Introduction
The United States of America represents one of the most democratic nations in the world based on the history of the country. Americans have advocated for democracy through a number of movements that aimed at uniting or disintegrating Americans based on their agenda and goals. One of the issues that affected U.S. in the past and continues to portray its significance today is the discrimination against race, ethnicity, and color. White people felt as if they owned the country and looked for strategies to get rid of blacks through denying them some basic needs and using violence means to overcome their powers. The KKK movement established in the 1860s aimed at promoting white supremacy in America by denying black people civil rights. The KKK movement left a big legacy in the history of the United States. The following paper discusses the legacy of KKK and its impact on the history of the United States.
The historical background of KKK
KKK, an abbreviation for Ku Klux Klan, refers to three unique movements formed in the United States between 1866 and 1960. The KKK movements aimed at fighting for civil rights by promoting white nationalism, white supremacy, Nordics, and anti-migration policies. KKK was the first vehicle of white southern resistance to policies created by the Republican Party aimed at developing an economic and political equality for all blacks. The history of KKK reveals that the group used terrorism acts such as intimidation and violence towards black and white republican leaders campaigning for the policy. The Americans referred to the KKK movement as right-wing extremist organizations because they ended up purifying the American society. The Congress managed to pass a legislation that saw the abolishment of KKK but the movement had already achieved its primary goals, re-establishment of the White supremacy (History.com Staff, 2009).
The KKK is one of the historical American movements that promoted white supremacy during the 19th century and extended its supremacy towards the 21st century. The movement seemed to have a significant impact because most people term it as a failed group, but a close analysis of the group's activities shows that they had the greatest impact on the American history. KKK's formation aimed at intimidating African Americans by overthrowing local governments and restoring white power. By 1920s, the Klan received a lot of attention in the American's political context. In the 1910s decade, the conflict between NonPartisan League and Independent Voters dominated North Dakota politics leading to the split of the Republican Party into two groups. A portion of voters from North Dakota liked some characteristics of the groups formed while other opposed them. The KKK movement was more political whose main goal was to incorporate the most useful elements of these groups and gain supremacy over a large number of voters (Magel, 2011).
The reason behind the creation of KKK
The name Ku Klux Klan (KKK) creates strong emotions to the mind of many Americans who experienced its impact. The movement had a strong religious background that would make anyone doubt their ability to cause violence in the nation. However, it turned out to be one of the historic racial organizations from American white supremacists with the primary goal of eradicating non-Caucasian peoples from the U.S. The leaders of the movement believed that the whites Christians were the only true citizens of the United States and any other person was an immigrant. Additionally, the American white supremacy formed the Klan with the aim of uniting and creating the “white power’ so as to protect the white race from other races present in America. According to Ross (2011), the KKK group crew members would play pranks and laugh at inferior races but as the movement grew and gained more members it turned out to express high levels of racism towards the host societies.
The impact of the KKK legacy
The formation of the first KKK movement coincided with the reconstruction of the second phase of post-civil war initiated by Congress members of the Republican Party. Violence erupted in the South in 1867, one year after the creation of the KKK group, because blacks won elections to the U.S. Congress and the Southern state governments. The KKK group members started underground campaigns aimed at fighting Republican elected leaders and voters irrespective of their race. The main aim of violence was to restore the White supremacy in the south because blacks were not allowed to have any elective or leadership posts as they were termed immigrants in the U.S. The violence that lasted for almost one year, between 1867 and 1868 saw more than 10 percent of black legislators elected under the Republican Congress ticket lose their posts and some lost their lives while other suffered serious injuries from violent attacks (History.com Staff, 2009).
