Ku Klux Klan - A Secret History

-[fire crackling]
-[people yelling]

[KKK Member]
They're preaching to our kids

in schools these black
savages are our equals,

they're our brothers and sisters.

I tell 'em they're crazy.
We're white people.

We're standing up for our white rights!

The Klan is the only organization

that stands up for the white rights!

[people yelling in agreement]

[KKK Member]
White power! White power!

White power!

The Klan is the country's
oldest terrorist organization.

It's engaged in murder,
intimidation, violence,

rape, pillage, the worst kinds of crimes.

[Narrator]
The history of the Ku Klux Klan

is a chronicle of hate in America.

The legacy of the Ku Klux Klan
has been white terrorism.

We've had a lot of
hangings, a lot of bombings,

a lot of shootings.

That don't bother me at all.

[Narrator]
The story of the Klan is one

of secrecy, ritual, and misconception.

It was founded as a
purely social fraternity,

very much like a college fraternity,

purely as a source of amusement.

[crowd yelling]

[Narrator]
It wrapped itself in the sacred cloth

of Christianity and the hallowed fabric

of the American flag,

becoming the great fraternal
organization of the 1920s.

You had governors and senators

and legislators elected
with the Klan's blessing,

and you also had Chief Justice Black

of the U.S. Supreme court.

He joined the Klan because
he felt it was necessary.

[Narrator]
It resurrected itself

to combat the civil rights movement

and launched a violent revolt

against the on-rushing
tide of black equality.

Its leaders sought to mask the terror,

but the face of intolerance
has always dwelled

behind the hood.

-White power!
-White power!

[Narrator] They are a part
of American history we

would like to forget, but we cannot.

[gunshot blasts]

-We should not.
-Hey, come on and help us!

Today, you can see a number of groups

who are like the Klansmen,

but they simply are not
wearing the white sheets.

-[tense dramatic music]
-[flames roar]

[Narrator]
"The Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History."

-[flames crackling]
-[discordant tense music]

[vehicles humming]

[Man]
White power.

White power!

-White power!
-White power!

[muffled shouting]

-[tense music]
-[muffled speaking]

That's it, gentlemen. Ku Klux Klan.

White power.

Down the lines, two rows!
Get your line down.

[muffled speaking]

[Man On Loudspeaker]
Okay, couple people get that banner.

We've got to go, and
somebody's got to carry it.

[Man]
White power!

[Narrator]
At rallies across America,

the Ku Klux Klan assembles
to preach its gospel

of white supremacy.

Good morning, Dobson!
We are the Ku Klux Klan!

We hate niggers, we hate Jews,

we hate faggots, and we hate spics!

[Klansmen]
White power!

We don't have to have
a reason to hate 'em!

Just because it breathe,
we hate the filthy bums!

You people need to get
off your ass and wake up!

This is America.

The niggers are taking
it over and the Jews.

Make a stand, join the Klan.
White power!

-White power!
-White power!

-White power!
-White power!

[klansmen yelling]

And I hate Jews. I hate
'em because they exist.

I hate 'em because they breed.

I hate em because they're scum.

The goddamn niggers are
the scum of the earth.

White power!

-White power!
-White power!

-White power!
-White power!

[Narrator]
Today, the combustible discourse

of the Klan plays to sparse crowds.

[Klansman]
Into this country.

[Narrator]
But there was a time when millions

of Americans embraced the
ideology of the Invisible Empire,

[slow tense blues rock music]

a time when scores of men,
women, and children bowed down

in a sacred oath of allegiance
to the hooded order,

an oath virtually unchanged
for over 130 years.

The heart of the Klan creed
has always been the separation

and purity of the white race.

[flames crackle and roar]

They wanna throw white children

and colored children into the
melting pot of integration,

throughout of which will
come a conglomerated,

Mulatta mongrel type of people!

-[slow dramatic music]
-[flames crackle]

Times have changed.
The message has not.

That's right. Look out, nigger!

The Klan is getting bigger.
White power!

[Klansmen]
White power!

[Narrator]
Since its inception,

the Klan has risen to
battle enemies perceived

as a threat to the white race
to battle issues the Klan saw

as disruptive to the proper social order.

[slow tense blues rock music]

They say it's hate and racist.
Racist is psychological.

I guess everybody's
racist one way or another.

There is some hate, animosity.

We don't like what the
government's doing to us.

They're cutting down a white race.

[Narrator]
But the Klan is more complex

than a simple diatribe of racial hatred.

Men and women join for
a sense of belonging,

a sense of ritual,

[muffled speaking]

a sense of kinship.

A Klansman swears to his
God, race, and nation,

and when he takes an oath,
he takes oath for his brothers.

This is my blood.
This is my family.

What you see here, what
you see here is my people.

This is my blood. This is my race.

These are my brothers right
here, man, right here.

And I gotta say, I love
the state of Florida.

[Narrator]
The devotion to their own

is based on a common bond,
a common philosophy,

a precept of exclusion.

[tense music]

It is a bond that brings
Klan families together

in social gatherings not unlike
those other families enjoy.

-[muffled speaking]
-[barbecue sizzles]

But these affairs are different.

They possess the undercurrent that has run

through every era of Klan activity,

the threat of intimidation, of violence.

I don't care what we gotta do.

If you come after me, I'll
kill ya in plain, flat words.

You mess with me, I'll kill ya.

You come after a member of
my family, I'll kill ya.

I'm not against using anything,
any means,

and any way in order to get our message

and our views across,
whatever means necessary.

[Narrator]
From its birth,

the Klan has claimed to
be a defender of virtue,

the protector of white womanhood,

the champion of Christian morals.

Masking itself in religion,
the Klans stole the holiest

of Christian symbols
and made it their own.

Since 1915, the burning of the cross

has been a sacred Klan ceremony.

[flames crackle]

A lot of people say, "Well,
you're burning a cross.

That's disgracing God."

That ain't disgracing God.
We don't burn 'em.

We light 'em for the glorify
the light of Jesus Christ

to come back from the
world of darkness to light.

That's the reason we light 'em.

-[tense brooding music]
-[muffled speaking]

[Narrator]
The cross lighting ceremony is a mix

of ritual, religion, and racial rambling.

[Klansman]
It is dark now.

Out of the darkness comes the light.

The whole world does
not understand the Klan.

They have mess about it.
They have misunderstanding.

We are for the white race,
the white race only.

As you see, one light
becomes many lights,

the eternal light, the eternal
light of the Ku Klux Klan!

[muffled speaking]

[Klansman With Fire]
Do you choose to accept the light?

[Klansman]
Yes, sir.

[muffled speaking]

No niggers, no parasitic,
bloodsucking Jews,

just white people, damn
mad white people with fire.

That's what it's all about.

-For God!
-For God!

-For the white race!
-For the white race!

-For our children!
-For our children!

For the American knights
of the Ku Klux Klan!

[Unison] For the American
knights of the Ku Klux Klan!

[Narrator]
The Klan crosses are ignited

to the sound of one of
the holiest of Christian hymns.

-[flames roar]
-["Amazing Grace"]

The cross is the most
distinct symbol in the world.

Everybody knows what a cross is, okay?

We light it, so when it's lit,

the light upon Jesus Christ shines out

upon the Klan and blesses 'em.

[Klansman]
That these crosses burn into your souls

as they have so many other people.

That's why we're here, folks.
Fire in the night.

