Research Topics: Position Paper

What is a Position Paper?

About this essay…   What is a position paper? Position papers for this module will take the form of a summary of an issue or aspect of an issue arising from your study of a particular historical perspective.  The paper will normally include two or more ‘viewpoints’ about the issue so that they can be contrasted and more than one side of the issue can be seen. A ‘viewpoint’ is more than just your opinion about the issue. It is a ‘view’ of the issue based on reading around the topic and will refer to published sources, and may also, if appropriate, refer to professional experience.   What are we looking for? The purpose of the position papers is to help you develop your skills of reasoning and appraisal. Most of all, we want you to be good thinkers about the issues you come across and about how they might affect the services to children available today. Thinking can be hard – but you are almost certainly much better at it than you might imagine!   How long is a position paper? The papers for this course are to be 750 words long. Anything between 675 and 825 words will be accepted. It will not be accepted if it is outside these limits. It can be quite a challenge to summarise an issue and different ‘viewpoints’ on it with so few words. It does however provide excellent practice in the skill of presenting a ‘line of argument’ or a ‘case’ (a position) on a particular topic, whether you agree with it or not.   Getting started You may already have given some thought to the issues raised by the position papers. If not, a good way to get started would be to scan your eye over some of the relevant reading in the course booklet that seems to you to be interesting.  You could then see if you can find anything else written about the issue by browsing in the library.   Questions to ask yourself As you read and think about the issue, you could ask yourself the following questions:   ·         Do I understand what the issue is about – could I explain it to someone clearly and in my own words? ·         Thinking about the different viewpoints on the issue that you have read, do they seem to you to be making a good case? Are they logical and well reasoned even if in the end, you may not agree? ·         Have writers that have taken a particular viewpoint on the issue quoted other sources to support their viewpoint? If so, have they relied on just one source or more than one? Do they describe the issue so that you can form a judgement about how valid you think it is? If they have not quoted any other source, where does their viewpoint come from?   Be careful! Sometimes people say ‘I know this is right or true because my source agrees with it’. In looking at historical and philosophical perspectives there is no one truth. In the end, it is normally our values and beliefs that make us decide our views on an issue. Other sources help us decide but it does not provide ‘proof’ of right or wrong, good or bad.     References   * Rudolf Steiner - Clouder, C. & M. Rawson (1998) Waldorf Education, Edinburgh: Floris Chapt 2 & 3   - Drummond, M-J. (1999) ‘Another way of seeing: perceptions of play in a             Steiner Kindergarten’ in Abbott, L & H. Moylett eds Early Education             Transformed, London: Falmer   - Edmunds, L. F. (1992) Rudolf Steiner Education: the Waldorf School, Rev. ed., Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press   - Oldfield, L. (2001) Free to Learn: Introducing Steiner Waldorf Early Childhood Education, Stroud: Hawthorn   - Pusch, R (1993) Waldorf Schools: Kindergarten & Early Grades, New York: Mercury   - Stewart, W.A.C. (1972) Progressives and Radicals in English Education,             London: Macmillan [pp.287-302]   * Current theory and practice - Johnson, A. (2000) ‘Language and Thought’ in Mills, J. & R. Mills eds (2000) Childhood Studies: A Reader in Perspectives of Childhood, London: Routledge   - QCA (2000)) Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage, London: DfEE [sections on PSE]   - Wood, D. (1990) How Children Think and Learn, Oxford: Blackwell     Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

What is a Position Paper?

About this essay… What is a position paper? Position papers for this module will take the form of a summary of an issue or aspect of a...

POSITION PAPER

Literature review: Issues arising from parents’ perspective Regarding special service provisions.   Introduction             The reason why there is a Parents-Teachers Associations among all schools is to meet the children’s growth and education. The parents, who play an important part in the lives of their children, are considered to be the first educators, since it is at home where children mostly reside. The teachers, considered to be the second parents, are the ones taking over the role of the parent and somehow get the larger responsibility to shape the children’s academic aspect. And it is in the collaboration of responsibilities of the parents and teachers that the education of the children is more effectively developed.             Unfortunately, the parents are often underemphasized in the component of educational decision-making. Long years of observation have convinced hat the role of many parents in the child’s educational development has been minimal. That is to say parents have been content, generally, to put the responsibility for this development entirely in the hands of the school. For example, the matter of discipline, especially in recent years, has fallen to the teachers and the principal often with little or no help from parents (6/14/1997).  And true enough, generally, parents are comfortably secured enough that while they send their kids in the school they think all is well. Such negligence has led to numerous problems for the school. It is difficult, for instance, for teachers to hold the attention of students in the classroom when there are disruptive students present. Parents have not taught them to respect fellow students, teachers, and themselves and have not emphasized the importance of an education in today’s society. As a result, some students not only are inattentive but also are doing things that divert the attention of those who desire to learn (6/14/1997). Education and Special Education             Education is defined to be any process, either formal or informal, that shapes the potential of a maturing organism. Informal education results from the constant effect of environment and its strength in shaping values and habits can not be overestimated. Formal education is a conscious effort by human society to impart the skills and modes of thought considered essential for social functioning (2004).             Today, education is effectively translated to academic institutions. Young people are molded through schools with different degrees.             On the other hand, the term “inclusion” refers to a process whereby students with disabilities receive their education, with necessary special education support, primarily in general classrooms alongside students without special education designations (, 1992). Further on, the term “inclusion” is more philosophically loaded, prescribing that the appropriate placement for students with disabilities is almost always the general classroom. This means that they are to be considered as full-fledged members of, not visitors to, the general classroom and are to be educated in that setting to the fullest extent possible with necessary supports. Occasional removal from the general classroom, while not ruled out, requires justification in terms of practicality or feasibility considerations (, 1996). A study conducted by (2000) states that the new millennium faces new roles and new opportunities (such as schools becoming more diverse, diversified collaboration, increase in accountability for the academic gains of students, and the philosophy of service delivery becoming a larger purposeful issue for all involved parties) to continue and better the needs of learners who may be marginalised by any existing educational arrangements (, 2000).  In Australia, much of the debate lies to change the set curriculum and the segregated approach still existing in some special needs schools especially for severe learning difficulties (SLD) and profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) (2002). Indeed, special education is an important development of education.    