Second, the KKK legacy created significant impacts on the American political system. The third KKK movement created in the 1960s played a critical role in shifting influencing the voting behaviors of the people from the south from Democrats to loyal Republicans. The changing of the voting pattern has a big impact to date because most southern voters vote for the Republican Party. Klan recruited 10 southern states during their reign in the 1960s that led to changes in ballot results for the 1960 and 2000 presidential elections. Counties under the control of KKK movement voted overwhelmingly for Republican presidential candidates in 1996 and 2000. Therefore; many of KKK movement supporters who were aligned with the Democratic Party shifted to the Republican Party because they were against civil rights. Civil rights seemed to favor both black and white leaders, hence; KKK used divisive political systems to request their Republican followers to vote in whites (Hasnain, 2014). However, the supremacy did not last long because as soon as Democratic presidents Lyndon Baines and John Kennedy were elected into power, they advocated for civil rights.
Finally, the KKK movement led to the spread of racism and discrimination in America that is experienced to date. The group that originated from south America extended violence and threats to victims of the American Civil War. African Americans never sympathized with African Americans released from slavery but continued terrorizing them forcing them to look for other settlement grounds as southern America was home for the whites. The movement demonstrated a high rate of racial discrimination that affected many Black Americans living in the southern America. In the 1920s, KKK led by their leader Hiram Wesley Evans burned churches attended by the black people, raped their girls and wives, murdered people, and castrated black males. The southern America legislation system did nothing to these culprits because the entire region was under the control of KKK leadership (Trueman, 2015).
Why does KKK still exist?
However KKK movement never achieved its goal of defeating the black civil rights, it left a great legacy to the history of the U.S. whose significant can be felt to date. The question on whether Black Americans should worry about the KKK movement today still lingers in the mind of many Americans. The answer to the question is, yes! The United States still experience a high rate of the political divide and racial discrimination proved by the high number of racial and ethnic profiling cases reported in American courts today. The real KKK group may not be present because it was abolished by the Republican Congress, but the impact of immortal groups working underground can be felt. Cunningham (2015) argued that the Klan poses a greater threat to lives of Americans today as different versions of KKK groups are demonstrated in communities, classrooms, radio interviews, and other social gatherings across the country.
Secondly, the history of KKK repeats itself today because of the large numbers of emerging "waves" likely to follow the group's policies and methods. Americans are likely to experience a reborn of KKK in the near future if legislators and leaders continue ignoring the upcoming wave of racism. For example, the U.S.A. president-elect, Triumph, threatened to send away all Black Americans living in the U.S. during his term as the U.S. president. The presence of these and many other utterances shows how whites hate blacks considering Triumph was elected under the Republican Party ticket. According to Cunningham (2015), social movement and political agenda groups have a long-lasting impact and KKK cannot be exceptional since it still impacts the political and social systems of Americans to date.
Conclusion
The KKK group is one of the most significant political and social movement groups in the history of America whose legacy exists to date. The group that operated in three unique periods created some political and social impacts that divided America along political and racial lines. The KKK movement had some religious background, but with ill motives, because it operated by issuing threats to non-white Christians and promoted violence. The movement continues to create fear and threatens Black Americans despite the presence of policies protecting racial and ethnic minorities in the country. The present government has a big role to play in preventing the "reborn" of KKK movements in America since it would take the country back to the era of Civil War.
References
Cunningham, D. (2015, Jan. 14). The Ku Klux Klan in history and today. OUPBlog. Retrieved
Hasnain, S. (2014, December 29). The political legacy of the KKK. The Chicago Reporter.
Retrieved Jan. 19, 2017, from http://chicagoreporter.com/the-political-legacy-of-the-kkk/
History.com Staff. (2009). Ku Klux Klan. History.com. A+E Networks. Retrieved Jan. 19, 2017,
Magel, T. M. (2011). The political effect of the Ku Klux Klan in North Dakota. Dissertations,
Theses, & Student Research. Department of History. Paper 46.
Ross, J. I. (2011). Religion and violence: An encyclopedia of faith and conflict from antiquity to
the present. New York, NY: Routledge.
Trueman, C. N. (2015, may 22). The KKK and racial problems. The History Learning Site.
Retrieved Jan. 19, 2017, from http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/america-1918-1939/the-kkk-and-racial-problems/
