 4.5million men! This was about 20 percent of the United States male population.

To Klansmen (this is what members of the Klu Klux Klan were called) what they did to other people was right, but the founding and the organization of the KKK itself were plainly wrong. Maybe the Klansmen as well ought to have said, "We are American Nazis, and we're proud of it too!"

It isn't right to hate people because think you are superior to them, sure people have their belief and their opinions of others but, that doesn't give them the right to persecute and hurt those who they hate, just leave them alone and don't deal with them, that is the kind of attitude people should have.

Luckily, the KKK 2 was banished, but banishing the KKK doesn't mean discrimination was.

Afterwards Klansmen still existed, but there wasn't any more actual Klu Klux Klans.

But in order to make sure that black still didn't have totally equality, rules and laws were made to stop blacks from accessing certain places and things.

For instance Whites had separate bus stations along with schools. In 1955 Rosa Parks, a black woman had once sat on a seat in a bus that a white man had wanted, he told her to move, but she said no! And so she was put in jail. And one year later she smiles when she hears that bus segregation has been announced unconstitutional.

Finally in 1963 President John F. Kennedy proposed a Civil rights act. After Kennedy's assassination later that year, President Lyndon B. Johnson continued to support it. The law was passed after a 75-day filibuster.The Civil Rights Act was a success and it is now official that discrimination of any race, sex, culture, or beliefs is unconstitutional and can succeed consequences.

The Civil Rights Act also out rules discrimination by any program that receives money from the federal government. The government now has the power to cut off financing for a program that does not oppose of discriminatory policies or practices. In addition, the act authorizes the Office of Education (now the Department of Education) to direct school desegregation programs in areas specified by the government. The government can sue any school system that refuses to desegregate, or any system whose desegregation program it considers inadequate. (Hamilton)

So the KKK was a bad organization supporting discrimination and it badly compromised blacks equality, peace and freedom. Happily today, discrimination of races, sex, religion, etc. is mostly done away with. It is not totally done with because there are still some discriminative people here and there, but other wise it is mostly abolished.

Furthermore; if people were still being out goingly discriminatory, the government would have caught them.

Yet surprisingly the people who run the "Mystic" soft drink company are discrimanatory whites, but that matter can pass because as long as everyone who inhabits the earth can live in peace and harmony, having disagreements, and war over time, the world can be one.

People big and small, black or white, male or female, Hispanic or African, all can hate or love, cry or laugh, feel good or feel bad, but however one feels they must remember that they are people just like anyone else.

Work cited

Hamilton, Charles V. "Civil Rights Act of 1964." World Book Online ReferenceCenter. 2007 http://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Article?id=ar116995>

Taylor, Mildred D "Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry" New York: Scholastic, 1977

Lee, Harper "To Kill a Mocking Bird" New York, Boston: Warner Books, 1960