Black Journalists Challenge Klan Claims to Be a "Local" Organization


Black reporters covering the late-1940s revival of the Ku Klux Klan on top of the future Stone Mountain Confederate memorial noted that the Klan consistently used a distinct rhetorical technique: identifying themselves and their issues as “local,” even when they were anything but. The Pittsburgh Courier reported that the Klan leadership claimed their “activities… are inspired by local organizations and cannot be linked up with any national program.” The cross burnings and initiations, as the Pittsburgh Courier put it, were made out to be “purely local.”[1]

Likewise, the Cleveland Call and Post reported that the “Grand Dragon” Dr. Samuel Green characterized a 1946 Klan demonstration on Stone Mountain as “strictly a Georgia affair”—even as he admitted that “many members attended from neighboring states.”[2] Their sources noted 11 buses at the event that bore license plates from states like Maryland and Tennessee and that there were hundreds of cars that lined the road all the way to Stone Mountain.[3] The New York Age reported that “chartered buses brought in Klansmen from Alabama, Tennessee, Florida” and “license plates on private automobiles indicated attendance was from 14 states.”[4] In a separate piece of reporting, the Pittsburgh Courier stated that busloads of Tennesseans from across the state were at the Stone Mountain cross burning on May 10^th^, 1946.[5]

Black journalists investigating the Klan documented both the interstate networks that made Klan activities possible and also the shrewd rhetorical techniques Klan officials used to pass themselves off as a grassroots organization.

Justin Seward

References

Cleveland Call and Post. “Ku Klux Burns Fiery Crosses To Signal Rebirth in Dixie.” May 18, 1946, 12B.

New York Age. “3000 Klansmen Meet in Georgia To Greet 700 Into Membership.” July 31, 1948, 1.

Pittsburgh Courier. “Dixie Dailies Blast Klan Revival Attempt.” November 3, 1945, 14.

Pittsburgh Courier. “East Tennesseans Attend Klan Rites.” May 25, 1946, 2.

  1. Pittsburgh Courier, “Dixie Dailies Blast Klan Revival Attempt.” ↩︎

  2. Cleveland Call and Post, “Ku Klux Burns Fiery Crosses To Signal Rebirth in Dixie.” ↩︎

  3. Cleveland Call and Post, “Ku Klux Burns Fiery Crosses To Signal Rebirth in Dixie.” ↩︎

  4. New York Age, “3000 Klansmen Meet in Georgia To Greet 700 Into Membership.” ↩︎

  5. Pittsburgh Courier, “East Tennesseans Attend Klan Rites.” ↩︎