Pamela
S Flint (Roper)
Professor
Susan Goldstein
English
October
1, 2012
KKK Involvement in the Harlem
Renaissance
When
I was in high school, I worked at our local library after school and during the
summer. The woman I worked for, whom I liked very much, was very typical of the
general populace of the town I grew up in: Italian and Catholic. She told me
stories of her husband driving the black members of the high school basketball
team to games because they were not allowed on the busses and I got the feeling
from her that she felt this was very big of him and that not many people were
willing to do this. I remember thinking it was extremely stupid that they
weren’t allowed to ride the bus. I was born on January 15, Martin Luther King,
Jr.’s birthday, and every report I did in high school that could be about him,
was. I spent much time with my grandparents and I learned from them, my
grandfather especially, that people are people. One of my favorite stories,
although I did not completely understand it at the time, from him was about a
couple of men at work arguing about whom was better: the man from northern
Italy or the man from southern Italy. My grandfather told them the only
difference was who raped their grandmothers. Over time, my family has become racially
diverse. I have a cousin whose father is African American. My oldest daughter’s
father is Mexican. Her son is half Korean. My youngest sister is married to a
Chilean man and they now have a son. I have long held the belief that while the
outward appearance may be different, the insides are the same and we all bleed
red. In an effort to understand why some people can be so intolerant of others
based on color of skin or political affiliation or any other difference, and
given my interest in MLK, Jr., and his work, the Ku Klux Klan drew my interest.
What makes them tick? What was their involvement in the Harlem Renaissance? In
spite of the fact that the Ku Klux Klan was, for most intents and purposes,
latent toward the end of Reconstruction until 1915, their activities did
influence the migration of African Americans to Harlem mainly because the Klan
was inherently violent and one of its main methods of assuring compliance was
through lynchings.
We
know that the Klan was responsible, in part, for the downfall of Marcus Garvey.
He met with Edward Young Clarke who was the acting imperial wizard of the Klan.
Clark actually sought Garvey out to offer him financial help for his Africa for
African’s endeavor. What better way to accomplish one of their goals, the
riddance of black people from American society, than by sending anyone with
dark skin to Africa? However good an idea this seemed to the Klan and to
Garvey, most African Americans were livid (Hill 23).
We
also know that while the Ku Klux Klan was very active during the period of
Reconstruction, it had died back a bit. Then, in the early 1900’s there was a
resurgence of activity. This movement in the early part of the 1900s appears to
be the second of three distinct such movements of the Ku Klux Klan, the first
occurring when it was originally organized just after the Civil War and the
third in the 1960s. The 1920s movement seems to have been the largest,
recruiting “the greatest number of supporters from the greatest number of
places.” Even though each individual Klan had similar goals as others, it
appears that there was no specific national objective and that each Klan acted
independently of others and focused on whatever nearby group was most
troublesome (Wilkinson). It has been suggested that this revival is due in part
to the fact that African American soldiers were returning from Europe and World
War I and that they could no longer be considered weak; after all, in bleeding
and dying for a country that still would not completely accept them as full-fledged
citizens, they had learned how to fight. Another reason for renewed interest in
the Ku Klux Klan seems to be in direct correlation with the release of Birth of a Nation which captivated
audiences and led them to believe that somehow the docile slave of yesteryear
had become a mindless brute who was intent on wreaking havoc (Ethnic Notions). While it was a major
breakthrough for film, this movie romanticized the Klan based as it was on two
historical novels, one of which was written by Thomas Dixon, Jr. who said, “My
object is to teach the North, the young North, what it has never known—the
awful suffering of the white man during the dreadful Reconstruction period. . .
Almighty God anointed the white men of the South by their suffering during that
time . . . to demonstrate to the world that the white man must and shall be
supreme” ("The Birth of a Nation and Black Protest."). Would they now band together and
fight for their rights? It appears that the Klan had no intention of finding
out. Once Klan activity was renewed in 1915/1916, there were over 200 meetings
throughout the United States, and not just in the south (Hill 29).
The
Ku Klux Klan had rather a humble beginning. Six young men in Pulaski,
Tennessee, apparently had nothing better to do than to form a club for
“merrymaking.” They came up with ridiculous titles, dressed in sheets and
pillow cases, and terrified recently freed slaves who mistook these young
hoodlums for ghosts. While the reaction of the African Americans was noted, the
new club did not grow until, in the eyes of white southerners who valued a
society in which white Christians were the only ones of any real value, the
south began to be overrun by people who did not fit their ideal (“Editorials”).
When
the Civil War came to an end, the slaves had been freed but there was much
uncertainty in the air. How were blacks and whites supposed to relate to each
other? Blacks had been the slaves and had had to submit to the whites. Whites
had been the masters and expected blacks to do their bidding. Now they were
equal? What an odd concept. The Ku Klux Klan, which had been started by those
six young men who had nothing better to do, was joined by men who had been
officers, generals even, in the Confederate Army. This was made possible due to
President Andrew Johnson, who was himself a southerner, pardoning all but the
highest ranking officers in the Confederate army. Now there was a secret army.
An army above the law, an army that was law unto itself (Abolition: Broken Promises).
From
early on, it became clear that it was not just African Americans who were
victims of Klan violence. They were active across the south but most especially
in areas where an African American minority was large enough to make a
difference politically. Members of the Ku Klux Klan were ultra conservative
Democrats. They did not like Republicans. They did not like Jews. They did not
like Catholics. They did not like the idea of a strong federal government and
they did not like anyone who worked for the government. They did not like
anyone who was not white and Protestant Christian. In some southern counties
where there was not a large African American population but there were many
people who made their own whiskey or brandy, the Klan was active in attacking
Internal Revenue agents. They wanted “to ‘oppose and reject Radicalism’ and achieve ‘an intelligent white man’s government’”
(Stewart).