Parents Perspective on Special Education It’s every parent’s dream to have their disabled child to live normally. Thus Special Education is the proper leeway to have these kids to live and go to school normally like any other kids. These parents hope that availing the services of special education would make certain that their children will have an environment that would not remind them they are different, but an environment that teaches them to face the fact and move forward. Also there will be quite a strong and adequate knowledge being provided. After all, the point of having people go to school is to prepare them to grow and face the real world. What, then, would be the real world of these disabled children but a world we are living now. An examination of three dimensions of perceptions assessed found that parents were more positive regarding the impact of inclusion on mutual social benefits, acceptance, and treatment of their child and more apprehensive regarding the impact of inclusion on the quality of educational services their child receives. Discussion includes how these findings may offer insight into reasoning used by some parents when considering the benefits of more inclusive educational placements for their own children ( (1998)). One reason why parents support for inclusion is because of the chance for improvement in the included child’s social skills, the benefits of having their child attend a neighborhood school, and the view that classrooms should not be segregated, but rather be representative of the larger society. However, parents are concerned of their children for some other reasons. Parents see adequate teacher preparation as one of the most important components for a special needs child to successfully integrate in an inclusive programme. Studies have shown that these parents feel the self-esteem of their children is negatively affected. These parents sometimes think general educators lacked understanding of learning disabilities (, 1990; 1989). Moreover, another study examining the perceptions of parents of children with abilities ranging from gifted/talented to regular with learning problems indicated that parents feel inclusion is detrimental in meeting the needs of all students (1995). Most parental concerns focus around the following: 1) gifted students are bored and unchallenged; 2) average children receive a “watered” down curriculum and resent adaptations made for students with disabilities; 3) regular students are frustrated by seeing other children doing less work and receiving the same or better grades; and 4) teachers spend “too much time” on disciplining and managing students with behavior problems or working with slower students (, 1995). Finally, a national study on inclusion states that “some general education parents report the positive social and academic benefits for their children due to involvement with persons with disabilities and the increase in instructional supports in the classroom” (1995, page 5). Another factor why people are hesitant about inclusive school is because of lack of resources. Lack of resources is also a major concern to parents from special education provision.  According to (2003) parents worry about lack of appropriate support and resources for their specialist children. Many parents believe that when there is a lack of support, teachers have to share their attention between few students with severe disabilities.  Moreover, findings reveal that there is a shortage of special education professionals with the expertise required to work with special needs children, insufficient funds to develop and support programmes to provide specialist students requiring assistance and lack of resources to adequately accommodate special children.  While these findings are based primarily on studies from America and Europe, it can also be linked to Australia where much is required to successfully deliver all aspects of special education programs.   Furthermore, parents believe that curricular emphasis found in programs for students with severe disabilities has historically shifted from remedial academic instruction and functional life skill development to the development of friendships or social skills between people with disabilities and their able peers (, 2002;, , 1992), and that those who advocate for the placement of all students into general education classrooms often view such social goals as their primary concern (, 1994). On the other hand, social integration is an issue for parents. Social integration issue refers to the lack of time spent by disabled children with other peers.  Parents observed this by simply placing children in the same – it did not ensure positive interactions between disabled children and their peers (, 2001;, 2001). Neither did social integration, in itself, foster the goals of cognitive and social growth on the part of the disabled children (2001). Hence, it can be said that for parents, if this will continue, the purpose of bringing their child to a special education institution will not be met.  Furthermore, handling diversity is the key issue at the classroom level. When dealing with differences in the classroom, class teachers need an extra pair of hands or extra support from either colleagues (or special education teachers) or other professionals (2003;, 2002).  Basically, it leads to the challenges of co-teaching (classroom level), team teaching and the need for good co-operation between teachers, on the school level and co-ordination with professionals from other support services (, 2003). Program of study   The promotion of curriculum standardization is a crucial component to the current education reform movement. (2002) states that a more desirable school curriculum accommodating special needs children is required in Australia.  According to (2004) a more standardised curriculum can create problem for special education by hampering individualization in special classes.  Furthermore, it can also affect the satisfaction of parents of those special children. For the parents, there is a tendency that their children would not be able to cope with such standardisation.  (1994) also stressed that the successful participation of students with cognitive disabilities depends on states developing outcomes, which are wide-ranging and broad enough to be significant for the students. Furthermore, (1997) affirm that enough attention should be given to the specific curricular needs of students with disabilities. However, it should be noted that a successful participation of students with disabilities in the standards-based reform is determined based on the degree to which a set of content standards is appropriate to their valued educational outcomes and consistent with proven instructional practices.  (2001) found that parents are sceptical when it comes to secondary level inclusions.  Furthermore, it was revealed that many parents believe there is heavy emphasis on content knowledge.  For example to complete high school successfully, students must master a wide variety of content areas.  Many students with disabilities find mastering such a wide domain of content knowledge daunting and overwhelming.  To complicate the situation, many special education teachers are not experts in many of these content domains, which may limit their ability to facilitate student learning (, 20001996; 1997).  Clearly, the complexities of secondary education interact with effective special education in a variety of ways, which are at present not fully stipulated (, 2000b).  While most classroom adaptations comes under the theme of understanding the learning needs of student with disabilities, the special educator’s expertise can be most critical in this area.   (2002) conducted a survey in Canada asking three hundred and fifty parents to indicate their general satisfaction with the public schools program of study and if it was meeting their child’s needs, only 3% indicated the program fully met their needs.  A full 61% felt the system poorly met or failed their child’s needs.  A little more than a third (36%) felt that school adequately met their child’s needs.  A full 77% of parents indicated that they had expressed concern about their child’s lack of progress, lack of services, and/or IEP in the past.   Over half had expressed these concerns to principals or Vice-Principals.  Less than half (47%) were satisfied with the results. Of the 53% who were not satisfied, a full 89% of them were not informed of their right to appeal.  When asked if they had ever filed an appeal only 1% indicated they had.  38% stated they did not know about them, while 19% stated they felt an appeal would not change the outcome or that there would be negative consequences for their child.  The parents believe that the funding provided by the government is woefully inadequate to provide children with special needs the appropriate services they require.  