KKK Involvement in the Harlem Renaissance

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.