The Ku Klux Klan has become more violent and confrontational, is back in its native habitat, and is at its greatest strength in more than a decade, according to a comprehensive study made public today by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
The study, which updates the last ADL report on the Klan in March, 1978, points out that with a total membership of some 10,000, the KKK still speaks for only a small segment of the American population but “that segment is growing proportionately larger and more vocal.”
“Even more significant and disturbing than its numbers, ” said Justin Finger, director of ADL’s civil rights division, “is the Klan’s change in stance and tactics – from KKK leader David Duke’s 1977-78 public relations attempts to project an image of respectability, to its current blatantly overt lawlessness.” He cited the Klan-Communist Workers Party confrontation in Greensboro, North Carolina, as the latest incident of such lawlessness.
Finger said that “in addition to the Klan’s new aggressive stance, its exploitation of such controversial issues as busing and affirmative action has evoked a responsive chord among some blue collar and lower middle class sectors of the public.” He went on to say that “anxieties over such things as crime, inflation, the energy crisis and a seemingly permissive society have also contributed to a climate which enables the Klan to grow.”
ELEMENTS IN THE STUDY
The ADL study disclosed:
An increase in Klan membership from some 8,000 in March, 1978, to approximately 10,000 today, a gain of roughly 25 percent.
An increase in the number of Klan sympathizers, reflecting the KKK’s shift back to the South, “a friendlier environment.”
The rise to prominence of the most violent of all the Klan groups, Bill Wilkinson’s Invisible Empire, Knights of the KKK, headquartered in Louisiana.
Special Klan recruiting campaigns aimed at school-age children.
Continuing attempts to infiltrate the Armed Forces.
Mimicry of the KKK “in the form of do-it-yourself cross burnings around the country by assorted troublemakers harboring racist grievances.
The report points out that the growth of the KKK in the North noted in ADL’s 1978 report has been reversed. The Klan’s major gains over the past year have been in the old Confederate states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas where the ADL says, “the KKK has historically been an indigenous spearhead of racial bigotry.” Membership gains have also been recorded in Colorado, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia; losses were registered in Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. In addition, there are Klan units and activity in California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri and South Carolina.
THE KKK SCORE CARD
The current “overall Klan score card,” according to the ADL, is as follows:
Robert Shelton’s United Klans of America, 3,500 to 4,000 members.
Bill Wilkinson’s Invisible Empire, Knights of the KKK, 2,000 to 2,500.
David Duke’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, 1,500 to 2,000.
William Chaney’s Confederation of Independent Orders of the Invisible Empire, Knights of the KKK, 1,500.
Miscellaneous independent Klans, 500.
A “profile” of the various Klans places them almost entirely in rural and small-to-medium towns-with the exception of Denver, New Orleans and Birmingham. A typical crowd at rallies of the Duke and Wilkinson organizations is described as being 15 percent teenagers, 60 percent to 80 percent early twenties to mid-thirties, and 15 percent to 25 percent in the late thirties older – with many male activists wearing their hair long and spouting beards and drooping mustaches. The sex breakdown is approximately 1/4 to 1/3 female – mostly wives and girlfriends of the male members.
Educationally, the average “Kluxer” has had three years of high school. Some 20 percent were active in the 1960s. Although Roman Catholics are now accepted in the new Klans, the overwhelming majority of members are Protestant.
While the Klan is correctly perceived as being anti-Black, the report goes on to say, “its litany of hates” includes Hispanics, Asians and American Indians and reserves “a special place for Jews. “Duke’s Knights of the KKK is cited as the most extreme in its anti-Semitic bigotry, “not surprising since Duke is a former American Nazi activist.”
The ADL study found little likelihood of the Klan regaining the power it once had, but warned that “complacency would be as wrong a posture to adopt as alarmism.” In its report, the ADL calls for firm political leadership, strict law enforcement to prevent violence and disorder, informed reporting by the mass media, and the “basic need to press ahead in the quest for racial justice and equal opportunity for every citizen.” It further calls for “a concerned citizenry prepared to give full backing to political officials who are ready to stand up courageously to the hooded legions.”
The ADL study was prepared by Irwin Suall, director of the fact-finding department of the agency’s civil rights division.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
