Confederate Flag Controversy

Originally Posted by rbenne

Folks wish to ban the Southern Cross due to the fact that it has been co-opted by white supremacist and hate groups.

If we acquiesce to this, should we not ban crosses as well? After all the KKK uses them all the time.

As others pointed out, the stars and stripes flew on all American slave ships, ban it too.

If we start banning everything that offends someone, we won’t have much left.

This is what I have been saying all along. Once you take the first step to banning a 'symbol' the rest have no defense. In fairness they must be banned too. And in time they will be.

I see the West Coast Chopper 'logo' everywhere these days. I see no reason whatsoever this could not be considered highly offensive to Jews and families of Russian, Polish, Norweigian, Dutch, French, Romanian, English, American desent. Amongst a host of others that could have just cause to be 'offended.'

Personaly these days I get more offended by people getting offended.

[larry_cockerham]

Seems a bit out of place over a capitol or school. Lots of folks before and after the civil war fought mighty hard for the nation identified by the stars and stripes. I vote we keep that one. Long may it wave.

[ole]

Hey, Tommy. Common ground.

Whenever the news comes up with another offended party. My wife and I (who have been married long enough to forego words) look at each other with glances that say, "get real" or "get a life" or "get over it." We are offended by the too-easily offended and slide their complaints into the great circular file of "who cares?"

The second "Empire", the New Order of 1915, which flourished until 1933 and spread over the nation and was said to include a doubtful 10 million members, men and women. This group was more anti-Catholic and its spread of intolerance was a phenomenal growth of the Ku Klux Klan, which built hundreds of klaverns in the United States, including at least 93 chartered in the state of Michigan. They even had a local chapter that met on the top floor of the old Montgomery Ward building on Exchange St. in Owosso

By the 1920s, it had over 2 million members nationwide and had become a powerful force across the South, in the West and Northern U.S. It was particularly strong in Colorado, Kansas, Maine, Oregon, Indiana and Ohio.

Klan membership in Wisconsin grew almost rapidly between 1922 and 1924 when more than 40,000 persons claimed membership

Ku Klux Klan membership apparently reached its height of 4.5 million in 1924, its ranks swelled by American-born white Midwesterners.

An infamous photograph from 1930 shows the lynching of two young black men in Marion, Ind., north of Indianapolis and about 250 miles from Janesville. Many of the white men and women in the surrounding crowd wear expressions as cheerful or innocuous as people attending a church social. While Janesville was spared lynchings, the KKK, racism and ethnic and religious bigotry were rife here and throughout southern Wisconsin. A 1925 photograph in the archives of the Rock County Historical Society shows 76 Klan members--men and women--displaying what is described as the largest U.S. flag in the nation.

The Rock County KKK was awarded the 104-foot-long flag because it had the largest proportionate membership at a July 4th statewide rally in Oshkosh, according to The Janesville Gazette.

At one time Sayville was an important center for the Ku Klux and had much more members than today. At one time a huge portion of the village belonged to it. David Behrens of Newsday said, "one out of seven to eight Long Island residents was a Klan member -- about 20,000 to 25,000 men and women.." The height of the Ku Klux Klan in Sayville was during the 1920s, and since then the membership declined significantly.

According to a Newsday article, "... Sayville clergyman, Andrew Van Antwerpen of the First Reformed Church, permitted a hooded Klansman to address his congregants." This church is now called the New Life Community Church and is located on Lakeland Ave., Sayville. The Ku Klux Klan youth in Sayville were called the little "Ku Klux Klams" and inspired an "Our Gang Comedy episode in 1923 called "Lodge Night." It was about the gang's club the "Cluck Cluck Klams." The idea for the "Klams" was from the fact clams and shellfishing is so important in the area. The episode about the Our Gang kids in the Klams, later called the Little Rascals, was condemned by the NAACP at the time.

At its height in 1924, the Indiana Klan had more than 300,000 members, although it quickly declined after scandals in the mid-1920s.

Klan Unit 90 of Odon, Indiana, in Daviess County, was part of the Realm of Indiana.

Sources:

Pumroy, Eric, and Paul Brockman. A Guide to Manuscript Collections of the Indiana Historical Society and Indiana State Library. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1986. Reference Room Collection: Z1281 .P85 1986

And, in 1925, at the height of it’s national influence and power, the KKK was estimated to be over 150,000 strong in Maine, the largest membership of any New England state.

A chapter of the KKK was formally organized in Winona in September 1923, according to the Republican Herald.

The announcement of the new chapter was made in Austin, where, according to the Sept. 17 Minneapolis Journal, 400 candidates were initiated into the Klan at a public ceremony.

"Columns of Klansmen from scores of southern Minnesota cities and villages poured into Austin for the initiation," the Journal stated, adding that 2,000 spectators and 1,000 members of the order were present.

The Klansmen, wearing robes and hoods, but without masks, "clogged every road into Austin with automobiles," according to the Journal, while "ghostly figures in white from peaked cap to the dragging hem of flowing gowns patrolled the roads about Austin in the role of traffic police."