-[slow tense discordant music]
-[flames crackle]

-[cannons and muskets blasting]
-["Taps"]

[Narrator]
In the aftermath of the Civil War,

much of the South lay in ruins.

Confederate soldiers returned home

to find the landscape ravaged.

It was in this atmosphere of despair

that six Confederate veterans
gathered at a local law office

in the poverty-stricken
town of Pulaski, Tennessee.

-[muffled speaking]
-[hooves clopping]

On a June night in 1866,
the Ku Klux Klan was born.

Surprisingly, the origins
of the Klan had little

to do with the menacing behavior

for which it would become known.

-[horse neighs and sputters]
-[tense music]

It was founded as a
purely social fraternity,

very much like a college
fraternity but without the college,

purely as a source of amusement.

[Narrator]
Using the home of a prominent Pulaski citizen

as a meeting place, the
founders were bursting

with ideas for the new
brotherhood they had formed.

They were college men,

and college students learn
their Greek and Latin,

and so they picked a Greek word,

[speaks in foreign language]
meaning circle,

and found it had great
alliterative possibilities,

added Klan to it.

Ku Klux Klan. Isn't
that a wonderful sound?

[slow tense discordant music]

[Narrator]
To further the mystery,

the founders decreed that
all public appearances

were to be made in disguise.

Outlandish costumes
consisting of flowing sheets,

masks, and hats were devised.

Absurd-sounding titles
such as Grand Cyclops

and Grand Magi were
created for office holders.

New members were to be called ghouls.

The founders presented themselves

to the town with theatrical flair.

The site of costumed men
parading through the streets

of Pulaski piqued curiosity.

Local men were quick to join.

As the Klan grew, mysterious
night rides began.

The early rides took on
a supernatural aspect.

Attempting to frighten newly freed slaves,

hooded Klansmen claimed to be
ghosts of Confederate dead.

At first, the night rides
produced little violence,

but that would change as new Klan leaders

realized the hooded order might
be used to wage a secret war

against the Yankee
governments of Reconstruction.

[birds chirping]

Before the Civil War,
generations of white Southerners

had been raised on the
principles of white supremacy.

It was an ideal that
neither military defeat

nor the abolishment of
slavery could destroy.

[tense somber music]

At war's end, Southern state
legislatures passed measures

designed to maintain white superiority.

These laws, known as black codes,

severely curtailed the newly
freed slaves' civil rights,

in effect returning them
to a state of bondage

and making them second-class citizens.

[congregation yelling]

In response, angry
congressional Republicans

passed the Reconstruction Act
of 1867, a strict set of laws

which temporarily abolished
Southern state governments,

divided the South into military districts,

and gave blacks the right to vote.

The defeated South again felt
invaded by Northern authority.

[crowd yelling angrily]

White supremacy was threatened.

[hooves clopping]

Soon after passage of
the Reconstruction Act,

Klan leaders from all

of Tennessee held a secret
meeting in Nashville.

The man granted control of the Klan

was Nathan Bedford Forrest,

former Confederate general
and outspoken critic

of Republican Reconstruction.

By spring of 1868, the Klan had spread

from Tennessee to every Southern state.

They embarked on a campaign of terror,

a war of clandestine attacks.

The purpose, to intimidate
newly freed blacks

and keep them from the voting booths.

The Reconstruction Klansman saw himself

as the only vehicle to restore
the Southern way of life

and social order that had been
disrupted by the Civil War.

How do we put the
outsiders in their place,

these uppity blacks?

Through terror.

[melancholy discordant music]

[Narrator]
The first tactic was usually a warning,

a threatening message left
on the door of a target.

[horse neighs]

When intimidation failed, the
Klan resorted to violent acts.

The most common abuse was flogging.

Under the cover of
night, victims were tied

and whipped with tree branches.

Some blacks incurred hundreds of lashings.

Many died as a result.

The spectacle of these hooded nightriders

with these horrific-looking costumes

was enough to terrorize people,

and then they took people
out, they tied 'em to trees,

they beat them, they flogged them,

they lynched them, they burned them out.

Almost anything they were capable
of doing, and they did it.

[Narrator]
Amidst the carnage,

Klan victims had little recourse.

The majority of public
opinion was in sympathy

with the objectives of the Klan,

if not always the methods they used.

The Klan was able to terrorize
with virtual immunity.

[tense ethereal music]

From the onset of violence,

General Forrest claimed
to be against the terror.

In January of 1869, he
ordered the Klan disbanded,

its records destroyed, its robes burned.

-[flames crackle]
-[tense brooding music]

Some local Klans adhered
to the order. Many did not.

Several Southern governors
enlisted their state militias

to battle the Klan.

The efforts produced mixed results.

In the early 1870s,

Congress passed the Enforcement
Act and the Ku Klux Act.

These laws made it a felony
for two or more persons

to conspire or go in
disguise with the intent

to deprive an individual of
any civil right or privilege.

When President Hayes
officially ended Reconstruction

in 1876, the last vestiges
of the Klan disappeared,

a victim of federal
investigations, prosecutions,

and in some ways, its own success.

The end of Reconstruction
signaled the beginning

of a new racial caste system in the South,

separate and unequal,

a system that would remain
in place for 100 years.

The numbers of blacks murdered in this era

will never be accurately known,

but the carnage inflicted
by the Klan was staggering.

Certainly, hundreds were
killed, thousands injured.

-[bugs chittering]
-["Amazing Grace"]

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 an heroic force simply battling

to maintain the proper social order.

[upbeat 1900s music]

This fanciful remembrance

would help fuel the Klan's revival.

On Thanksgiving Eve 1915, 16 men gathered

atop 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.

[tense brooding music]

Colonel William J. Simmons

was a failed Methodist clergyman
who had had left the cloth

in order to become a fraternal organizer.

[Narrator] 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.

[soft dramatic 1900s music]

Just days following the
Stone Mountain cross burning,

"The birth of a Nation"
was released in the South.

DW Griffith's film played
to sold out theaters.

The filmmaking was flawless.
The history was not.

In "The Birth of the Nation,"
the Klan 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 is to ravage white women.

It's a heroic force. It's a noble force.

[Narrator]
In the film's climactic scene,

a group of hooded Klansmen
ride to the rescue

of the film's imperiled heroin as she

is threatened by lust-crazed black men.

Black Americans reacted
to "Birth of the 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 beings,

this depicted us as beasts
and depicted these criminals

as heroes and saviors.

[Narrator]
Despite its historical inaccuracies,

the film gained legitimacy
after President Woodrow Wilson

screened the epic in the White House.

"It is like writing
history with lightning,"

the president said.

"My only regret is that
it is also terribly true."

The effect of the film was enormous.

It increased hatred toward blacks.

It made people believe in the history

that was portrayed in it.

Even Unitarian ministers endorsed it,

and it just had a great effect

on changing people's
attitudes toward blacks

and convincing them that
these people really do need

to be controlled.

[tense brooding music]

[Narrator] At his Atlanta home,

Simmons mapped out the vehicle of control

in a manual called the "Kloran."

The handbook described
the Klan secret rites,

rituals, and oaths.

It defined the meanings
of strange names created

for Klan ceremonies,
regions, 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 publicists
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 anti-black.

It now added Jews, Catholics,

and immigrants to its list of enemies.

-[flames crackle]
-[tense brooding music]

The recruitment strategy
was a spectacular success.

Within 15 months, the Klan enrolled more

than 100,000 new members.

The Klan had tapped a fear
in millions of Americans.

In the 20s, a strong portion
of America felt invaded.

