Ku Klux Klan

====Perceived moral threats====
The second Klan was a response to the growing power of Catholics and [[American Jews]] and the accompanying proliferation of non-Protestant cultural values, as well as some high-profile instances of violence against whites.{{sfn|Baker|2011}} The Klan had a nationwide reach by the mid-1920s, with its densest per capita membership in [[Indiana]]. It became most prominent in cities with high growth rates between 1910 and 1930, as rural Protestants flocked to jobs in [[Detroit]] and [[Dayton]] in the Midwest, and [[Atlanta]], [[Dallas]], [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]], and [[Houston]] in the South. Close to half of Michigan's 80,000 Klansmen lived in Detroit.{{sfn|Jackson|1967|p=241}}

Members of the KKK swore to uphold American values and Christian morality, and some Protestant ministers became involved at the local level. However, no Protestant denomination officially endorsed the KKK;{{sfn|Jackson|1967|p=18}} indeed, the Klan was repeatedly denounced by the major Protestant magazines, as well as by all major secular newspapers. Historian Robert Moats Miller reports that "not a single endorsement of the Klan was found by the present writer in the Methodist press, while many of the attacks on the Klan were quite savage.&nbsp;...The Southern Baptist press condoned the aims but condemned the methods of the Klan." National denominational organizations never endorsed the Klan, but they rarely condemned it by name. Many nationally and regionally prominent churchmen did condemn it by name, and none endorsed it.<ref>{{cite journal|jstor = 2954550|title = A Note on the Relationship between the Protestant Churches and the Revived Ku Klux Klan|journal = The Journal of Southern History|volume = 22|issue = 3|pages = 355–368|last1 = Miller|first1 = Robert Moats|year = 1956|doi = 10.2307/2954550}}, quotes pp. 360, 363.</ref>

The second Klan was less violent than either the first or third Klan were. However, the second Klan, especially in the Southeast, was not an entirely non-violent organization. The most violent Klan was in Dallas, Texas. In April 1921, several members of the Klan kidnapped Alex Johnson, a Black man who had been accused of having sex with a white woman. They burned the letters "KKK" into his forehead and gave him a severe beating by a riverbed. The police chief and district attorney refused to prosecute, explicitly and publicly stating they believed that Johnson deserved this treatment. Encouraged by the approval of this whipping, Klansmen in  Dallas whipped 68 people by the riverbed in 1922 alone. Although Johnson had been Black, most of the Dallas KKK's whipping victims were white men who were accused of offenses against their wives such as adultery, wife beating, abandoning their wives, refusing to pay child support or gambling. Klansmen often invited local newspaper reporters to attend their whippings so they could write a story about it in the next day's newspaper.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web |url=https://oakcliff.advocatemag.com/2017/02/backstory-kkk-paraded-oak-cliff/ |title=Backstory: When the KKK paraded in Oak Cliff |access-date=March 17, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190327091648/https://oakcliff.advocatemag.com/2017/02/backstory-kkk-paraded-oak-cliff/ |archive-date=March 27, 2019 |url-status=live  |date=February 28, 2017 }}</ref> All the Dallas newspapers strongly condemned the Klan. Historians report that the ''Morning News'': "diligently published thousands of anti-Klan editorials, exposés, and critical stories, informing its readership of Klan activities in their community as well as from around the state and the nation."<ref>Amber Jolly and Ted Banks, "Dallas Ku Klux Klan No. 66," ''Handbook of Texas'' (2022) [https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/dallas-ku-klux-klan-no-66 online]</ref>

The Alabama KKK whipped both white and Black women who were accused of fornication or adultery. Although many people in Alabama were outraged by the whippings of white women, no Klansmen were ever convicted for the violence.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.therandolphleader.com/opinion/columns/article_ba2ce3d7-16a0-5e6a-af20-d527135cd9b5.html |title=Baldwin: The Ku Klux Klan in Randolph County |date=March 3, 2010 |access-date=March 26, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326234153/http://www.therandolphleader.com/opinion/columns/article_ba2ce3d7-16a0-5e6a-af20-d527135cd9b5.html |archive-date=March 26, 2019 |url-status=live  }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.therandolphleader.com/opinion/columns/article_d1c0b824-a217-57b5-ad03-509e0fe88125.html |title=Baldwin: Local Klan enforced their version of law here |date=March 10, 2010 |access-date=March 26, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326234155/http://www.therandolphleader.com/opinion/columns/article_d1c0b824-a217-57b5-ad03-509e0fe88125.html |archive-date=March 26, 2019 |url-status=live  }}</ref> Anti-Catholicism was a main concern of the Alabama Klan, and [[Hugo Black#Ku Klux Klan and anti-Catholicism|Hugo Black]] built his political career in the 1920s on fighting Catholicism. Black, a Democrat, went on to the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Supreme Court.<ref>Daniel M. Berman, "Hugo L. Black: The Early Years". ''Catholic University Law Review'' (1959). 8 (2): 103–116 [https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3011&context=lawreview online].</ref>