Ku Klux Klan

===Second Klan===
{{see also|Ku Klux Klan in Canada|Indiana Klan}}
[[File:KKK night rally in Chicago c1920 cph.3b12355.jpg|thumb|KKK rally near [[Chicago]] in the 1920s]]
In 1915, the second Klan was founded atop [[Stone Mountain]], Georgia, by [[William Joseph Simmons]]. While Simmons relied on documents from the original Klan and memories of some surviving elders, the revived Klan was based significantly on the wildly popular film ''[[The Birth of a Nation]]''. The earlier Klan had not worn the white costumes and had not burned crosses; these aspects were introduced in [[Thomas Dixon Jr.|Thomas Dixon]]'s book ''[[The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan]],'' on which the film was based. When the film was shown in [[Atlanta]] in December of that year, Simmons and his new klansmen paraded to the theater in robes and pointed hoods – many on robed horses – just like in the film. These mass parades became another hallmark of the new Klan that had not existed in the original Reconstruction-era organization.<ref>{{cite web|title=A 1905 Silent Movie Revolutionizes American Film – and Radicalizes American Nationalists|publisher=Southern Hollows podcast |url=http://www.southernhollows.com/episodes/birthofanation|access-date=June 3, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180527210102/http://www.southernhollows.com/episodes/birthofanation|archive-date=May 27, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>

Beginning in 1921, it adopted a modern business system of using full-time, paid recruiters and it appealed to new members as a fraternal organization, of which many examples were [[Golden age of fraternalism|flourishing]] at the time. The national headquarters made its profit through a monopoly on costume sales, while the organizers were paid through initiation fees. It grew rapidly nationwide at a time of prosperity. Reflecting the social tensions pitting urban versus rural America, it spread to every state and was prominent in many cities.

Writer [[W. J. Cash]], in his 1941 book ''[[The Mind of the South]]'' characterized the second Klan as "anti-Negro, anti-Alien, anti-Red, anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-Darwin, anti-Modern, anti-Liberal, Fundamentalist, vastly Moral, [and] militantly Protestant. And summing up these fears, it brought them into focus with the tradition of the past, and above all with the ancient Southern pattern of high romantic histrionics, violence and mass coercion of the scapegoat and the heretic."{{sfn|Cash|1941|p=337}} It preached "One Hundred Percent Americanism" and demanded the purification of politics, calling for strict morality and better enforcement of [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]]. Its official rhetoric focused on the threat of the [[Catholic Church]], using [[Anti-Catholicism in the United States|anti-Catholicism]] and [[nativism (politics)|nativism]].{{sfn|Pegram|2011|pp=47–88}} Its appeal was directed exclusively toward white Protestants; it opposed Jews, Black people, Catholics, and newly arriving Southern and Eastern European immigrants such as [[Italians]], [[Russians]], and [[Lithuanians]], many of whom were Jewish or Catholic.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=248}}

Some local groups threatened violence against rum runners and those they deemed "notorious sinners"; the violent episodes generally took place in the South.{{sfn|Jackson|1967|pp=241–242}} The [[Red Knights (organization)|Red Knights]] were a militant group organized in opposition to the Klan and responded violently to Klan provocations on several occasions.<ref name=MacLean>{{cite book |last=MacLean |first=Nancy |title=Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=1995 |isbn=978-0195098365}}</ref>

[[File:JudgeMagazine16Aug1924.jpg|thumb|The "Ku Klux Number" of ''[[Judge (magazine)|Judge]]'', August 16, 1924|alt=]]

The second Klan was a formal [[fraternal and service organizations|fraternal organization]], with a national and state structure. During the resurgence of the second Klan in the 1920s, its publicity was handled by the [[Southern Publicity Association]]. Within the first six months of the Association's national recruitment campaign, Klan membership had increased by 85,000.{{sfn|Blee|1991}} At its peak in the mid-1920s, the organization's membership ranged from three to eight million members.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s |series=American Experience |publisher=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/flood-klan/ |access-date=2022-04-05 |website=www.pbs.org |language=en |archive-date=July 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220705230424/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/flood-klan/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1923, Simmons was ousted as leader of the KKK by [[Hiram Wesley Evans]]. From September 1923 there were two Ku Klux Klan organizations: the one founded by Simmons and led by Evans with its strength primarily in the southern United States, and [[Indiana Klan|a breakaway group]] led by [[Grand Dragon]] [[D. C. Stephenson]] based in [[Evansville, Indiana]] with its membership primarily in the [[midwest]]ern United States.<ref name="Lutholtz 1993 43,89">{{cite book |last=Lutholtz |first=M. William |date=1993 |title=Grand Dragon: D. C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana |url=http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/titles/format/9781557530103 |location=West Lafayette, Indiana |publisher=Purdue University Press |pages=43, 89 |isbn=1557530467 |access-date=March 25, 2015 |archive-date=June 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220628014141/http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/titles/format/9781557530103 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Internal divisions, criminal behavior by leaders – especially Stephenson's conviction for the [[D. C. Stephenson#Convicted of murder|abduction, rape, and murder]] of [[Madge Oberholtzer]] – and external opposition brought about a collapse in the membership of both groups. The main group's membership had dropped to about 30,000 by 1930. It finally faded away in the 1940s.<ref>{{cite web |last=Lay |first=Shaun |title=Ku Klux Klan in the Twentieth Century |url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2730 |website=[[New Georgia Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Coker College]] |access-date=August 26, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051025072407/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2730 |archive-date=October 25, 2005 |url-status=live}}</ref> Klan organizers also operated in [[Canada]], especially in [[History of Saskatchewan|Saskatchewan]] in 1926–1928, where Klansmen denounced immigrants from [[Eastern Europe]] as a threat to Canada's "Anglo-Saxon" heritage.{{sfn|Sher|1983|pp=52–53}}{{sfn|Pitsula|2013}}