Racial myths and the civil rights-era Ku Klux Klan

Abstract

In the civil rights-era, the Ku Klux Klan mobilized for the third time. To maintain white supremacy in the U.S. South, violence and terror were among its main tools. The movement’s notoriety was buttressed by racial myths and racist stereotypes that drew from wide-ranging sources. The Klan utilized this tradition based on myths, to counter the Civil Rights Movement’s successes that had created a sense of urgency and need for action among Klan members and supporters. This article aims to clarify key aspects of certain salient racial myths in the U.S. and examine them within the history of the civil rights-era Ku Klux Klan. On the one hand, the Klan displayed many mainstream positions, of which its fervent anti-communism was a clear example. On the other, by racializing even popular sentiments like anti-communism, the Klan sought to take its ideology beyond politics through its own set of narratives of race, religion, and the nation.