Who is the masked white man in the video?

It's the Klan. The most famous Klan is the pointy hat. Look at the lyrics. Is it about race?

Early ku klux Klan

Klan leader Frest

Three arrested Ku Klux Klan members (Mississippi, 187 1) The earliest Ku Klan was founded in1865,65438, shortly after the end of the American Civil War, by six missing Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. The original purpose was to perform satirical programs and some kind of commemorative ceremony. From 1866 to 1867, members of the organization began to disturb black prayer meetings and broke into black houses at night to take guns. Some of these actions have the shadow of Tennessee "yellow jacket", "red hat" and other self-defense police groups. 1867, the ku klux Klan held a general meeting in Nashville, announced the charter drafted by former Confederate army brigadier general George Gordon, and began to develop into a national organization. A few weeks later, Nathan Bedford Frest, a former Confederate general engaged in the slave trade, was elected as the first national leader.

The main goal of the Klan is to oppose constitutional reconstruction. After the civil war, the southern states experienced drastic social and political changes. Local whites think this is a threat to their sense of racial superiority, so they try to resist this change. Because Congress passed laws to achieve racial equality, the Democratic Party, the representative of southern whites, could not protect the status of whites through legislation. In addition, the Klan also hoped to control the political and social status of freed slaves. These mainly include restrictions on black people's right to education, economic development and voting rights. As a result, violence became the best means for the Klan to achieve its goal. However, the Klan's violent targets are not limited to African-Americans. South Korea and party member often become innocent victims. As a result, the Klan became a violent tool of the Democratic Party. In addition, with the end of the Confederate government's rule, the local Caucasian whites resumed their social status and began to implement the policy of apartheid.

In a newspaper interview, Frest claimed that the Klan had 550,000 male members all over the country. In addition, although he doesn't belong to this organization, he is very supportive of this organization and can convene 40,000 Klan members in five days. He also claimed that the Ku Klan's biggest enemies were not blacks, but "speculators" (referring to northerners who moved to the south after the civil war) and "hooligans" (referring to * * * and party whites in the south). In fact, this statement is not all a lie. The Klan also targeted the above-mentioned white groups, especially the teachers who came to the south with the "Freemen Committee" after the war. Many of these teachers were active abolitionists before the war and took an active part in the underground railway movement. Many southerners believe that the local blacks were incited by these northerners to vote for the party.

In fact, the national organization led by Frest is not too binding on the Ku Klan members who have a high degree of autonomy. A Klan official declared, "The so-called director-general is only an illusion, and I have no authority over those young people who are most active in violent activities beyond the aims of the Klan." 1869, Frest announced that "the activities of this organization have gone beyond the original great patriotic purpose and turned into criminal acts endangering public security" and ordered the dissolution of the Klan. However, due to the lack of credible communication channels of local organizations, this order has little effect. Therefore, in the absence of a central organ, many Klan organizations are still active in various places. Just as Frest publicly denied that he was a member of the Klan, many people thought that this order was only to protect himself from the punishment of the law.

187 1 year, president hiram grant promulgated the ku klux Klan act and its implementation act, declared the ku klux Klan illegal and authorized the government to forcibly ban its activities. Hundreds of Klan members were fined or imprisoned, and habeas corpus was restricted in some parts of South Carolina. These actions were very successful, and the Klan almost disappeared in South Carolina. 1882, the Ku Klan was ruled unconstitutional, and the Ku Klan lost its momentum, but they also achieved some goals, such as denying the political rights of black people.

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The second Klan

Poster of the birth of the country

Frank was lynched.

1928 The Klan marched on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. The second Klan was founded during World War I.. It is generally believed that its establishment is closely related to the famous film The Birth of a Country (19 15) directed by President Woodrow Wilson and Griffith. After watching the movie, President Wilson commented, "This is like a history written by lightning. My only regret is that he is perfect and true." This film is based on Thomas Dixon's two novels, People and Leopard Spot. The original author hopes to "completely change the concept of northerners by recreating a beautiful history of the Democratic Party". In this film, the area where the Ku Klux Klan is successful is described as the central and western regions, but it should actually be the southern United States. After watching this film, many white people at the bottom of society think that their poverty is caused by black or Jewish bankers, which is similar to Nazi Germany. This film led to the popularity of the Klan in the United States. At the screening in Los Angeles, actors dressed as Ku Klan members were hired to advertise, and then at the official premiere in Atlanta, the regrouped Ku Klan members took to the streets to cheer. In some places, fanatical southern audiences even shot at the stage screen.