They felt invaded by immigrants,

Catholics were growing in number,

and they felt that America

was no longer the America they knew.

And so there was a strong
feeling that they wanted

to restore the America they knew,

and the Klan promised them that, too.

[Narrator]
But as the Klan grew, so did its problems.

Rumors spread 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.

-[saddles clinking]
-[hooves clopping]

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 Klan exposé.

The paper detailed Klan atrocities

and financial irregularities.

[tense brooding music]

In response, Congress held
hearings into Klan activities.

The star witness, Imperial Wizard Simmons,

denied all accusations
and dazzled the senators.

The committee adjourned
without taking any action.

Amazingly, the investigations
had the opposite effect

from which they were intended.

Simmons claimed the
publicity was instrumental

in the growth of the Klan.

[Man]
"It wasn't until the newspapers 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."

[Announcer]
The History Channel returns

to Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History."

-[slow tense discordant music]
-[flames crackle and roar]

-[flames crackle and roar]
-[tense music]

[Narrator]
Riding a wave of publicity

from the newspaper exposés
and congressional hearings,

the Klan burst 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 use the Protestant church

to their full advantage.

They persuaded local
ministers to join the Klan

by offering free membership
and a position of leadership.

-["Amazing Grace"]
-[tense dramatic music]

Klansmen would then make a mysterious call

on the congregation.

With prior engagement 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 hallowed cloth
of the American flag,

it found new members
easily induced to join.

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.

And so the Klan cloaks
it's it's its goals in good

and Christian and right and moral

and just and patriotic purposes.

[tense brooding music]

[Narrator]
By 1922, three million white Americans

had joined the hooded order.

The stereotype of Klan members

as unschooled and savage is inaccurate.

Klan membership in the 1920s
represented a cross section

of the white Protestant community.

-[school bell rings]
-[muffled chatter]

At the same time American women
were demanding equal rights,

women who supported Klan
ideals demanded entrance

into the Invisible Empire.

Their overtures resulted in the formation

of the Women of the Ku Klux Klan

and other women Klan organizations.

-[soft tense music]
-[muffled chatter]

At its height, 500,000 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 1920s.

The Klan demonstrated its popularity

with its own form of
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,

five of whom 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.

[tense music]

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 non-members

who may not have always
condoned the most horrific

and brutal acts but who
thought the Klan served a role

in helping tamp down these
dissident elements in society.

[crowd yelling and cheering]

-[dark brooding music]
-[flames crackle]

-[flames crackle]
-[tense music]

[Narrator]
Klan philosophy was one of exclusion.

The groups on the out,
blacks, Catholics and Jews,

were subject to intimidation,

economic boycott, and violence.

[flames crackle]

While the majority of 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 of violence was directed at blacks.

They were subject to beatings, floggings,

and, at times, murder.

[flames crackle]

But the Klan mission of
the 1920s was broader

than the intimidation
of African Americans.

Portland, Oregon's exalted
Cyclops once observed,

"The only way to cure a
Catholic is to kill him."

While few Klansman 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.

[soft tense music]

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, its
members were the law.

[tense brooding music]

In the last half of 1922,
Morehouse Parish, Louisiana

was run by the Klan.

Because the hooded order had
infiltrated law enforcement,

Klansmen were confident they

could get away with anything, even murder.

In the midst of rapid Klan vigilantism,

two outspoken critics of
the Klan were murdered,

-[men grunting]
-[punches land]

their bodies thrown into a river.

Realizing the Klan controlled the town,

a desperate governor, John M. Parker,

appealed to the US Justice
Department for help.

[Man]
"Due to activities of the Klan,

men have been taken out,
beaten, and whipped.

Two men had been brutally murdered.

These conditions are beyond the control

of the governor of this state.

A number of law officers
are publicly recognized

as members of the Ku Klux Klan."

[Narrator]
After Justice Department agents

discovered the victims' mutilated bodies,

the Klan was rescued by the legal system.

Two all-white grand juries,

each containing known Klan members,

heard overwhelming evidence
that identified the guilty.

Neither jury brought indictments.

[flames crackle]

In the midst of Klan terror,
voices of dissent were raised.

Some states began to fight back
with anti-Klan legislation.

The most popular law forbade
the wearing of masks in public,

but these efforts did little
to curtail Klan activity.

As the Klan weathered external assaults,

an internal coup toppled
Imperial Wizard Simmons.

The leader of the revolt, a
Texas dentist named Hiram Evans

seized command of the Invisible Empire.

Although power struggles and
scandals sullied its image,

in many parts of the country,

the Klan was just reaching
its pinnacle of prestige.

The greatest success story
of the American Klandom

was taking shape in Indiana.

In the end, it would also be one

of the Klan's most
despicable stories of horror.

-[slow tense discordant music]
-[flames crackle]

-[crickets chirping]
-[horses neigh]

The Klan dream of complete
political power came

to fruition not in the
South but in Indiana.

The hooded order's rise
and in the Hoosier state

was orchestrated by
David Curtis Stephenson.

David Curtis Stephenson was
a very talented charlatan

and an acute businessman.

And when the Klan started
in a very, very small way

in the Southern part of the state,

he realized the potential for it.

[Narrator]
Stephenson championed the purity of womanhood,

strongly supported Prohibition,

and sold the Klan as a Christian
political organization.

As a result, over 350,000
Indiana residents joined.

This large Klan voting
block allowed Stephenson

to take over Indiana's
political apparatus.

In the 1924 Indiana election,

almost every Republican candidate

was hand picked by Stephenson.

Stephenson had an interesting technique.

He made candidates sign
little pledges that,

in order for the client's
support, they would support him.

So basically, he had these
elected officials in his pocket.

It was on signed paper.

[Narrator]
Stephenson-backed candidates swept

to victory in the November elections.

The Klan elected the governor,

controlled both houses of the legislature,

and Klan candidates won a variety

of local political offices.

Stephenson was at the
height of political power,

but in less than a year,
he would be confined

to a state penitentiary,
serving a life sentence.

[cell bars rattling]

On a March night in 1925,
Stephenson ordered his aides

to bring 28-year-old Madge Oberholtzer

to his Indianapolis home.

Oberholtzer was one of many women

in whom Stephenson had a sexual interest.

After forcing her to drink with him,

Stephenson whisked Oberholtzer
away to a private train car.

He took her on the train where
Stephenson got more drunk,

and he raped her.

He not only raped her.

He chewed her like a
cannibal, put her near death.

They stopped off before Chicago
in a town called Hammond,

and she was bleeding, she was crying,

and she was scared to death.

[Narrator]
Distraught, Oberholtzer ingested tablets

of the toxic chemical mercury chloride.

-[Madge sobbing]
-[slow somber music]

On the drive home, a
spiteful Stephenson refused

to obtain medical attention
for the critically ill woman.

"I'll have the law on
you!" Oberholtzer cried,

to which Stephenson replied,
"I am the law in Indiana."

[tense brooding music]

Stephenson held Oberholtzer captive

in his garage apartment overnight.

The following day, aides
drove the woman home,

but the lack of medical
treatment was costly.

When her doctor came
over, he found that she

had been chewed to pieces,

that she was suffering kidney failure,

and that she wouldn't be
able to live much longer.

[Narrator]
In her last days,

Madge Oberholtzer single-handedly

destroyed the most powerful
man in the state of Indiana.

In a deathbed statement, she
testified she had been beaten

and raped by DC Stephenson.

Oberholtzer's signature
sealed the Klan leader's fate.

