Re: [Marxism] Blacks versus the New Deal

[Tom Cod <tcod@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

S.Artesian asks how old Klan differed from new Klan as racist terror existed 
continuously
throughout this era.
 
This I think is an accurate observation, however, the Klan as a particular 
organization
had a specific history that led it to have a certain notoriety and hegemony 
among 
organized white racists during certain periods.  The "old" Klan was formed in 
the late 1860s
by a group of ex-Confederates led by Nathan Bedford Forest, a former 
confederate general and 
played a significant role in racist resistance to Reconstruction and the 
overthrow 
thereof, although maybe less in the latter as it was largely dealt with by 
Federal troops
and Radical Republican forces; Mark can correct me if I am off on this some.  
Subsequently,
it fell into decline and was largey moribund, except in the realm of racist 
myth, although
lynchings and racist terror obviously did not.
 
The "new" or revived Klan emerged in 1915-or burst onto the scene might be the 
better phrase-
on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the defeat of the Confederacy which 
was being celebrated 
by books like the Klansman and its movie version, "Birth of a Nation".  It 
quickly took on 
a mass proto-fascist character throughout the South and became a dominant force
in Democratic Party politics there.  It not only dedicated itself to 
maintaining the subjection of 
blacks through "legal" means of political and social influence but through its 
well known tactics
of illegal terror which became directed after a certain point not only against 
blacks, but the 
labor movement and other "communists", "Jews" and "n---r lovers".  In 1925 it 
held a mass 
parade in Washington, D.C. which was reported by sections of the mainstream 
media as if 
it were some kind of innocuous Shriner's Parade showing how accepted they had 
become in 
certain quarters.
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