In this year, another important event that led to the resurrection of the Klan was the lynching of the Jewish factory owner Leo Frank. At that time, the local newspaper reported a sensational news: in a factory run by Jews, the boss Leo? Frank committed a sexual crime against his employee Mary Pagan and murdered her. Frank was convicted of murder in a questionable trial in Georgia (because of the violent crowd in the court, neither the defendant nor the defense lawyer were present when the jury announced the result). Frank's appeal was also rejected (Oliver Wendell Holmes, a judge of the High Court, disagreed because he thought the trial was out of legal procedure). The consul reduced Frank's punishment to life imprisonment, but a group of people calling themselves "knights of Mary Pagan" snatched Frank from prison and lynched him. Ironically, the evidence of the murder case shows that the real murderer is a black gold with a criminal record. Cornray, the janitor of the factory, was found washing a dress with blood after the murder.

For many southerners who think Frank is guilty, this case has an unusual connection with the birth of a country. Because they associate the victim pagan with Flora, a female character who jumped off a cliff to avoid being raped by a black man. After this incident, the Klan people who met again added anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism and anti-immigration to their demands.

Thomas watson, a politician and publisher in Georgia, adopted the Frank Experiment. The editor-in-chief of the magazine later became the leader of the Klan and was elected as a senator. 19 15, some elderly K party member and members of the "Knight Mary pagan" organization held an inaugural meeting on a mountaintop to announce the birth of the new Klan.

At the same time, the new Klan was a profit-making organization and also participated in the popular brotherly organization at that time. Different from the early Ku Klan, the background of the old Ku Klan was the American Democratic Party and the southern states, while the members of the new Ku Klan came from both the Democratic Party and the * * * and the Party (the latter proportion was slightly lower). Their influence spread all over the United States and even had a great influence on the politics of some states.

Since then, the new Klan has fallen into a trough because of its involvement in the rape and murder of David Stephenson. Stephenson is the leader of the Klan in Indiana and other states 14 (the title is Dalong). He was accused of raping and murdering a young female teacher, March Oberholtz, which was a sensational case. The victim was beaten by Stephenson so many times that someone heard her say that she was "bitten by a cannibal". 1930s, the second generation of the Klan began to weaken, 1944 dissolved. Since then, the name of the Klan has been used by some independent organizations.

The Klan used the burning of crosses to create terror. In the 1920s and 1930s, a faction of the Ku Klan called the Black Legion was very active in the Midwest of the United States. Unlike Klan members who usually wear white robes, they are dressed in black pirate costumes. The Black Legion is the most violent and bloody organization in the Klan. They are notorious for attacking and assassinating producers or socialists.

After World War II, American folklorist and writer Stetson Kennedy made an in-depth investigation into the Ku Klux Klan, and provided information about the organization and even some secret signals to Superman Radio. Finally, the program introduced a special program about the Klan. Kennedy tried to solve the mystery of the Ku Klux Klan, and his explanation of Ku Klan rituals and code words also had a negative impact on the organization's popularity.

In some incidents, the Klan's targets began to fight back. 1958, in North Carolina, Klan members burned crosses in the homes of two Lumbee Indians who knew white people, and held a Klan night rally nearby. As a result, they found themselves surrounded by hundreds of armed Indians. Finally, there was a gun battle between the two sides, and the Klan members were forced to retreat.

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Late ku klux Klan

After World War II, several organizations using the name of the Ku Klux Klan were identified as1resistance organizations of the American civil rights movement in the 1960s. 1963, two Ku Klan members made an explosion in a church where a civil rights organization met. This incident caused the death of four young girls and aroused great public anger. Finally, it promoted the passage of the 1964 civil rights bill.

From 65438 to 0964, the FBI launched the "counterintelligence plan" in an attempt to infiltrate and destroy the Klan. The significance of this plan in the civil rights movement is multifaceted. This is because in the operation, intelligence personnel used infiltration, false information, violence and other means, not only to deal with extreme left and right organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Meteorologist, but also to deal with non-violent organizations such as the Southern Christian Leaders' Meeting led by Martin Luther King. This duality is most typically reflected in the murder of Viola Liu. Liu is a white woman from the south. At that time, she and four other members set off from their homes in Detroit and went to the south to attend the civil rights movement meeting. Liu was shot and killed by four Klan members in a car on the expressway, one of whom was undercover. After the tragedy, the FBI spread rumors that the victim was a producer who abandoned his children in order to have sex with members of the black civil rights movement. Despite the dual nature of the FBI's actions, Jerry Thompson, a newspaper reporter who broke into the Klan on 1979, publicly stated that the counter-intelligence plan was very successful in destroying the Klan organization. The two opposing factions in the Klan accused each other that the leader of the other was an undercover of the FBI, and finally found that Bill Wilkinson, one of the Klan knights, worked for the FBI.

