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As the 20th Century dawned, the Ku Klux Klan was a fading memory.
Recollections of the hooded order were tainted by popular literature,
which portrayed the invisible empire as a heroic force.
Simply battling to maintain the proper social order.
This fanciful remembrance would help fuel the Klans revival.
On Thanksgiving Eve 1915, 16 men gathered on top
of Stone Mountain in Georgia. As night fell,
a towering cross was ignited and the Ku Klux Klan was reborn.
The organizer of the spectacle was a preacher turned salesman
named William Joseph Simmons.
(David Chalmers) William J. Simmons was a failed
Methodist Clergyman who had left, left the cloth
in order to become a fraternal organizer.
Simmons claimed the idea of starting a new klan
came to him in a vision.
The birth of the group was simply a matter of timing.
The moment arrived with the release of one of
the greatest cinematic achievements of its time.
[music]
Just days following the Stone Mountain cross burning
the Birth of a Nation was released in the south.
D.W. Griffiths film was played to sold out theaters.
The film making was flawless.
The history was not.
(Julian Bond) In the Birth of a Nation, the clan is a heroic force.
It is the defender of white womanhood
against the ravages of the newly freed slaves,
these animals, these beasts whose main purpose in life
was to ravage white women.
It's a heroic force, it's a noble force.
(narrator) In the films climatic scene, a group of hooded Klansmen
ride to the rescue of the film's imperiled heroin
as she threatened by lust crazed, black men.
(Julian Bond) Black Americans reacted to Birth of a Nation
with horror, with protest, with demonstrations.
It was an assault on Black America at a time when there were
no depictions of black people as human being.
This depicted us as beasts
and depicted these criminals as heroes and saviors.
(narrator) Despite it's historical inaccuracies,
the gained legitimacy after President Woodrow Wilson
screened the epic in the White House.
"It is like writing history with lightening", the President said,
"my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."
(Wyn Craig Wade) The effect of the film was enormous.
Um, it increased hatred toward blacks, it made people believe
in the history that was portrayed in it.
Even ministers endorsed it and it just had a great effect
on changing peoples attitudes towards blacks and
convincing them that these people really do need to be controlled.
(narrator) At his Atlanta home, Simmons mapped out
the vehicle of control in a manual called, the Kloran.
The handbook described the Klan's secret rights, rituals, and oaths.
It defined the meanings of strange names
created for Klan ceremonies, regence and officers.
Simmons bestowed upon himself the title of Imperial Wizard,
Emperor of the invisible empire.
As Simmons set forth to build his kingdom,
he found recruits hard to come by.
But Klan publicist devised a sales pitch based on the slogan
100% Americanism.
The new Klan would be a patriotic organization for
American born, white Protestants only.
It was no longer enough for the Klan to be antiblack,
it now added Jews, Catholics, and immigrants to its
list of enemies.
The recruitment strategy was a spectacular success.
Within 15 months the Klan enrolled more than 100 thousand new members.
The Klan had tapped a fear in millions of Americans.
(Wyn Craig Wade) In the 20's, a strong portion of American felt invaded.
They felt invaded by immigrants, Catholics were growing in number,
and they felt America was no longer the America they knew.
And so there was strong feeling that they wanted to restore America
and the Klan promised them that too.
(narrator) But as the Klan grew, so did its problems.
Rumors spend about Klan leadership misappropriating funds.
Rank and file Klansmen took to heart the fiery rhetoric being used
to increase membership and acts of violence began to occur.
The Klan was rocked by bad press in 1921 based on information
supplied by a former Klan recruiter.
The New York World Newspaper ran a scathing expose,
the paper detailed Klan atrocities and financial irregularities.
In response, Congress held hearings into Klan actives.
The star witness, Imperial Wizard Simmons
denied all accusations and dazzled the Senators.
The committee adjourned without taking any action.
Amazingly, the investigation had the opposite effect
from which they were intended.
