From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Confederate flags
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 15:20:22 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	Definitely.  Again, Chalmers' _Hooded Americanism_ traces the link
very clearly and I recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn more
about the subject.  Having read this book proved very helpful when we were
fighting the Klan in Mississippi in the mid-70s.
	1970s, not 1870s.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ted White [mailto:tedwhite at compusnet.com]
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 2:51 PM
To: WSFA members
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Confederate flags

"Strong, Lee" wrote:

>         Steve asked if outlawing the KKK would reduce its influence?  This
> question was actually answered in the 1860s and 1870s.  The history of
> Reconstruction is not well known to most modern Americans and highly
> romanticized by others.  After the Civil War, the former Confederates
> conducted an organized campaign of terror against the newly freed
> African-American population.  The KKK was originally a social club that
was
> adapted to terrorist purposes.  There were other organizations such as the
> Palefaces and Knights of the White Camelia.  The Congress of the time was
> appalled and passed the Force Act outlawing domestic terrorism.  U.S.
Grant,
> one of the most underrated Presidnets in American history, sent the US
Army
> and smashed the Klan flat.  That organization did not reappear until the
> 1920s.

One of the factors in its reappearance may have been the popularity of D.W.
Griffith's BIRTH OF A NATION, which heavily romantized the KKK (they were
the
movie's *good guys*!).

--Ted White