17 days later, the
critically ill woman died.

[slow somber music]

Stephenson was arrested and charged

with second-degree murder.

[dark brooding music]

He remained smug.

Surely no jury would convict the leader

of the great Klan state of Indiana.

But on November 11, 1925,

an Indiana jury found Stephenson guilty

and sentenced him to life in prison.

[gavel bangs]

Stephenson was confident the governor

would grant him a pardon,
but the Klan leader

was shunned by those who owed him favors.

Stephenson had a card left to play,

two small black boxes.

Inside was evidence of
the political misdeeds,

bribes, and illegal
promises candidates made

to elicit Klan support.

When no one came to his aid,

Stephenson had associates
release the contents

of the black box.

The fallout was dramatic.

Governor Ed Jackson was
charged with bribery.

The mayor of Indianapolis
was sent to prison.

Hundreds of Republicans
had their careers ruined.

[dramatic music]

The Stephenson affair was a
crushing blow to the Klan,

not only in Indiana but nationally.

The downfall of Stephenson
showed the essential hypocrisy

and lies of the Klan.

They championed the purity
of American womanhood,

they championed Christianity,
the championed Prohibition,

and here is Stephenson
violating all the three

in about the worst way possible.

[Narrator]
In an effort to shine a more positive light

on the Ku Klux Klan, Imperial Wizard Evans

staged the grandest of all
Klan public spectacles.

-[tense music]
-[muffled chatter]

To symbolize the Klan's national power,

Evans chose the nation's Capitol

as the location for the
largest-ever Klan parade.

On August 8th, 1925, Evans
led 40,000 robed Klansmen

from around the country
down Pennsylvania Avenue.

[tense brooding music]

It was, however, the last
hurrah of Klandom in the 1920s.

The scandals, negative press,

and violence began to exact a toll.

Disturbed by the extent of the brutality,

mass defections of Klansmen began.

Membership, over four million in 1925,

plummeted to just several
hundred thousand by 1948.

[flames crackle]

I don't think there can be any question

that the Klan destroyed itself.

The Klan came in as who reformer,

but the Klansmen did not live up to this,

and in every state, it tore self apart

through the immorality
and timed the violence.

[Narrator]
The demise of the 1920s-era Klan

did not signal the death
of the hooded order.

A splintered empire lay under the surface,

waiting to rise again.

-[slow tense discordant music]
-[flames crackle]

-[tense brooding music]
-[muffled chatter]

As the country struggled
through the Great Depression,

Klan membership dwindled to about 100,000.

The Klan's enemy list
shifted in the 1930s.

Communists and unions replaced Catholics

at the top of the hate slate.

The center of Klan activity
shifted back to the South.

-[bugs chittering]
-[birds chirping]

The national Klan organization
was dealt a fatal blow

in 1944 when the Internal Revenue Service

placed a $650,000 lien against
the Klan for back taxes.

[dark brooding music]

It appeared as if the Klan
might finally be dead.

But just two years later,
nearly 1,000 Klansmen assembled

at Stone Mountain in Georgia,
the home of Klan revivals.

The organizer was a 44-year-old
Georgia obstetrician,

Dr. Sam Green.

[tense brooding music]

The spectacular 1946 ceremony
signaled how Klan groups

would be organized in the future,

as self-governing units with
no national affiliation.

Green, a 25-year Klan
veteran, once boasted,

"The Klan has never been dead,

and the Klan is never going to die."

His words were prophetic.

In the 1950s and 60s, the
South became a battleground

over the issues of
integration and civil rights.

A new breed of Klansmen
signed up as soldiers

in the fight against black equality.

-[flames crackle]
-[dramatic music]

-[slow tense discordant music]
-[flames crackle]

[tense ethereal music]

In the 1950s, segregation
was the accepted way

of Southern life, yet separate
but equal was only half true.

Blacks enjoyed little quality
in a time of racial unrest.

If you lived in this house
in the middle of 1950s

and you were black, if you
want it to eat something

at a downtown cafeteria,
you had to stand at the end

of the counter, take it out
in the street, and eat it.

You wanted to go to the
bathroom in downtown

of most big cities in the
South and most small towns,

you had to wait until you got home.

When you got on a bus, you
had to sit in the back.

[crowd yelling]

You lived in a world surrounded by fear,

surrounded by not knowing who you were,

what you could do, where you could go.

It was a horrific, horrific way of life.

[Narrator]
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court

struck down school segregation

in the historic Brown Versus
Board of Education ruling.

The decision was met with a firestorm

of protest from the South.

[crowd yelling]

The Klan rose again as the walls

of segregation began to crumble.

Out here in the wild wood,
the beasts don't integrate.

I have printed in pictures that
the rivers don't integrate.

The problem with that,

they still say segregated.

They got more sense than a bunch

of Supreme Court judges up there.

Brown Versus Board lit the
feeders under the bottom Klan,

and people in the South said, "Look,

the federal court has
said little black boys

can be in classrooms
with little white girls,

and that's not gonna happen.

And not only that, they're
gonna integrate swimming pools

and public facilities,
and next thing you know,

they'll be integrating hotels and motels

and restaurants and even
drinking fountains."

So this gave the Klan a license to grow.

-[tense bluesy rock music]
-[flames crackle]

[Narrator] Because the
national organization

was destroyed by the IRS in 1944,

no longer was there any
such thing as the Klan.

Independent Klans formed
all around the South,

each separate, each autonomous.

-[flames crackle]
-[muffled shouting]

The South was a site of constant battles

over the question of integration.

In their are attempts to
defend the racial caste system,

many Klan groups became more militant.

-[muffled shouting]
-[tense music]

Burning a cross, long a sacred ceremony,

was increasingly used

as the Klan's preferred tactic of terror.

The Klan used other time-honored
tactics of intimidation:

economic boycott,

beatings,

and murder.

[tense brooding music]

Racial violence in the aftermath

of the Supreme Court
ruling was staggering.

While not responsible for every act,

much of the terror had the
letters KKK written all over it.

♪ Oh oh oh deep in my heart ♪

In the early 1960s,
blacks protested centuries

of second-class citizenship
in lunch counter sit ins,

bus protests, and street demonstrations.

Their displeasure became more vocal,

more united, more demanding.

The stage was set for a Klan war

against the civil rights movement.

In 1960, the longest
lasting of all Klan groups

was born when an Alabama salesman

named Robert Shelton created the UKA,

the United Klans of America.

He was a very clever organizer

and pulled together the Klan.

He was a salesman.

He ran a very businesslike Klan,

and he is also, I believe,
extremely dangerous.

He's closed mouth.

He doesn't give press interviews,

loyal to the Klan to even the point

of taking a prison sentence
for refusing to testify

before Congress and give
up Klan's membership list.

-[tense brooding music]
-[flames crackle]

[Narrator]
The UKA's menacing reputation was cultivated

when it played a major
role in the savage beating

of the Freedom Riders.

Early in 1961, CORE, the
Congress of Racial Equality,

tested the 1960 Supreme Court mandate

of integrated bus stations
by sending a group

of white and black riders
on a bus pilgrimage

through the South.

-[tense music]
-[bus humming]

At every station, riders would disembark

and attempt to use the
segregated waiting rooms,

restaurants, and restrooms.

When the Freedom Riders arrived
at the Trailways Station

in Birmingham, they
were met by a white mob

that included 25 members of
the United Klans of America.