Cities and villages that sent Klansmen to the Austin ceremony, according to the Journal, included Rochester, Red Wing, Rushford, Preston, Cannon! Falls, Zumbrota, Faribault, Fairmont, Pipestone, Owatonna, Mankato, Canby, Spring Lake, Montevideo, St. James, St. Paul and Minneapolis. Winona was not mentioned.

The Austin meeting followed an intensive six-month campaign to organize the Klan in every Minnesota county.
Grand Dragon Clark Gross said at the time that the KKK had 10,000 members in Minnesota, "and we have just started our work. We are organizing not only in the cities but among the farmers, as well, and here in Mower County we have the strongest farmer organization in the state."


On a Saturday night in late July 1924, about 1,000 people attended a KKK rally at the crest of Stockton Hill, according to the Republican Herald.

An American flag, flooded by rays of a spotlight, waved from a high flagstaff near the road, while further back was an electrically lighted cross "of large dimensions," the newspaper described the scene.

Cars and trucks were parked in a large circle in the field bordering the road, while the meeting was held on the far hillside out of view of observers on trunk highway 7.

"The gathering began before 8 p.m. and was not concluded until after midnight," the paper reported. "Although Klansmen gave out no information as to the program, persons on the public highway gained the impression that there was speechmaking, a musical entertainment, refreshments and possibly initiations."

As for today, West Virginia legendary Senator, The Hon. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was a member of the KKK. In fact he was a Kleagle, a recruiter who was paid $10 for every person he could sign up to join the KKK. Now, would a West Virginian wave a confederate flag? If the KKK’s flags are going to be used as a symbol of racism and the flag they wave is a racist flag.......well....the KKK at the height of it’s power, wielded that power in the north. In Stars and Stripes country.

So if we are to slam a flag because it is a symbol of racism. Where is the equality in the slamming? The word hypocritical comes to mind.




*This is the remnants of some material I was working on before my pc crashed. I had checked all there was possible to check. If you feel required to doubt it, feel free to try to discredit me. But I think there is more than enough evidence that says the KKK used the Stars and Stripes. Not the CBF. And hypocracy abounds.




http://www.wikimirror.com/image.php?...5b/Kkk1928.jpg
KKK members march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC 1928 with the Capitol in the background.






“Parks, the Circus, the Klan, the Press,” by Thomas Hart Benton

1933 World's Fair Mural. That is the Stars and Stripes being flown over the Indiana KKK for the world to see.


Just trying to level the playing field. Promoting a smidgen of fairness and equality.

[unionblue]

Tommy,

One of the largest Klan organizations is here in Ohio, and guess what flag it flies from its headquarters building?

Unionblue

[unionblue]

Tommy,

What actions throughout history, starting after the Civil War right up until the present day, has the Federal government taken against the KKK?

Unionblue

[larry_cockerham]

Just a reminder that General Nathan Bedford Forrest of Tennessee had little to do with all the folks you list. He died in 1877.

[unionblue]

Larry,

Agreed, I think the man got a bum rap for the KKK, even after the US Congress gave him a clean bill of health on the issue and I further think the man did not authorize any massacre at Ft. Pillow.

Unionblue

Originally Posted by unionblue

What actions throughout history, starting after the Civil War right up until the present day, has the Federal government taken against the KKK?

Neil,
I'm not exactly sure what you are asking. The only thing I know of specifically is they attempted, and may have succeeded, in getting the KKK to turn over membership lists. Which is clearly illegal and unconstitutional. But when has that stopped the US government. I am not sure how that turned out. I know, but cannot prove, the FBI under Hoover both used the KKK as an outsource to commit FBI crimes like break ins, planting evidence etc and spied on them without warrants on the other hand. While there is some evidence of these actions you'd have to have a serious inroad to get your hands on incontrivertible stuff. I recall listening on C-Span Book TV as to how the FBI used a couple of Klaverns to plant evidence on Blacks they felt were communists etc. But no idea if anything is available online. Standard COINTELPRO stuff. Why do you ask?

[unionblue]

Tommy,

I ask because you seem to think that the use of the US National Flag by the Klan in someway makes it seem as though the US government, the nation and its citizens condoned the actions of the clan. This in turn, somehow makes the Confederate Battle Flag unfairly made a scapegoat by those who view it as a symbol of racism and hatred.

I counter this with the idea that the US government at various times through history fought the actions of the Klan and did not surrender its national symbol without a fight as it appears to me the Confederate Battle Flag was in later years in the 1960's.

This web site will give some examples of the Federal Government taking legal and forceful actions against the Klan in the 19th century.

1871 War on Terror.

http://historynet.com/ah/blwaronterror/

It has only been very recently that I have noticed any Southern Heritage group trying to reverse the trend of the Confederate Battle Flag being co-opted by the Klan, organizations like the Confederate 37th Texas Calvary, for instance.

Even the historian Shelby Foote stated that the CBF had been 'taken' from the Southern people, with little or no protest, by the Klan and turned into a symbol of hate and racism.

Unionblue