Simmons claimed the publicity was instrumental in the growth
of the Klan.
(voice of Simmons) It wan't until the newpapers began to attack the Klan
that it really grew. Certain newspapers aided us by
inducing Congress to investigate us.
The result was that Congress gave us the best advertising we ever got.
Congress made us.
The History Channel returns to Ku Klux Klan, a Secret History.
[music]
(narrator) Riding a wave of publicity from the newspaper exposes
and Congressional hearing, the Klan bursts out of the South
in an incredible surge of growth.
Klaverns arose in every state of the union.
New members willingly paid a $10 initiation fee
for the privilege of donning the robe and hood.
Klan recruiters used the Protestant church to their full advantage.
They persuaded local ministers to join the Klan by offering
free membership and a position of leadership.
Klansmen would then make a mysterious call on the congregation.
(David Chalmers) With prior arrangement by the minister,
they would appear during the service on Sunday morning,
make a donation to the church, which the minister
would receive and bless and then they would withdraw
and the people would know that the Klan was now in town.
(narrator) When the Klan wrapped its message
in the sacred symbols of Christianity
and the hollowed cloth of the American flag
it found new members easily induced to join.
(Morris S. Dees, Jr.) In order to recruit, the Klan has to have a message
that's palatable and if the Klan message was
join the Klan and we'll lynch a black
or we'll burn a building. Very few people would join the Klan
So the Klan kind of cloaks its goals in,
good and Christian and right and moral and just and patriotic purposes.
(narrator) By 1922, 3 million white American had joined the hooded order.
The stereotype of Klan members as unschooled and savage
is inaccurate.
Klan membership in the 1920's represented a cross section
of the white Protestant community.
At the same time, American women were demanding
equal rights. Women who supported klan ideals
demanded entrance into the invisible empire.
There overtures resulted in the formation of the
Women of the Ku Klux Klan and other women klan organizations.
At it heights, 500 thousand women were members of the Ku Klux Klan.
With millions now counting themselves as members of the hooded order,
the Ku Klux Klan became the great social organization
for much of white Protestant America in the 1920's.
The Klan demonstrated its popularity
with its own form pageantry. Main street parades,
the marches were exhibitions of might and spectacle.
As Klan membership roles grew, so did its political power.
In the national arena, the Klan helped to elect
16 United States Senators, 5 of who were sworn Klan members.
One of the five, Hugo Black, recanted his allegiance
when he later became a Supreme Court Justice.
From California to New Jersey, voters elected Klan backed candidates
to a variety of statewide and local offices.
(Julian Bond) You couldn't run for public office in some places
unless you had the Klan endorsement and Klan support
because it had this enormous membership and it enjoyed
the sympathy of nonmembers, who may not have always
condoned the most horrific and brutal acts
but who thought the Klan serviced a role in helping tamp down
these disatant elements in society.
[music]
Klan philosophy was one of exclusion.
The groups on the out, blacks, Catholics, and Jews,
were subject to intimidation, economic boycott, and violence.
While the majority of the members abstained from vigilantism,
the Klan was responsible for episodes of racial
and religious terror. Most crimes transpired
in the South but Klan intimidation was felt nationwide.
Most violence was directed at Blacks.
They were subject to beatings, floggings, and at times murder.
But the Klan mission of the 1920's was broader than
the intimidation of African Americans.
Portland, Oregon's exalted Cyclope once observed,
the only way to cure a Catholic is to kill em.
While few Klansmen advocated the murder of Catholics,
the anti-Catholic sentiment was a lure for new members.
Because of their abundant numbers Catholics bore the brunt of
Klan religious terrorism.
But those of the Jewish faith were equally despised by the Klan.
The Klan was able to operate outside the law
because in many communities it's members were the law.
In the last half of 1922, Morehouse Parish, Louisiana
was run by the Klan. Because the hooded order
had infiltrated the law enforcement, Klansmen were confident
they could get away with anything, even murder.
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