Furthermore, the parents perceive that despite policies, the current system does not address this population’s needs. Parents are very dissatisfied with current services, lack of available assessment, lack of appropriate programs, and lack of support, poor teacher knowledge and preparedness, and response to their concerns. As discussed in the report there are many reasons for the above; however, the survey describes the general decline in services to this neglected population in public school system.  The above findings affirm that there is a presence of considerable variability in parents view toward inclusive programmes service delivery.  The multidimensionality of parent attitudes toward inclusive practices reveals the subjective and phenomenological nature of the reasoning process a parent undergoes when considering educational placement options.  While interpreting various readings to write this literature, I have identified that parents can be expected to have varying views regarding inclusive placement options based on a broad range of interacting variables rather than on a singular determinant, such as the cognitive profile of their child. As such, if schools are to meet the challenge of educating increased numbers of children with diverse needs, teachers must be well trained and must embrace instruction and curricula that engage and encourage all students.  The importance should be placed on several interrelated educational strategies: heterogeneous student grouping; developmentally appropriate practice; an inclusive curriculum that emphasizes children’s strengths yet accommodates their needs; high expectations for all students; appropriate physical environment and materials; collaboration and instructional teaming with other teachers and professionals; support from administrators, families, and the community, and above all ongoing professional development (, 2002); 2001; 1994;, 1994). Future Research This paper is primarily linked to studies undertaken in America and Europe with some findings from Australian perspective.  To accurately analyse what Australian parents perspective are regarding the service provision in the inclusive setting, it would be beneficial to carry out more studies that looks at various aspects of service delivery (teacher training, resource support, technical support etc) in Australia. Such studies will enable educators and other professional agencies to obtain a much broader aspect of what is been warranted and act accordingly.  Furthermore, it is recommended more longitudinal studies that consider both the short and long-term effects of different models of service delivery be undertaken from Australian perspective.  This will provide parents and educators with important information when considering the most appropriate program for a particular child and perhaps transform their (parent and/or educator) concerns positively. Counterclaims Among other claims that refute inclusive school for disabled students are the teacher’s perceptions’ that students who are in handicap should be placed in a special school. As any teacher knows, students with disabilities are labeled and removed from the general education classroom because, after the best efforts of the classroom teacher, the needs of the student are not being met. To return the student to the same classroom, under the same circumstances (e.g., same level of teacher support), is irresponsible and will not lead to a good instructional program for the student. Indeed, unless major changes occur in general education classrooms and schools, the likelihood is strong that students with disabilities who are placed back into these settings will not receive significant benefits (. (1996)). Many teachers would say that disabled kids should be placed in a segregated school in order for them to dwell on the same setting with other kids. These kids might not be able to catch up with other kids. One of the criticisms of inclusion in many schools is that too much is being made of the needs of one small group of students. We agree with this statement if inclusion benefits only students with disabilities (. (1996)). Conclusion The inclusion programs help these disabled children to live in the normal environment, wherein they co-exist with children who have normal conditions. The positive effect on this is that these “gifted” children are nourished to live the real society of which they will grow up with. They will be taught how to carry on themselves given this imperfect world, so when they grow up they would face the world head on. However, other claims that having these children are part of the inclusion could also mean other disadvantages like keeping up with the class and exemptions. A child having mental capacity problem might not be able to keep with the class pace. A child having physical disorder could not be part of physical education class. Parent perceptions of inclusive practices may be largely a function of the value placed on particular curricular skills and beliefs regarding where those skills can best be nurtured.  As such, it is vital that education professionals understand the perspectives of the parents of the children whom they serve (, 2000a).  Moreover, the success of inclusion lies on the sacrifices among the parents, the children, and the teachers. The road to success may be paved with challenges, but it through understanding, open communication, effective intervention practices, and service delivery that meet the needs of the child.  Education professionals and parents have a common goal – the best possible education for these children as such the educators, professional agencies and parents need to work collaboratively.  Furthermore, the process of attaining a goal is greatly enhanced when all involved in determining a child inclusive programme to understand each other’s perspectives.  No doubt, these changes are unlikely to happen without a substantial commitment of time, effort and money from all those concerned.  References   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

POSITION PAPER

Literature review: Issues arising from parents’ perspective Regarding special service provisions. Introduction The reaso...

United States well known citizens group the Panther Movement and the Ku Klux Khan

<div class="entry-body">             This paper will discuss and will try to tackle the issue on two well known citizen’s group in the United States which are the Black Panther Movement and the Ku Klux Khan. It will attempt to compare and to highlights the differences, similarities and goals of these two organizations. This paper will also argue that   The Black Panther Party (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a revolutionary, Black nationalist organization in the United States founded by and  Forming in October 1966, the party grew to national prominence in the United States and is an iconic representative of the counterculture revolutions of the 1960s. The group was founded on the principles of its Ten-Point Program, which called for greater autonomy of black Americans and correction of the injustices of racism. The group’s political goals are often overshadowed by their confrontational and uncompromising views and approach toward agents of law enforcement, who the Black Panthers saw as the linchpin of racism that could only be overcome by a willingness to take up armed self-defense. The Black Panther Party fell apart in the early 1970s under the weight of both internal feuding and the external pressures of federal, state, and local law enforcement’s campaign to undermine the organization with black propaganda, infiltration by agents provocateur and outright assassination ). Contents [hide] <ul type="disc" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal"> 1 Formation and influences <ul type="circle" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal"> 1.1 Origin of the name </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 1.2 Ten-Point Program and Platform </li> </ul> </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 2 Theory <ul type="circle" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal"> 2.1 Nationalism, internationalism, and “intercommunalism” </li> </ul> </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 3 Action <ul type="circle" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal"> 3.1 Self-defense </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 3.2 Survival programs </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 3.3 Political activities </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 3.4 COINTELPRO & conflict with law enforcement </li> </ul> </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 4 Political and Legal Support </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 