Wars have always caused destruction and pain. It is undeniable that the Civil War also left a deep wound on the American nation.
The most intuitive and vivid manifestation of this wound is the "Ku Klux Klan".
3K Party is a civil organization that pursues white supremacy and is a representative organization of racism in the United States.
On December 24, 1865, six Confederate rebel veterans who were disappointed by the final defeat of the South established the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee.
In 1867, members of the Ku Klux Klan held a convention at Nashville . The meeting issued the KKK charter drawn up by Confederate Army Brigadier General George Gordon and elected Forrest as the first leader of the KKK.
Initially, the KKK was an organization formed by the remnants of the Southern Army who were unwilling to accept the defeat of the Civil War. In order to resist the pressure from the Yankees, they banded together to keep warm. They wanted to restore the power of the Democratic Party in the southern United States, and opposed the emancipation policy enforced by the federal army in the southern states, and tried to maintain the dominance of the white race in the south.
3K Party often uses violent means to achieve its goals. The targets of their violence are not limited to African Americans. Jews, Hispanics, , Asians and people of other ethnic groups have all been insulted, threatened, beaten and even killed by the Klan. Even Republicans in the South often become victims. Whenever members of the organization appear in public, they always wear white pointed hoods and white robes to prevent their true identities from being exposed.
The 3K Party has been a violent and racist organization since its inception, and was not popular with most Americans from the beginning.
In 11871, US President Grant issued the "Klan Enforcement Act." This dealt a huge blow to the KKK. But in 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the bill was unconstitutional. By this time, the Ku Klux Klan had been beaten to pieces. The first rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States has largely subsided.
But the survival of the KKK does not depend on the organization itself. The soil on which it lives is countless racists who hold white supremacist views. Therefore, the KKK reappeared decades later.
In 1915, the success of the silent film "The Birth of a Nation" directed by Griffith led to the Ku Klux Klan becoming popular again in the United States.
A three-hour feature film that portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as heroes and vilified Jews and black people. In an attempt to "change the minds of northerners by recreating history," many white people at the bottom of society believed that their poverty was caused by black or Jewish bankers after watching this film. After watching the movie, President Wilson commented: "This is like a history written with lightning. My only regret is its perfect truth."
With the support of the president and a broad public opinion base, the Ku Klux Klan suddenly became more popular. America is resurrected. Around 1920, the influence of the Ku Klux Klan reached its peak, with an astonishing number of 4 million members. Even many politicians, including President Truman, were members of the Klan.
During the Great Depression, the development of the Ku Klux Klan fell into a low ebb, and in the following World War II , many members were lost in the war due to joining the army. After World War II , the Ku Klux Klan was no longer a unified national organization.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, segregation and other discriminatory policies were cancelled. As the concept of racial equality gradually spreads, white supremacists have become a very small minority in the United States. Organized racial discrimination groups have also gradually decreased, and remaining white supremacists can only appear sporadically in the United States. Today, once a small number of KKK members appear, they will be boycotted by the American people. The once powerful Ku Klux Klan has become a street rat in American society.
With the decline of the 3K party, the mutual discrimination between the north and the south of the United States is gradually disappearing. This also means that the wounds of the American Civil War, which lasted for more than 160 years, have slowly scabbed and healed...