And of course, the Klan
beat these people senseless,

iron pipes, change, Coca-Cola crates,

knocked them unconscious,

left and bloodied and
beaten in the street,

even beat innocent people.

A white man comes out of the
bathroom at the bus station.

Bam, he's beaten.

Black guy comes to the bus station

to pick up his girlfriend,
not a Freedom Rider.

Bam, he's beaten.

[Narrator]
It was later learned Birmingham police

had prior knowledge of the attack,

but officers had made a deal
with the Klan not to intervene.

With the complicity of the police,

they were allowed a
timeframe that no policemen

would come in and try to stop them.

The bus arrives, and for about 15 minutes,

members of the UKA as
well as others swung pipes

and sticks and kicked and
beat up Freedom Riders.

[Narrator]
Pressed as to why police were not present,

Police Commissioner Bull Connor explained,

"It was Mother's Day.

A lot of officers were
home with their mothers."

[muffled shouting]

As the civil rights
movement gain momentum,

its revered leader

became the Klansmen's most despised enemy.

♪ Free ♪

And of those words comes a black man

[muffled speaking], and they
call him Martin Luther King.

-We call him Martin Coon.
-Coon! Coon! Coon!

And if this nigger think
he can stir the niggers up,

I'll also inform him that the white man

can be stirred to defend
what is rightfully theirs.

[crowd cheers and claps]

They despised Martin Luther King,

they hated Martin Luther King,

and he embodied for them
this civil rights movement

which was succeeding
despite their best efforts,

which was making their
worst nightmare come true.

And to them, Martin Luther
King sat on top of all this,

directing it, pulling the strings.

So he became their
public enemy number one.

[Narrator]
When Martin Luther King

and other civil rights
leaders set their sights

on Birmingham, Alabama,
the Klan was waiting.

-[tense ethereal blues music]
-[flames crackle]

-[slow tense discordant music]
-[flames crackle]

[tense slow blues rock music]

By far, the bloodiest battleground

of the civil rights era was Birmingham.

In the early 1960s,

the town was a racial powder
keg waiting to explode.

Birmingham was then the most
segregated city in America,

and it had the longest history

of aggressive racial violence.

Birmingham was called Bombingham by people

in the civil rights movement
because of this long chain

of unsolved bombings of black homes.

[Narrator]
Much of the violence

was perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan.

As evidenced in the beating
of the Freedom Riders,

the city's law enforcement was known

for its working
relationship with the Klan.

The Klan had more influence perhaps

in Birmingham than they did in a lot

of the other Southern cities,

and I think that contributed
to the Klan's sense of bravado

where they felt like they
could get away with anything,

that nobody'd hold them accountable.

[Narrator]
In this charged atmosphere,

one of the cruelest of all
acts of Klan terror occurred.

The 16th Street Baptist
Church was a symbol

of the civil rights
movement in Birmingham.

The sacred chambers served

as a staging point for demonstrations

against segregated
downtown public facilities.

From the steps of the church,
hundreds of black marchers,

most of them kids,
encountered the extreme force

of Police Commissioner
Bull Connor's attack dogs

and high-pressure fire hoses.

-[people screaming]
-["Amazing Grace"]

For radical segregationists like the Klan,

the 16th Street Baptist Church
became a special target.

On a hazy Sunday morning
in September of 1963,

four young black girls
attended Sunday school

at the 16th Street church.

The day's Bible lesson
was a love that forgives.

The four girls moved to the basement

to don choir robes when suddenly,

a noise shot through the
church like a cannon.

-[explosion booming]
-[people screaming]

A bomb planted near the basement ripped

through the house of worship.

[fire truck siren wails]

Under an avalanche of
shattered glass, toppled brick,

and tangled metal, a gruesome discovery.

Cynthia Wesley, age 14,
Carole Robertson, age 14,

Addie Mae Collins, age 14,
and Denise McNair, age 11,

all were found dead, their
bodies buried a top one another.

Of all the bad things that happened

in the South during the civil rights era,

to me, that was the worst

because you had four innocent little girls

that hadn't done anything to anybody going

to worship on Sunday morning in church,

and they're killed for
absolutely no reason

except that they were black.

-[slow somber music]
-[church bells toll]

[Narrator]
Within days,

police were almost certain the bombers

were members of the
United Klans of America.

The key suspect was
Dynamite Bob Chambliss,

a Klansman suspected in
many Birmingham bombings.

[tense brooding music]

After a perfunctory investigation,

Chambliss and two other
Klansmen were convicted only

of the minor charge of
dynamite possession.

That finding was overturned on appeal.

An FBI investigation resulted
in no arrest, no charges.

-["Amazing Grace"]
-[tense brooding music]

[Announcer]
"Ku Klux Klan: A secret History"

will return in a moment.

We continue our look
inside the secret world

of the Ku Klux Klan.

-[slow tense discordant music]
-[flames crackle]

-For my family!
-For my family!

[Narrator]
With a multiplicity of Klan groups

scattered throughout the South
in the 1960s,

one of the most bloodthirsty

was the White Knights of Mississippi.

[tense brooding music]

The White Knights were led by
Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers.

Hard line Klansmen of
today still revere Bowers.

Sam Bowers, 300 wanton acts of terrorism,

bombs, bricks, and bullets, not bullshit,

bombs, bricks and bullets.

The greatest Klan leader that ever lived,

Samuel Holloway Bowers.

[Narrator]
In 1964, Mississippi was a closed society.

Only 6% of the state's black populace

was registered to vote.

Most blacks lived in dire
poverty and were subjected

to intolerable segregated
public facilities.

A coalition of Northern civil
rights groups called COFO,

the Council of Federated Organizations,

committed themselves to
opening up Mississippi.

Civil rights organizations decided

to target it on the theory that if you

can break the back of segregation here,

you can certainly do it in other states

where the resistance is
not as great and, by 1964,

had decided to bring almost
1,000 young college students

for what was called Freedom Summer

to work on voter registration
and community building.

Mississippi reacted as if it

were being invaded by Mongol hoards.

[Narrator]
As the self appointed defender of Jim Crow,

the White Knights of
Mississippi readied for war.

Imperial Wizard Bowers
issued an executive directive

urging Klansmen to engage
in clandestine violence

against COFO leaders.

-[tense bluesy rock music]
-[flames crackle]

The COFO leader the Klan
targeted was Mickey Schwerner,

a 24-year-old civil rights
activist from New York.

Schwerner had drawn the
wrath of the White Knights

since coming to Mississippi
as an advanced man

to set up COFO offices.

They said, "This guy's different."

First of all, he's Jewish,
he's got a beard,

and you didn't have
beards back in the 1960s,

and he's going against the social morays.

He's going to cafes where blacks go

and eating with blacks, staying
in black people's homes,

and worst of all, he's an
"outside nigger-lovin' agitator"

is the way I've heard him described.

[slow bluesy rock music]

[Narrator]
Knowing the likelihood

of violent resistance was high,

Schwerner and two other
Freedom Summer workers,

21-year-old Andrew Goodman
and 21-year-old James Chaney,

set out for Mississippi.

On June 20, 1964, they
inspected the charred remains

of the Mount Zion Baptist Church

near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

The church had been torched
by the White Knights.

After leaving the church,
the trio was arrested

on a fabricated charge of speeding

by Neshoba County Deputy
Sheriff Cecil Price.

As the three young men sat
nervously in their cells,

a Klan hit team assembled.

Approximately 10:30 that evening,

Schwerner, Goodman, and
Chaney were released

and drove off into the Mississippi night.