5 Decay and disintegration </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 6 Famous Black Panther Party members </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 7 See also <ul type="circle" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal"> 7.1 Groups and Trends </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 7.2 Events </li> </ul> </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 8 External links </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 9 References </li> </ul> Formation and influences   Black Panthers   on cover of the party’s newspaper, dated November 1, 1969 The core of the organization at its inception in 1966 were close friends and in the city of Oakland, California. The three had witnessed a radical ferment in the United States and the Bay Area specifically, which led them to take part in protests against the Vietnam War and the American Civil Rights Movement. Similar to most of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, these three friends grew dissatisfied by the doctrine of nonviolence as espoused by mainstream civil rights leaders . and  The latter’s views of integration — achieving equal rights under the present social system rather than specifically aiming to move beyond that system — struck these more militant youth as reformist. Instead they looked to model themselves instead along the lines of black nationalism preached by Malcolm X and to infuse it with the further discipline and political education espoused in radical Marxism and Maoism. The group was also influenced by civil rights leaders that broke from the doctrine of nonviolence, such as the Deacons for Defense and Justice and the exiled former NAACP chapter president Robert F. Williams’s book, Negroes with Guns. Contemporaneous to this rise in America’s domestic radicalism was a rising tide of Marxist-Leninist Third World national liberation movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, giving rise to the New Left and the New Communist Movement. Seale, Newton, and Aoki held a great interest in the philosophies of various Third World revolutionaries, including and After doing a stint in prison for assault, Huey Newton returned to the campus of Oakland City College where he had matriculated. He became fed up with the inertia of the “Afro-American Association,” the student group to which he and Seale had belonged. Seale and Newton discussed the need for real militancy in the face of the oppressive social system of capitalism. The two came to an agreement over the specifics, and the 10 Point Program and Platform was born.   Origin of the name A number of explanations for the origin of the name “Black Panthers” have been suggested. The most authoritative and likely version is that it came through   then of SNCC and unaware of Newton and Seale’s group. At the time of the Black Panther Party’s formation in Oakland,  had been organizing a voter registration drive in the African American community of Lowndes County, Alabama. Following the success of the Mississippi Freedom Party, the organizers worked to create the Lowndes County Freedom Organization as an independent party. Alabama law required the party to have a visual emblem for illiterate voters. The party chose a black panther, mascot of  College in Atlanta. The Lowndes County Freedom Organization became the Black Panther party, and soon there were groups named “Black Panthers” sprouting up around the nation. Many were unconnected with the SNCC, and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was not officially connected to any of the other parties or to SNCC. According to  learned of the Lowndes County Black Panther Party, in October 1966 through a mailing from a Mississippi black freedom group. After showing it to Newton, the two agreed that the symbol was right for their own as-yet-unnamed group.   Ten-Point Program and Platform The Party’s main organizational document was its Ten-Point Program and Platform. This was a list of the Party’s demands for both the survival and advancement of blacks in the United States, provided alongside an explanatory text. The distribution and popularization of the Ten Point Program and Platform in black population centers was considered by the Party to be a major component of its propaganda, education and recruitment efforts. The first Black Panther Ten-Point Program and Platform is dated to October 1966. It subsequently underwent revision, with a second version adopted in March 1972. The Ten-Point Program and Platform became an inspiration to contemporary leftist groups. The White Panther Party, Young Lords Party, and the  each released their own programs in much the same style and tone.   Theory With the death of Malcolm X in 1965, the Black Panther Party was founded with an aim toward furthering the revolutionary movement for black liberation on a mass basis. The party rejected the integrationist stance of King, and made it clear from the beginning that it sought no compromise with the (white) power structure. The Black Panthers focused their rhetoric on revolutionary class struggle, taking many pages from Maoism. The party did turn to the works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao to inform the manner in which it should organize, as a revolutionary cadre organization. In consciously working toward such a revolution, they considered themselves the vanguard party, “committed to organizing support for a socialist revolution.” However, the party did not fully agree with  analysis of the lumpenproletariat.  felt that this class lacked the political consciousness required to lead a revolution. Newton, on the other hand, was inspired by his reading of post-colonial theorist  and his belief that the lumpen was of utmost importance, saying about these “brothers off the block” that, “If you didn’t relate to these cats, the power structure would organize these cats against you.”   Nationalism, internationalism, and “intercommunalism” As it was chiefly a party of the black masses, the leadership of the Black Panthers were characterized by internal contradictions on the type and kind of black nationalism it wished to embrace. In his book Sieze the Time Bobby Seale spoke directly about the evolution of the Panthers’ politics, saying “At first we were Black Nationalists,” then going on to point out how, that upon realizing that more than blacks were oppressed in the United States, they became internationalist. Newton, Seale, and their supporters within the party eventually came to reject cultural nationalists as “black racists”  and dubbed those nationalists’ brand of cultural nationalism as narrow and bourgeois “pork-chop nationalism”. Alluding to the black nationalist United Slaves and  Black Panther  said, “[]political power does not flow from the sleeve of a dashiki; political power flows from the barrel of a gun.” (“Political power flows from the barrel of a gun” is an early quote by .) Newton and Seale attempted to work in coalition with organizations representing oppressed communities in the United States (many of which took inspiration from the Black Panthers), as well as with white radical groups with whom they felt they had common interests. These included the Puerto Rican Young Lords of New York and the white Appalachian Young Patriots with whom the Panthers formed the first Rainbow Coalition in 1969. Other groups with whom the Panthers worked with included the predominantly white youth movements Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Youth International Party (Yippies); the Chicano Brown Berets; the pacifist California Peace and Freedom Party; and the post-Stonewall riot formed group, the Gay Liberation Front. In  speech at  College 1970, he summed up this approach as “Intercommunalism.” That is to say that the Party recognized that all over the world there were “oppressed communities”, many of whom shared a common oppressor. That these communities should be united across national boundaries to overthrow that common oppressor. However, Newton’s approach toward combating all forms of oppression rather than simply anti-black oppression caused friction to form between him and Panthers such as  and  Indicative of this was Carmichael’s embrace of the slogan of “Black Power” , in contrast to Newton and Seale’s embrace of the slogan ‘Power to the People’ which they believed was of a more internationalist and Marxist character. While acting as a representative of the Black Panthers, often promoted a sexist and homophobic perspective. In his book, “Soul on Ice,” Cleaver indicates that, at one point in his life, he viewed the rape of white women as “an insurrectionary act.” He later attacked black author  for his well-known homosexuality and relationships with white men. These differences of opinion took their toll on Newton’s control of the party, especially while he served a sentence in prison, and eventually these cracks grew into a full-blown split between a main, Western U.S.