Once
Reconstruction was ‘over,’ the Union army went back to the north and left the
southern states alone. Sharecropping was the order of the day but it was no way
to earn a living. One year a few pennies would be earned for a years’ worth of
backbreaking labor. The next year, there were no pennies, just more debt and the
year after that still more debt. It was just another form of slavery and one
that was hard to get away from. If a slave ran away, they might be beaten but
because a slave represented somebody’s money, was someone’s property, there
were laws protecting them as such. Freemen weren’t slaves. They did not belong
to anyone. How, then, were they to be made to stay in their proper place (Abolition: Broken Promises)?
Not
property? Well, then, there was nothing to stand in the way of punishing the
sharecropper who might think he or she wanted to try a better life somewhere
else. No longer able to rely on the law, lynching became the common mode of
punishment; the method of keeping blacks ‘in their place’ (Abolition: Broken Promises). Lynch law in the United States had its
beginnings during the Revolution when Colonel Charles Lynch and some who worked
with him took it upon themselves to come up with some rules for dealing with
“Tories and criminal elements.” Over time, because lynching was used mainly by
mobs to exert control and mobs generally act against diverse minority groups,
and because African Americans were a major target, they suffered greatly under
this law. Dependable statistics on lynching did not begin until1882. From then
until 1968, there are 4,743 recorded deaths from lynching and 3,446 of them
were African American, most occurring in the last ten years of the nineteenth
century and first ten of the twentieth. Toward the end of the nineteenth
century, “lynchers increasingly employed burning, torture, and dismemberment to
prolong suffering and excite a ‘festive atmosphere’ among the killers and
onlookers’ ("About Lynching").
They became so common, what did it matter if others knew who was doing
this? Everyone was involved. Everyone turned out to see. Typically, no one was
ever accused of a lynching as they were carried out by ‘unknown’ participants (Abolition: Broken Promises).
Lynching,
no matter who carried it out, was not pleasant. One incident which took place
in Texas, was actually recorded with a gramophone. The man being lynched, Henry
Smith, was photographed as well. He was “flogged and cut with knives. An iron
was heated and plunged down his throat when his captors tired of hearing his
pleas for mercy.” Even those watching were allowed to mock and maim him. When
this torture had been going on for upward of two hours, fire was set to the
platform on which he was. For weeks, the record and pictures could be bought on
the streets (Abolition: Broken Promises).
The
Klan was not the sole force behind blacks leaving the south. In Polk County,
Arkansas, specifically in the town of Mena, there were few African Americans to
begin with. In 1896, citizens of the town came together to drive out the
African Americans who had come to work on the rail road. In 1901, a black man
was lynched but it does not seem to be the doings of the Klan as it was before
there was much Klan activity. While it is obvious that the whites in the town
did not want the blacks there, it seems that economic factors also contributed
to their leaving. Once the town was devoid of African Americans, the Klan moved
in. It seemed they intended to use the town as a safe base from which to “bring
about certain reformations in the religious, political, social and financial
life of the nation” and to rid society of “smutty literature, suggestive songs,
immoral pictures, jazz dances, jury dodgers, bootleggers, moonshiners,
gambling, nigger upstarts, yellow dog politicians, Catholic control of politics
and public schools, unrestricted immigration, and Jewish influences in
financial and theatrical affairs” (Lancaster). Once they had a secure base for
operations, they were able to strike with impunity.
How
much did the Ku Klux Klan really have to do with the huge movement of African
Americans from the south to cities in the north, specifically to Harlem? That
they had an effect, there is no doubt. The extent to which they did remains
unknown partially due to the many other factors involved such as economic
factors brought about in part by drought and infestations of bugs causing poor
crops and by the lack of workers in the north due to World War I (Hill 29). The
Klan has always had a stronger presence in the south than other parts of the
country and one of their favorite methods of retribution was lynching. The
consequences of lynching are varied including, but surely not limited to
“paralysis, solidarity; and escape” ("The Birth of a Nation and
Black Protest").
It would be reasonable to expect that one of their most obvious targets,
African Americans, would want to leave in order not only to get away from the
abuse but also those who were most likely perpetrators of it.
Works Cited:
Abolition:
Broken Promises.
Films Media Group, 1992. Films on Demand.
Web. 28 September 2012.
“Editorials.” Saturday Evening Post 30 Jan. 1965:88. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28
September 2012.
Ethnic
Notions. Films
Media Group, 1987. Films on Demand.
Web. 28 September 2012.
Hill, Laban Carrick. Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the
Harlem Renaissance. New York: Little, Brown, 2003. Print.
Lancaster, Guy. “There Are Not
Many Colored People Here”: African Americans In Polk County, Arkansas,
1896-1937.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly70.4(2011):429-449.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 24
September 2012.
Stewart, Bruce E. “When Darkness
Reigns Then Is The Hour To Strike”: Moonshining, Federal Liquor Taxation, And
Klan Violence In Western North Carolina, 1862-1872.” North Carolina Historical Review80.4(2003): 453-474. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24
September 2012.
Wilkinson Jr., William Clayton.
“Memories of The Ku Klux Klan In One Indiana Town.” Indiana Magazine of History102.4(2006):339-354. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28
September 2012.
"About
Lynching." About Lynching. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2012.
"The
Birth of a Nation and Black Protest." Roy Rosenzweig Center for History
and New Media ». N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2012.
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