They would never be seen alive again.

Within hours, COFO workers
reported the trio missing,

but state authorities wrote the
disappearance off as a hoax.

When word of the young men's disappearance

reached the White House,

President Johnson took
an immediate interest.

J. Edgar Hoover was ordered
to treat the incident

as a kidnapping.

The next day, a squad
of FBI agents descended

upon the little town of
Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Just one day after the disappearance,

J. Edgar Hoover called LBJ with news

of the first break in the case.

-Now, Mr. President.
-Yeah.

[John]
I wanted to let you know we found the car.

-Yeah?
-Now this is not known.

Nobody knows this at all,
but the car was burned,

and we do not know yet
whether any bodies are inside

of the car because of the intense heat.

But I did want you to know that apparently

what's happened, these
men have been killed.

[tense ethereal music]

[Narrator]
The discovery of the burned car set

in motion and extensive FBI investigation.

Within two weeks of the disappearance,

153 FBI agents combed the
area and interviewed locals.

Over 400 sailors drudged the
swamps in search of the bodies.

[slow contemplative bluesy rock music]

The FBI began infiltrating
the White Knights

by enlisting numerous
Klansmen as paid informers.

The tactic paid off.

Six weeks after their disappearance,

a tip led agents to a
farm where the bodies

of the civil rights
workers were discovered,

buried in an earthen dam.

With information supplied from informants

and confessions from two Klansmen,

the FBI pieced together what had happened.

-[tense brooding music]
-[police siren wails]

After the three victims
left the jail house,

they were followed on a country road

by a Klan death squad and Deputy Price.

Forcing the young men's car to stop,

the deputy approach the trio

and ordered them into his patrol car.

The civil rights workers were then driven

to a secluded part of the woods.

[car humming]

One of the Klan members
dragged Schwerner from the car.

"Are you that nigger lover?" he shouted

before shooting the victim at close range.

[gunshot blasts]

Andrew Goodman was pulled
out next and coldly executed.

[gunshot blasts]

Another Klansman allegedly
yelled, "Hey, save one for me."

James Chaney was dragged
from the car and shot.

[gunshot blasts]

The shooter told his fellow Klansman,

"You didn't leave me
anything but a nigger,

but at least I killed me a nigger."

The killing of these three
civil rights workers just

shows the interrelationship
of police and Klansmen.

Here are the people whose
job it is to maintain order

and to protect the citizens
kidnapping, beating,

and murdering the citizens.

[tense brooding music]

[Narrator]
The FBI claimed 18 Klan members,

including Sheriff Lawrence
Rainey and Deputy Cecil Price,

were responsible for the murders.

The state of Mississippi
refused to bring indictments,

but the U.S. Justice
Department would take action.

The sheriff, the deputy sheriff patrolmen

were involved in the crime,

and when the Klan
operated under color law,

that is, use the mechanisms
of the state law enforcement

to murder, then that gave the
federal government a basis

on which to assert jurisdiction,

criminal jurisdiction against the people

that we believed were
part of the conspiracy.

[dark brooding music]

[Narrator]
Dusting off the Ku Klux acts

of the Reconstruction era,

the justice department
sought federal indictments

against the Klansmen, accusing them

of depriving the three
victims of their civil rights.

[slow tense discordant music]

Although Klan groups of the 1960s

did not wield the political
power of their predecessors,

the Invisible Empire remained
active in political matters.

[dark brooding music]

Klan members took firmly
behind the elected officials

who mirrored their ideals.

I draw the line in the
dust and toss the gauntlet

before the feet tyranny,
and I say segregation now,

segregation tomorrow,
and segregation forever.

[crowd cheering]

In the 1950s and 60s,

the political leaders George Wallace,

Ross Barnett of Mississippi,

Lester Maddox of Georgia,
and these were people

who publicly took a stand against blacks.

And what is the Klansmen
supposed to think,

"That if my leader, my state
governor is doing this,

obviously he can't say,
'Take a gun and shoot him.'

He probably means that,
though, so I'll do it."

[men clapping]

[Narrator]
Politicians on the other side

of the issue drew the wrath of the Klan.

Lyndon Johnson was abhorred by Klansmen.

He publicly took a stand against the Klan.

[dark brooding music]

My father fought them many
long years ago in Texas,

and I have fought them all my
life because I believe them

to threaten the peace of every
community where they exist.

I shall continue to fight them
because I know their loyalty

is not to the United States of America

but instead to a hooded society of bigots.

[dark brooding music]

[Narrator]
Klan hatred of LBJ reached its zenith

on July 2, 1964 when he
signed the Civil Rights Act.

Just nine days later, the
Klan invoked Johnson's name

as they committed a brutal murder.

Lemuel Penn was a veteran of World War II

and a lieutenant colonel
in the Army Reserves.

As he and two other soldiers drove

down a desolate stretch
of Georgia highway,

Penn was shot and killed by three members

of the United Klans of America.

Klansman James Lackey later confessed

that when they spotted the three
black soldiers on the road,

one of the Klansmen
said, "They must be some

of President Johnson's boys.

I'm going to kill me a nigger."

[dark unsettling music]

As so often happened in
the previous 100 years,

an all-white jury found
the Klansmen not guilty.

This is the phenomenon
of jury nullification.

The jury hears the evidence,
it's fairly conclusive,

he did it, there's proof,
witnesses, testimony,

and because what he did is
popular among the jurors

or fits into the worldview
of the jurors themselves,

at a period in the South,
all white and all men,

then the perpetrator is let free,

let free with the blessings of the jury

and the blessings of the
society from which the juror

and the defendant are commonly drawn.

-[tense brooding music]
-[birds chirping]

[Narrator] As was the case in Mississippi,

the Justice Department
appealed to the Supreme Court

for permission to prosecute the Klansmen

for violation of Penn's civil rights.

The depth to which the
FBI infiltrated the Klan

was demonstrated by another tragic killing

on a lonely highway.

-[flames crackle]
-[muffled speaking]

On March 25th, 1965,
12,000 protestors gathered

in Montgomery, Alabama.

It was the successful conclusion

of the Selma to Montgomery
March for black voting rights.

-[crowd singing]
-[tense music]

That evening, Viola Liuzzo,

a 39-year-old woman from
Detroit and mother of five,

shuttled demonstrators back to Selma.

Four Klansmen spotted Liuzzo

and the black men traveling together.

They chased the pair
down. Shots were fired.

[gunshots blasting]

Liuzzo was struck in the head and killed.

Her passenger survived.

[tense brooding music]

Unlike previous FBI
investigations of Klan crimes

that took weeks or months to solve,

the Liuzzo murder was
closed with amazing speed.

The day after the murder,
President Johnson went

on national television
with an announcement.

Arrests were made a few minutes ago

of four Ku Klux Klan members
in Birmingham, Alabama,

charging them with conspiracy
to violate the civil rights

of the murdered woman.

Mrs. Liuzzo went to Alabama

to serve the struggles for justice.

She was murdered by the
enemies of justice who,

for decades, have used
the rope and the gun

and the tar and the feathers
to terrorize their neighbors.

So if Klansmen hear my voice today,

let it be both an appeal and a warning

to get out of the Ku Klux Klan now

and return to a decent
society before it is too late.

[slow bluesy rock music]

[Narrator]
Johnson failed to mention the reason

the FBI was able to solve the
murder with such haste.

Gary Rowe, one of the
four Klansmen in the car,

was a paid FBI informant.