-based faction supporting Newton, and a breakaway, Eastern U.S.-based faction that supported Cleaver. (See Decay and disintegration below) [edit] Action [edit] Self-defense One of the central aims of the BPP was to stop the rampant abuse perpetrated by racist elements within local police departments. When the party was founded in 1966, only 16 of the 661 Oakland Police Department officers assigned to black neighborhoods were African American.[6] This situation was not unique to Oakland, California. The 1965 Watts Riot occurred due to the brutality of the predominantly-white Los Angeles Police Department and several southern cities such as Birmingham, Alabama had police forces that openly worked with the white-supremacist Ku Klux Klan. Throughout the 1960s, race riots broke out in impoverished African American communities subject to policing by disproportionately white police departments. The BPP sought to oppose police brutality through neighborhood patrols (an approach since adopted by groups such as Copwatch). Police officers were frequently followed by armed Black Panthers who sought at times to aid African American victims of brutality and perceived racial prejudice. Both Panthers and police often died as a result of violent confrontations. By 1970, 34 Panthers had died as a result of police raids, shoot-outs and internal conflict. [7] Between 1966-1972 when the party was most active, several departments hired significantly more African American police officers. Some of these black officers played prominent roles in shutting down the Panther’s activities. In Chicago in 1969 for example, Panthers and were both killed as they slept by Sergeant  an African American police officer in the Chicago Police Department. In cities such as New York City, black police were used to infiltrate Panther meetings. By the party’s 1972 disbanding, almost every major police department was fully integrated.   Survival programs Inspired by  advice to revolutionaries in the Little Red Book, Newton called on the Panthers to “serve the people,” and to make “Survival programs” a priority within its Branches. The most famous and successful of their programs was the Free Breakfast for Children Program, initially run out of a San Francisco church. This program fed thousands of children throughout the party’s history. Other Survival programs included free services including the distribution of clothing, classes on politics and economics, medical clinics, lessons on self-defense and first aid, transportation to upstate prisons for family members of inmates, an emergency response ambulance program, drug and alcohol abuse rehabilitation, and testing for sickle-cell disease. The Panthers tested more than 500,000 African-Americans for this disease before it was recognized by medical establishments as one that affected the black community almost exclusively. [edit] Political activities The Party briefly merged with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, headed by the fiery  (later Kwame Toure). In 1967 the party organized a march on the California state capitol to protest the state’s attempt to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public. Participants in the march carried rifles. In 1968 BPP Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver ran for Presidential office on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket with child psychologist Dr. as his running mate. [edit] COINTELPRO & conflict with law enforcement In August 1967, the FBI initiated COINTELPRO was created to “neutralize” what the FBI called “Black Nationalist Hate Groups”. The goals of the program were to prevent the unification of militant Black Nationalist groups and to weaken the power of their leaders in order to reduce that probability, as well as discredit the groups to reduce their support and growth. The initial targets included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Revolutionary Action Movement, and the Nation of Islam. Leaders who were targeted included   and In September of 1968, FBI Director  described the Black Panthers as “The greatest threat to the internal security of the country,” and within the year the Black Panther Party had become the primary focus of COINTELPRO, becoming the target of 233 out of a total of 295 authorized “Black Nationalist” COINTELPRO actions. Although COINTELPRO was commissioned to prevent violence, many of the tactics of the FBI organization were intended to foster violence. The most telling example was the FBI’s efforts to “Intensify the degree of animosity” between the Black Panthers and the Chicago gang, the Blackstone Rangers. These included sending an anonymous letter to the Ranger’s gang leader claiming that the Panthers were threatening his life, a letter with the stated intent to induce “reprisals” against Panther leadership. In Southern California similar actions were taken to exacerbate what was characterized as a “gang war” between the Black Panther Party and an organization called the United Slaves. Shootings and beatings involving these two groups led to the deaths of at least four Black Panther Party members, and FBI agents claimed credit for some of the violence between the two groups. It should be noted that  Deputy Associate Director of the FBI’s Intelligence Division, claimed that COINTELPRO operations did not intend to foster violence nor to harm individual members of the organizations targeted. However the final report of Senate “Church Committee” which investigated the actions of COINTELPRO in 1975 and 1976 did not agree with Adams, and purported to demonstrate that the FBI “itself engaged in lawless tactics and responded to deep-seated social problems by fomenting violence and unrest.” On January 17, 1969, Los Angeles Panther Captain and Deputy Minister  were killed in Campbell Hall on the UCLA campus, in a gun battle with members of United Slaves, a rival black nationalist group, stemming from a dispute over who would control UCLA’s black studies program. Another shootout between the two groups on March 17 led to further injuries. It was alleged that the FBI had made contacts with US in an alliance against the Panthers. One of the most notorious of such actions involved a Chicago Police raid of the home of talented and charismatic Panther organizer  on December 4, 1969. The raid had been orchestrated by the police in conjunction with the FBI, and the FBI was complicit in many of the actions involved. The people inside the home had been drugged by an FBI informant,  and were all asleep at the time of the raid. Hampton was shot and killed, as was the guard,  The others in the home were then dragged into the street and beaten and subsequently charged with assault. These charges were later dropped. In May 1969,, a twenty-four year old member of the New York chapter of the Black Panther party, was tortured and murdered because party members suspected him of being a police informant. A number of party members had taken part, and three party officers eventually admitted guilt. Party supporters alleged that  the man who identified  as an informer and subsequently ordered his execution, was in fact an agent provocateur in the employment of the FBI. Political and Legal Support Support for the Panthers became widespread and was characterized by the now famous clenched-fist salute at the 1968 Olympics by two medalists during the playing of the American national anthem. The Black Panthers attracted a wide variety of left-wing revolutionaries and political activists. Among others, the party was supported by former  Magazine editor, , before he renounced socialism and gradually drifted to the political right. Decades later, upon the death of Huey Newton (who died in a shoot-out with rival gangsters), he would remark, “He (Newton) killed a lot of people.” According to Horowitz, the Black Panthers once murdered a young, white female activist named , whom he had introduced to the Party and who was representing it. After raping her, Horowitz claims, the members beat the woman to death with baseball bats.