Violence at the Klan rally in Alabama from 65438 to 0977 During this period, resistance to the Klan began to expand. Thompson reported that during his participation in the Klan activities, his car was attacked by a gun, and he himself was scolded by black children in public. A Klan rally was also thrown into chaos by black soldiers at a nearby military base. The actions of the Klan are often met with hostile protests, sometimes including violence.

Michael Donald was lynched at 198 1. The disadvantage of the Klan in litigation cases stimulates people to constantly seek judicial means to combat its development. For example, the lynching case of Michael Donald in 198 1 led to a judicial trial, which eventually led to the collapse of the organization "United Klan". Thompson pointed out that in the face of millions of dollars of civil compensation cases filed by Southern Law Center, many Klan leaders who don't care about criminal arrest have to restrain their actions to save the cost of handling such legal cases. However, litigation is also a means used by the Klan. For example, Thomson's book was forced to cancel publication because Ku Ku Klan filed a libel lawsuit.

After that, the Klan can also be transformed into organizations targeting other colored groups, such as "Christian identity", "neo-Nazi" and skinheads.

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Political influence

The second Klan was once famous, and its influence expanded from the south to the midwest, as well as the northern States, and even reached Canada. At the peak, most organizations moved to the midwestern States. Through many elected local politicians, the Klan controlled the governments of Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma and Oregon. Its publications even claim that * * * and Warren Harding, the former chairman of the party, are also members of the Klan, but so far there is no official evidence to prove this. Representatives of the Ku Klux Klan played an extremely important role in the Democratic National Congress held in new york from 65438 to 0924, so that it was called "Klanbake". The congress finally led to a confrontation between William McAdoo, who has a Klan background, and Al Smith, a Catholic mayor of new york. After several days of negotiations and arguments, the two candidates chose to compromise. Ku Klux Klan representatives overturned the platform of a democratic forum that might ban the organization's activities. 1924 On July 4th, thousands of Klan members gathered in New Jersey, burned the cross and Smith's portrait, and celebrated their victory in the forum plan.

At the peak of 1920, the Klan had more than 4 million members, including many politicians. 1924, Harry Truman paid 10 to join the Ku klux Klan, but at a meeting, Ku Klan cadres asked Truman not to hire any officials with Catholic background if he was re-elected as a county judge. But Truman refused this request because many of his comrades-in-arms were Catholics. Finally, he was forced to quit the organization and his membership fee was refunded. Truman did a lot of work to protect civil rights after he became president of the United States, which made many Ku Ku Klan people envious. In Saskatchewan, Canada, the Klan played an important role in the provincial election of 1929. They defeated the Liberal government and made the Conservative Party led by james anderson control the provincial government for the next five years. Another former Ku Klux Klan with national influence in the United States was Democratic Senator and later Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, but he later severed ties with the organization. In his early political career, Blake defended a Klan member in the assassination of James Coyle, a Catholic priest in Alabama, and was finally acquitted by a jury controlled by the Klan. David Duke was the national leader of the Klan Knights before 1978. He also served as a member of the * * * and Party State in Louisiana, and then left the Klan organization at 1980. Senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, joined the Klan in his twenties and won the title of Cligher. 1958, 4 1 year-old Bode also defended the Klan in the Senate election. Later, he said that joining the Klan was the biggest mistake in his life.

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Contemporary ku klux Klan

The Klan believes that the Nazi Holocaust is a lie fabricated by the Zionist movement. Although the Ku Klan is often referred to as a far-right organization in American politics, today Ku Klan only exists in a decentralized form, and its supporters may not exceed thousands. In the report "Extremism in America" published in 2002, the Jewish organization "Anti-Defamation League (ADL) (ADL)" thought that "today, there is no such organization as the Ku Klux Klan in the United States. There are only some scattered and regional small-scale organizations, and they are also declining. " However, they also pointed out that the supporters of this organization are still trying to legalize the teachings of the Klan, and it is impossible to disappear soon.

Some large Klan organizations that are still in operation include:

American Klan Knights Church

American Klan Empire

White Camellia Knight

There are many small groups.

In 2003, relevant organizations estimated that there were about 5,500 to 6,000 Ku Klan members in the United States, who belonged to about 158 scattered organizations, and two thirds of them were in the former states of the American Confederacy. The remaining third is mainly distributed in the midwest of the United States.

At present, individuals who consider themselves Klan will not disclose their identity. They usually use "AYAK" (are you a Klan? Are you a Klan? ) letter combination) secretly express your identity to another possible member. If the other party is also a Klan, they will often answer "AKIA" (I am a Klan).

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also provides legal aid to various Klan organizations to ensure that they are protected by the freedom of speech stipulated in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.