Three Klansmen were indicted for murder.

Their trial ended when an
all-white all-male jury

could not reach a verdict.

A second trial resulted
in not guilty verdicts.

As in previous cases, the
Justice Department prepared

to attempt federal indictments.

[Announcer]
"Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History"

will return in a moment.

-[slow tense discordant music]
-[flames crackle]

[Narrator]
As Klan victims in the war

against integration piled up,
efforts to prosecute Klansmen

on federal charges began to pay off.

In late 1965, three Klansmen
were convicted and sentenced

to 10 years in prison for
violating the civil rights

of Viola Liuzzo.

-[up-tempo percussive music]
-[gavel bangs]

Two years after the vicious
murder of Colonel Lemuel Penn,

two members of the UKA were convicted

of violating the veteran's civil rights.

[gavel bangs]

In October of 1967, 18
members of the White Knights

of Mississippi stood trial for conspiring

to deny Mickey Schwerner, Andrew Goodman,

and James Chaney of their civil rights.

Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers

and six other Klansmen were found guilty.

Bowers was sentenced to
the maximum, 10 years.

The White Knights of
Mississippi fell into disarray.

The combination of lengthy FBI probes,

congressional inquiries, and
Bower's incarceration fatally

crippled the most violent
Klan group in the South.

The House on American
Activities Committee,

which had investigated the Klan in 1965,

released its report in 1967.

It stated what most in the
South had known for 100 years.

"We are forced to the conclusion

that the traditionally ugly
image of the Ku Klux Klan

is essentially valid,
preaching love and peace

yet practicing hatred and violence,

claiming fidelity to the Constitution,

yet systematically abrogating
the rights of other citizens.

Their record seems clearly
one of moral bankruptcy

and staggering hypocrisy."

[Klansmen singing]

By the end of the 1960s,

the Ku Klux Klan was a conquered force.

The Klan had lost the battle

against the civil rights movement.

The Klan was brought down
in a variety of ways,

primarily through the
success of the movement.

They proved to be ineffective.

They kill people, they murdered people,

they intimidated people,

but they could not stop this
on-rushing tide of freedom.

They just couldn't stop it,

and they could not serve the purpose they

told people they were serving.

[slow contemplative music]

[Narrator]
As the decayed came to a close,

there were scores of final acts attributed

to the Klan that remained
unsolved and unprosecuted.

The cruelest of these was the bombing

of Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church.

Bill Baxley recalls the
day in 1963 when the lives

of four innocent black
girls came to a violent end.

-[muffled speaking on radio]
-[ambulance siren wails]

When it happened, I was
a student in law school,

and I got physically ill,

and I hoped from that moment forward

that I might do something
somewhere someday

to help bring whoever did this to justice.

[Narrator]
Baxley's chance came in 1970

when he was elected
Alabama's attorney general.

Within a week of being sworn
in, Baxley reopened the case.

[slow dramatic music]

Over the course of a grueling
seven-year investigation,

Baxley zeroed in on the original suspect,

Klansman Dynamite Bob Chambliss.

Baxley's aggressive style won
him no friends among the Klan.

When the attorney general
received a racist letter

protesting his continued investigation,

Baxley replied on
official state letterhead,

"My response to your
letter of February 19, 1976

is kiss my ass."

[bluesy rock music]

In 1977, Bill Baxley met
Dynamite Bob Chambliss

in a court of law.

15 years after the brutal
killing of four young girls,

an Alabama jury found
Chambliss guilty of murder.

He was sent to prison where he died.

[tense music]

In 1974, the Klan's national membership

was estimated to be only 1,500.

But new faces would arise from the ashes

and lead the Klan to yet another revival.

[Announcer]
"Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History"

will return in a moment
here on the History Channel.

The History Channel returns

to Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History."

-[slow tense discordant music]
-[flames crackle]

[Narrator]
With sanctioned segregation a relic

of the past, a debilitated Klan searched

for new issues to battle.

In the 1970s, they seized
upon the controversies

of affirmative action,
reverse discrimination,

and forced busing.

The Klan exploited these
issues at public rallies

but were often met with
violent opposition.

[muffled shouting]

-[people scuffling]
-[crowd roaring]

[muffled shouting]

[Man]
Hey, hey, hey, hey!

We do not want any trouble.

We just want the plan to go!

Well, we will not have it.
We will not tolerate it.

If we have to die here, we'll die here,

but there will not be any
Klan today, tomorrow, never!

Death to the Klan!

[muffled shouting]

[Narrator]
The Klan was crippled and in need of guidance.

They found a new brand
of leader in David Duke.

And they had to fight for.

[Narrator]
Duke was not a typical Klansman.

He rarely wore robes, never donned a hood.

He seldom was caught
using racial epithets.

College educated and good looking,

Duke set out to clean up
the image of the Klan.

Well, we're not anti black
so much as we're pro white.

And there's a thousand
different organizations,

it seems like, that are
working for the interest

of the blacks and other minorities.

And we're simply an
organization that's working

for the interest and the ideals

and the culture of the white people.

He's really the embodiment
of the modern Klan.

He's the white-collar,
button-down, well-dressed,

pressed Klan, and he does a
great deal to revive the image

of the Klan to make it
seem not quite so bad.

These are not really bad
people. Look at David Duke.

He could be the boy next door.
He is the Klan next door.

[Narrator]
As Duke work to build a political empire,

many of his top lieutenants grew critical

of their leader's media attention.

Some deserted and formed
their own more militant Klans.

Incidents of Klan-related
violence increased.

[people screaming]

The most shocking incident
of Klan vengeance took place

in Greensboro, North Carolina.

On November 3rd, 1979,

members of the Communist
Workers' Party prepared

for an anti-Klan rally.

[Unison] Death to the
Klan! Death to the Klan!

Death to the Klan! Death to the Klan!

[Narrator]
An alliance of Klansmen

and Nazi party members arrived by caravan.

Insults escalated into fisticuffs.

Moments later, Klansmen
inflicted deadly vengeance

upon their rivals.

-[gunshots blasting]
-[people yelling]

-[gunshots blasting]
-[people yelling]

[gunshots blasting]

[engine revving]

[muffled shouting]

-Hey, come on and help us!
-Sorry!

[muffled shouting]

[Narrator]
Five members of the Communist Workers' Party

were fatally wounded.

-[tense brooding music]
-[muffled shouting]

A jury decided the shooters
acted in self defense.

The murders in Greensboro really

shocked the civil rights community

into an awareness that the
Klan had not gone away.

And this event was one
of the most shocking

and violent incidents connected

with the revival of the fourth-era Klan.

[dark brooding music]

[Narrator]
In the early 1980s,

many Klansmen traded in their robes

for the camouflage fatigues
of a paramilitary uniform.

[tense ethereal music]

Texas Klan leader Louis Beam

opened paramilitary training camps.

So Louis Beam, he was the
bridge between the Klan

of the past and the
extremist domestic terrorist

of the present and the future,

and that would be the militia's

so-called patriot
movement in America today.

He had as many as 3,000
armed people training

in five separate training camps in Texas

for a day that that would be
a revolution and a race war.

-[dark brooding music]
-[flames crackle]

[Narrator]
As the Klan gained strength,

several organizations fought back.

The most influential of
the Klan monitoring groups

was started by the Southern
Poverty Law Center.

After representing a black victim injured

in a 1979 Klan melee in Decatur, Alabama,

the law center's executive director,

Morris Dees, created Klan Watch.