[12] Decay and disintegration While part of the organization was already participating in local government and social services, another group was in constant conflict with the police. For some of the Party’s supporters, the separation between political action, criminal activity, social services, access to power, and grass-roots identity became confusing and contradictory as the Panther’s political momentum was bogged down in the criminal justice system. A significant split in the BPP occurred over disagreements within the Panther leadership about how to confront these challenges. Some Panther leaders such as  and favored a focus on community service coupled with self-defense while others, such as ,embraced a more confrontational strategy. A schism was made inevitable when Cleaver publicly criticized the Party as adopting a “reformist” rather than “revolutionary” agenda and called for Hilliard’s removal. Cleaver was expelled from the Central Committee but went on to lead a splinter group, the Black Liberation Army, which had previously existed as an underground paramilitary wing of the Party. The Party eventually fell apart due to rising legal costs and internal disputes exacerbated by COINTELPRO. In 1989, a group calling themselves the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) was formed in Dallas, TX. Ten years later, the NBPP became home to many former Nation of Islam members when the chairmanship was taken by . Members of the original Black Panther Party have been publicly and adamantly critical of the ‘new’ party. For example, the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation insists that there “is no new Black Panther Party”. A new National Alliance of Black Panthers was formed on July 31, 2004, inspired by the grassroots activism of the original organization, but not otherwise related. Its chairwoman is     Ku Klux Klan refers to three entirely different movements in the United States. It refers to two influential organizations (in the 1860s and 1920s), as well as to small groups in recent years. The first KKK in the South in the late 1860s advocated white supremacy, and had a history of physically attacking or threatening its political opponents. The second KKK was a nationwide affair in the mid 1920s that focused on anti-Catholicism, nativism, and anti-Semitism. Today, the small KKK that exists in separated local units is considered an extreme hate group; the accusation that someone supports Klan programs results in highly negative attacks from mainstream media and political and religious leaders. The name, and many of its terms, are fake Greek, and were invented by the founders (some of whom had studied Greek).   Contents [hide] <ul type="disc" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal"> 1 Overview </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 2 The first Klan <ul type="circle" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal"> 2.1 Creation </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 2.2 Activities </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 2.3 Decline and suppression </li> </ul> </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 3 The second Klan <ul type="circle" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal"> 3.1 Creation </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 3.2 Activities </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 3.3 Political influence </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 3.4 Decline </li> </ul> </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 4 Later Ku Klux Klans <ul type="circle" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal"> 4.1 Knights of the Ku Klux Klan </li> </ul> </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 5 The Ku Klux Klan today </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 6 Ku Klux Klan vocabulary </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 7 The Ku Klux Klan in popular culture </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 8 See also </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 9 Notes </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 10 References <ul type="circle" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal"> 10.1 First KKK 1860s </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 10.2 Second KKK 1920s </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 10.3 Recent KKK </li> </ul> </li> <li class="MsoNormal"> 11 External links </li> </ul> Overview   Members of the second Ku Klux Klan at a rally in 1922. The Klan’s first incarnation began in late 1865 or early 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee. It was founded as a Confederate veteran’s organization, but quickly its main purpose became to resist Reconstruction after the American Civil War, and it focused as much on intimidating “carpetbaggers” and “scalawags” as on putting down the Freedmen. It quickly adopted violent methods, and was involved in a wave of killings of Republican voters in 1868. A rapid reaction set in, with the Klan’s leadership disowning the violence, and Southern elites seeing the Klan as an excuse for Federal troops to continue their activities in the South. The organization was in decline from 1868 to 1870, and was destroyed in the early 1870s by President  vigorous action under the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act). The first Klan was never well organized. As a secret or “invisible” group, it had no membership rosters, no dues, no newspapers, no spokesmen, no chapters, no local officers, no state or national officials. Its popularity came from its reputation, and that was greatly enhanced by its outlandish costumes and its theatricality. As historian Elaine Frantz Parsons discovered [Parsons p 816]: “Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of antiblack vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers, coercive moral reformers, bored young men, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline, common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even a few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own. Indeed, all they had in common, besides being overwhelmingly white, southern, and Democratic, was that they called themselves, or were called, Klansmen.”   founded the second Ku Klux Klan in 1915. In 1915,  founded a totally new group using the same name and costumes. It did not grow until the early 1920s; it then had a huge nationwide boom in membership. By 1924, it was in retreat and, by 1928, had dwindled to less than 5% of its original membership. This second Klan fought to maintain the dominance of moralistic white Protestants over sinners–especially bootleggers, adulterers, Blacks, Catholics, and Jews. The second KKK operated openly, and at its peak, in the 1920s, claimed millions of members in the South and Midwest. Many politicians at all levels of government were members, and, at its height, opponents claimed that it had secretly influenced some state governments, including Oregon and Indiana. Scandals involving violence destroyed its popularity in the late 1920s, and, by 1928, the Klan was orders of magnitude smaller and weaker. The name “Ku Klux Klan” has since been used by many different unrelated groups, including many who opposed the civil rights movement and desegregation in the 1960s. Today, dozens of organizations with chapters across the United States and other countries use all or part of the name in their titles, but their total membership is estimated to be only a few thousand individuals. The first Klan   A cartoon threatening that the KKK would lynch carpetbaggers, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Independent Monitor, 1868. Creation The original Ku Klux Klan was created in 1865 meeting in a law office by six Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. The name was fake Greek. It was, at first, a humorous social club centering on practical jokes and hazing rituals From 1866 to 1867, various local units began breaking up black prayer meetings and invading black homes at night to steal firearms. Some of these activities may have been modeled on previous Tennessee vigilante groups such as the Yellow Jackets and Redcaps.   A political cartoon depicting the KKK and the Democratic Party as continuations of the Confederacy. In an 1867 convention held in Nashville, the Klan was formalized as a national organization under a “Prescript” written by, a former Confederate brigadier general. The Prescript states as the Klan’s purposes ·        First: To protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless from the indignities, wrongs and outrages of the lawless, the violent and the brutal; to relieve the injured and oppressed; to succor the suffering and unfortunate, and especially the widows and orphans of the Confederate soldiers. ·        Second: To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States… ·        Third: To aid and assist in the execution of all constitutional laws, and to protect the people from unlawful seizure, and from trial except by their peers in conformity with the laws of the land. In a word, the Klan’s purpose was to resist the Congressional Reconstruction. The word “oppressed,” for example, clearly refers to oppression by the Union Army, and “peers” implies that white Southern property holders should be protected from carpetbaggers, scalawags, and “uppity” freedmen. During Reconstruction, the South was undergoing drastic changes to its social and political life. Southern Whites saw this as a threat to their supremacy as a race and sought to end this process.    