Hate Crimes

The First Wave

White supremacists have existed in the United States since Reconstruction days, when the infamous Ku Klux Klan was born. Klan violence grew out of white rage over the defeat of the South in the Civil [Page 214]War. From 1867 until its “official” disbandment in 1869, the original Klan thundered across the war-torn South, sabotaging Reconstruction governments and imposing a reign of terror that included an untold number of murders, lynchings, shootings, whippings, rapes, tar-and-featherings, acid brandings, castrations, and other forms of mutilation. Blacks were the Klan's primary enemy because they posed a threat to southern white male hegemony. Freedom for slaves led to recession in the southern economy; thus, class concerns became intertwined with race and masculinity issues. For the Klan, white males were in a class above all nonwhites, women, and homosexuals. This established a trend that would last for generations: The purpose of the white supremacist movement was to maintain not merely white power, but white male power. The Klan's most violent and masculine members, the notorious “Night Riders,” remained anonymous, however, shrouded in secrecy and hidden behind their sheets, ghoulish masks, and tall, pointed hats.

The Ku Klux Klan was America's original hate group. Its hate crimes grew out of a dedication to the lost cause of southern white supremacy; in short, Klansmen attempted to win through terrorism what they had been unable to win on the battlefield. But the hate group was also anchored in an even deeper social force. The Klan was composed of white men who had come of age on the frontier, where successive generations of Americans had learned hard lessons about survival. Those lessons included a fierce individualism and the freedom to be whatever a person wanted to be. This led to the emergence of what became known as “frontier justice,” an instant, private, and often deadly method of settling disputes without benefit of the legal system.

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