So I decided after we did the case

to see if we couldn't
set up an organization

to debunk this whole
thing about this new Klan

and to show it was
simply just the old Klan

with new rhetoric.

They still resort to violence.

[tense music]

[Narrator]
Klan Watch tracked Klan activities

and pursued litigation of Klan crimes.

The most important case in Dee's fight

against the Klan resulted in the demise

of the longest-lasting
Klan group in America,

Robert Shelton's United Klans of America,

where terror personified in the 1960s.

But unlike other Klans of that era

which succumb to investigations
and prosecutions,

the UKA manage to survive.

[muffled speaking over loudspeaker]

But in March of 1981,
the unraveling began.

Several members of the
Mobile, Alabama chapter

of the UKA were enraged
after the court case

of a black man accused in the murder

of a white police officer
ended in a mistrial.

[gavel bangs]

Bennie Hays, the titan of UKA
Unit 900 was quoted as saying,

"If a black man can get away
with killing a white man,

we oughta be able to get away
with killing a black man."

That night, two young Klansmen,

17-year-old Tiger Knowles
and 26-year-old Henry Hays,

went looking for a black
victim, any black victim.

While cruising the streets of Mobile,

they found 19-year-old Michael Donald.

The young man was kidnapped

and driven to a desolate
spot in the woods.

They got the rope around his neck,

and they put their boot up
against either side of his head,

pulled on that rope till there

wasn't any breath left in him,

and then, to make sure he was dead,

they took a razor knife
and slit his throat,

threw him in the trunk of the car,

carried him back over, and
hung him from a tree in Mobile.

It was a lynching of its classic sense.

[slow ethereal music]

[Narrator]
The crime shocked the community.

The barbaric murder of
this innocent young man

was as vicious, devious, as hideous as any

in the long history of the Ku Klux Klan.

Based on Tiger Knowles's confession,

he and his accomplice
were convicted of murder.

To most, it appeared the case was closed.

Morris Dees felt differently.

[tense brooding music]

He encouraged the victim's
mother, Beulah Mae Donald,

to file a civil lawsuit against
the United Klans of America.

Because you K leaders encouraged
violent and murderous acts,

Dees theorized the Klan
organization was also liable.

Mrs. Donald agreed to the lawsuit.

The 1987 trial lasted but four days.

Several Klansmen testified
they had been directed

to commit acts of
harassment and intimidation.

Tiger Knowles described the
murder of Michael Donald

and told how the Klan had encouraged him

to commit acts of violence.

As he stepped down from the stand,

the judge allowed the
Klansman to address the court.

Then he turned to Mrs.
Donald and spoke her name,

and he began to cry,
and his lips quivered,

and he started sobbing
and said, basically,

he begged her forgiveness for what he

had done to her son, Michael.

And she just rocked back in her chair

and looked at him there,
and it was a low whisper.

She said to him in front of that jury.

She said, "I've already forgiven you,"

and it was a pretty powerful moment,

as you can imagine, in that courtroom.

There wasn't a dry eye, I promise you.

Our counsel table and in that jury box,

and I saw that old
judge brush back a tear.

[Narrator]
The jury returned after just four hours

of deliberation and announced
a stunning $7 million verdict

against the United Klans of America.

The most durable of all Klan groups

had been destroyed by a Southern jury.

The Klan really just had
a national headquarters,

7,000 square foot building
and 10 acres of land,

and that's about it, and
that's what Mrs. Donald got.

A black woman ended up with a deed

to the property of the most dangerous

and violent Klan organization
in modern history.

[muffled speaking]

[Narrator]
The Donald judgment

was a critical blow to Klans everywhere.

Sporadic incidents of violence continued,

but Klansmen realized there was a lot

to lose by pursuing terror.

They could lose their money,
their freedom, even their life.

-[tense music]
-[flames crackle]

On June 6th, 1997,
Henry Hayes was executed

for the murder of Michael Donald.

He was the first Klansman
in modern history to be put

to death for the Klan murder
of an African American.

[prison bars clang]

-[slow tense discordant music]
-[flames crackle]

[Klansman]
We're supposed to.

[Narrator]
With a national membership of just over 5,000,

the Ku Klux Klan today is but
a shadow of its former self.

Gone are the days when it
wielded great political

and social power.

Gone are the days when it
could commit wanton acts

of terror without fear of censure.

But the legacy of the Klan remains.

Today, you can see a number of groups

who are like the klansmen,

but they simply are not
wearing the white sheets.

They take the same stance. They
believe in the same things.

They are willing to commit violence.

They just don't wear the sheets

because the sheets now look silly.

["Amazing Grace"]

[Narrator] History suggests
the Klan will not disappear.

They have died many
deaths only to be reborn

whenever many in white
America felt threatened,

reawakened as the ideals of intolerance

and racial superiority are
taught to succeeding generations.

-[dogs barking in background]
-[flames crackle]

You people see what I got my arms?

This is what this organization is about,

our children, our children's children.

Each and every one of yous take a look

at this pure white baby.

It's the most beautiful
thing in the world.

You raise your children
as white Christians.

[dark brooding music]

It's just really sad because
here you're taking kids

who presumably are innocent,
who grow up trusting others,

who don't have any preconceived notion

about who other people are,
and indoctrinating them

in this Nazi, this fascists philosophy.

It's just horrific to think of
poisoning these little minds.

[Narrator]
Whether at the peak of power or barely afloat,

the Klan philosophy of hatred,
of violence has endured

since its beginnings in
a small Tennessee town.

We still will not mix up with
a bunch of black savages.

I'm not wanting any freeloading
niggers out here living

on Granite Road in the housing projects.

They were brought here as slaves.

The only that they're free is

because there's some liberal teaching,

Jew-minded idiots that
decided to free 'em.

And we're simply an
organization that's working

for the interest and the ideals

and the culture of the white people.

Look out, nigger! The
Klan is getting bigger!

-White power!
-White power!

-White power!
-White power!

-White power!
-White power!

[dark brooding music]

I'll tell you this.

The Klan's here because we've
been here for 131 years.

The legacy is that we've
had a lot of hangings,

a lot of bombings, a lot of shootings.

That don't bother me at all.

If somebody wants to go out here

and kill a nigger or something, I don't...

They're not are equal.

They have no right to
breathe free air in America.

This is not the Boy Scouts.
This ain't the Cub Scouts.

This is the Ku Klux Klan.

If you don't like what
we're saying, then go away.

You know who we are. You
know what our history is.

[flames crackle]

I don't know if you can
count up the list of victims.

There's no list available.

It's the hundreds of thousands, I'd guess,

of people physically intimidated, killed,

maimed, butchered, burned out, terrorized,

and the list just goes on and on and on.

But what they do is upset the fabric

of what we hope is
going to be a democracy,

a place where everyone
has his or her place

and a place where everyone's
voice is at least listened to.

They can't tolerate
that, and by their acts,

they've disrupted the
fabric of our democracy.

They've made it less than perfect.

They've done a great deal

to disrupt the peaceful
development of this country.

[Narrator] The Ku Klux Klan

is America's first society of hate.

Although diminished, the
Klan can not be ignored.

Their bigotry lies
bubbling under the surface,

eager to rise at any moment to battle

against racial equality.

-[tense brooding music]
-[flames crackle]

[dramatic music]

[Announcer]
Ten riveting films,

10 award-winning filmmakers,
one unprecedented event.

"10 Days That Unexpectedly
Changed America,"

all this week at nine, only
on The History Channel.