Confederate General; later, first Grand Wizard of the first Klan The Prescript also includes a list of questions to be asked of applicants for membership, which confirms the focus on resisting Reconstruction and the Republican Party. The applicant is to be asked whether he was a Republican, a Union Army veteran, or a member of the Loyal League; whether he is “opposed to Negro equality both social and political;” and whether he is in favor of “a white man’s government,” “maintaining the constitutional rights of the South,” “the reenfranchisement and emancipation of the white men of the South, and the restitution of the Southern people to all their rights,” and “the inalienable right of self-preservation of the people against the exercise of arbitrary and unlicensed power.” According to one oral report, Gordon went to former slave trader and Confederate General  in Memphis and told him about the new organization, and, a few weeks later,  was selected as Grand Wizard, the Klan’s national leader. Activities The Klan sought to control the political and social status of the freedmen. Specifically, it attempted to curb black education, economic advancement, voting rights, and the right to bear arms. However, the Klan’s focus was not limited to African Americans; Scalawags and Carpetbaggers (white Republicans) also became the target of intimidation tactics, and a wave of killing of hundreds of blacks in 1868, was primarily a political purge rather than a racial conflict. In some cases the violence achieved its purpose; in other counties the intimidation failed. The Republicans, organized Union Leagues, created their own armed defensive squads and fought back. Probably thousands were killed on both sides. An 1868 proclamation by demonstrates several of the issues surrounding the Klan’s violent activities. ·        Many blacks were veterans of the Union Army, and were armed. From the beginning, one of the original Klan’s strongest focuses was on confiscating firearms from Blacks. In the proclamation, Gordon warned that the Klan had been “fired into three times,” and that if the Blacks “make war upon us they must abide by the awful retribution that will follow.” ·        Gordon also stated that the Klan was a peaceful organization. Such claims were common ways for the Klan to attempt to protect itself from prosecution. ·        Gordon warned that some people had been carrying out violent acts in the name of the Klan. It was true that many people who had not been formally inducted into the Klan found the Klan’s uniform to be a convenient way to hide their identities when carrying out acts of violence. However, it was also convenient for the higher levels of the organization to disclaim responsibility for such acts, and the secretive, decentralized nature of the Klan made membership fuzzy rather than clear-cut.     By this time, only two years after the Klan’s creation, its activity was already beginning to decrease and, as  proclamation shows, to become less political and more simply a way of avoiding prosecution for violence. Many influential southern Democrats were beginning to see it as a liability, an excuse for the Federal government to retain its power over the South.[5]  went so far as to claim “that some of these outrages were actually perpetrated by the political friends of the parties slain.”[6]   Three Ku Klux Klan members arrested in Tishomingo County, Mississippi, September 1871, for the attempted murder of an entire family. In an 1868 newspaper interview, Forrest boasted that the Klan was a nationwide organization of 550,000 men, and that although he himself was not a member, he was “in sympathy” and would “cooperate” with them, and could himself muster 40,000 Klansmen with five days’ notice. He stated that the Klan did not see blacks as its enemy as much as the Loyal Leagues, Republican state governments like Tennessee governor , and other carpetbaggers and scalawags. There was an element of truth to this claim, since the Klan did go after white members of these groups, especially the schoolteachers brought south by the Freedmen’s Bureau, many of whom had before the war been abolitionists or active in the underground railroad. Many white southerners believed, for example, that blacks were voting for the Republican Party only because they had been hoodwinked by the Loyal Leagues. Black members of the Loyal Leagues were also the frequent targets of Klan raids. One Alabama newspaper editor declared that “The League is nothing more than a nigger Ku Klux Klan.”[8] Decline and suppression Forrest’s national organization, in fact, had little control over the local Klans, which were highly autonomous. One Klan official complained that his own “so-called ‘Chief’-ship was purely nominal, I having not the least authority over the reckless young country boys who were most active in ‘night-riding’, whipping, etc., all of which was outside of the intent and constitution of the Klan…” Forrest ordered the Klan to disband in 1869, stating that it was “being perverted from its original honorable and patriotic purposes, becoming injurious instead of subservient to the public peace. Due to the national organization’s lack of control, this proclamation was more a symptom of the Klan’s decline than a cause of it. Historian Stanley Horn writes that “generally speaking, the Klan’s end was more in the form of spotty, slow, and gradual disintegration than a formal and decisive disbandment.” A reporter in Georgia wrote in January 1870 that “A true statement of the case is not that the Ku Klux are an organized band of licensed criminals, but that men who commit crimes call themselves Ku Klux.”   Gov.  of North Carolina attempted to use the state militia against the Klan, and was voted out of office. Although the Klan was being used more and more often as a mask for nonpolitical crimes, state and local governments seldom acted against it. In lynching cases, whites were almost never indicted by all-white coroner’s juries, and even when there was an indictment, all-white trial juries were extremely unlikely to vote for conviction. In many states, there were fears that the use of black militiamen would ignite a race war.When Republican governor  of North Carolina called out the militia against the Klan in 1870, the result was a backlash that lost him the upcoming election.    wrote the 1871 Klan Act. Meanwhile, many Democrats at the national level were questioning whether the Klan even existed, or had been imagined by nervous Republican governors in the South.In January 1871, Pennsylvania Republican senator John Scott convened a committee which took testimony from 52 witnesses about Klan atrocities. Many Southern states had already passed anti-Klan legislation, and in February former Union general  of Massachusetts (who was widely reviled by Southern whites) introduced federal legislation modeled on it. The tide was turned in favor of the bill by the governor of South Carolina’s appeal for federal troops, and by reports of a riot and massacre in a Meridian, Mississippi, courthouse, which a black state representative escaped only by taking to the woods. In 1871, President signed  legislation, the Ku Klux Klan Act, which was used, along with the 1870 Force Act, to enforce the civil rights provisions of the constitution. Under the Klan Act, Federal troops were used rather than state militias, and Klansmen were prosecuted in Federal court, where juries were often predominantly black. Hundreds of Klan members were fined or imprisoned, and habeas corpus was suspended in nine counties in South Carolina. These efforts were so successful that the Klan was destroyed in South Carolina and decimated throughout the rest of the country, where it had already been in decline for several years. Prosecutions were led by Attorney General Amos Tappan Ackerman. The tapering off of the Federal government’s actions under the Klan Act, ca. 1871–74, went along with the final extinction of the Klan although in some areas similar activities, including intimidation and murder of black voters, continued under the auspices of local organizations such the White League, Red Shirts, saber clubs, and rifle clubs. Even though the Klan no longer existed, it had achieved many of its goals, such as denying voting rights to Southern blacks. In 1882, long after the end of the first Klan, the Supreme Court ruled in United States vs.  that the Klan Act was partially unconstitutional, saying that Congress’s power under the fourteenth amendment did not extend to private conspiracies. However, the Force Act and the Klan Act have been invoked in later civil rights conflicts, including the 1964 murders of ; the 1965 murder of  and Bray vs. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, 1991, which became an issue in the 2005 debate on the confirmation of John G. Roberts, Jr.’s nomination to the Supreme Court.   The second Klan Creation   Movie poster for The Birth of a Nation. Most historians identify the Second KKK with the 1920s, but some go back a few years. In 1915 the film The Birth of a Nation glorifyed the first Klan and made some of its costumes and rituals common knowledge.  The Birth of a Nation glorified the original Klan, which by then was a fading memory. Griffith’s film was based on the book and play The Clansman and the book The Leopard’s Spots, both by   The burning cross is a symbol used by the Klan to create terror. Cross burning is said to have been introduced by  the founder of the second Klan in 1915. [edit] Activities The new KKK was a small operation with fewer than 2000 members until 1920, when it devised a new strategy of growth in which organizers would form chapters and collect large initiation fees that they shared with state and national headquarters. In keeping with its origins in the  lynching, the reorganized Klan had a new anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, and anti-immigrant slant. This was consistent with the new Klan’s greater success at recruiting in the U.S. Midwest than in the South. The second KKK also preached moral regeneration and purification, attacking foreign elements for degrading American morality. The Klan was successful in recruiting throughout the country and in Canada, but the membership turned over rapidly, and since the Klan was a secret society, it is difficult to determine accurate membership numbers. This Klan was operated as a profit-making venture by its leaders, and participated in the boom in fraternal organizations at the time. Organizers signed up hundreds of new members, who paid initiation fees and bought KKK costumes. The organizer kept half the money and sent the rest to state or national officials. When the organizer was done with an area, he organized a huge rally, often with burning crosses and perhaps a ceremonial presentation of a Bible to a local Protestant minister. He left town with all the money. The local units operated like many fraternal organizations, occasionally bringing in speakers. The state and national officials had little or no control over the locals and rarely or never attempted to forge them into political activist groups. In Alabama, Feldman has shown that the KKK was not a mere hate group; it showed a genuine desire for political and social reform. Alabama Klansmen were among the foremost advocates of better public schools, effective prohibition enforcement, expanded road construction, and other “progressive” measures. By 1925 the Klan was powerful political force in the state, as powerful figures like manipulated the KKK membership against the power of the “Big Mule” industrialists and Black Belt planters who had long dominated the state. In 1926 , a former chapter head, won the governor’s office with KKK members’ support. He led one of the most progressive administrations in the state’s history, pushing for increased education funding, better public health, new highway construction, and pro-labor legislation. At the same time KKK vigilantes—thinking they enjoyed governmental protection–launched an wave of physical terror across Alabama in 1927, targeting both blacks and whites. The conservative elite counterattacked. The major newspapers kept up a steady, loud attack on the Klan as violent and unAmerican. Sheriffs cracked down on Klan violence. The counterattack worked; the state voted for  in 1928, and the Klan’s official membership plunged to under six thousand by 1930.   Sheet music to “We Are All Loyal Klansmen,” 1923.   Political influence In 1922 (1881-1966) of Texas took control of the national organization as “imperial wizard” and kept it until 1939. The second Ku Klux Klan rose to great prominence and spread from the South into the Midwest region and Northern states and even into Canada. At its peak, Klan membership may have been in the millions, but the numbers were always exaggerated by both Klan leaders and opponents. The Klan claimed that President had joined, but historical research has raised doubts about the claim. A number of notable figures in national politics were Klan members in their youth, including Supreme Court justice . As discussed in Notable Ku Klux Klan members in national politics,  admitted to paying the membership fee to join the Klan, but then backed out. In the 1920s the Klan claimed credit for electing many people, but in many cases there is no clearcut evidence either way. Senator  of Texas, for example, was claimed by the Klan, but he always avoided the issue. The first Klan was Democratic and Southern, but this Klan, while it still boasted members from the Democratic Party, was Democratic in the South but more Republican in the North. It was popular throughout the country and in parts of Canada, particularly in Saskatchewan where it played a crucial role in bringing to power the Conservative government of  However, no prominent national politician in Canada or the US acknowledged membership in the Klan. Some historians, as well as the Klan itself, state that the Klan had vast influence in many state governments, including Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Oregon in addition to some of the Southern legislatures. However, it may often be impossible to reach clear conclusions, since Klan membership was typically secret, and even in cases where known Klansmen were in government, there is no way to prove whether or not a particular action was taken at the behest of the Klan. Klan influence was particularly strong in Indiana, where Republican Klansman was elected governor in 1924. By then, more than 40 percent of the native-born white males in Indianapolis claimed membership in the Klan. Klan-backed candidates took over the City Council, the Board of School Commissioners, and the Board of County Commissioners.   Klansmen in Anaheim, California, 1924. However, some historians are skeptical of the level of Klan control, and in many cases it may be difficult to prove anything beyond the fact that a large number of state or local elected officials were Klansmen. In one well-known example, the Klan decided to make Anaheim, California, into a model Klan city. In 1924, the Klan secretly managed to get four of its members elected to the five-member Board of Trustees. Nine of the ten members of the police force were also Klansmen. The four Klan trustees served for nearly a year, until they were publicly exposed, and voted out in a recall election in which 95% of the population participated. Some historians believe the state Klan leaders were primarily interested in collecting money from the organizing drives. The opponents of the Klan consistently argued that they were politically dangerous. Some historians studying the state-by-state situations conclude that the Klan exerted little or no influence on state legislation, with the possible exception of laws in Oregon designed to banish Catholic parochial schools. No major newspaper supported the Klan; indeed, most newspapers strongly opposed it as hostile to American values of an open, democratic society. During the 1920s, no major national politician acknowledged he was a member of the Klan. (Some young men who later became national figures did belong briefly, such as ) The Ku Klux Klan supported prohibition. Alcohol was viewed as an “un-American” vice practiced by immigrants, many of whom belonged to the Catholic Church and other religions. In 1923, “Bloody Williamson” in southern Illinois was the scene of pitched battles between rum-running gangsters and Klansmen. The Klan essentially took over Williamson County, Illinois, forcing elected government officials out of office, to be replaced by unelected “Kluxers”, as they were called in Illinois. Federal officials apparently deputized the Klan. Large mobs went door to door, searching houses for stocks of bootleg alcohol. This led to the “Klan War” in which local gangsters eventually overpowered the Klan and allowed the restoration of lawfully elected government () that they controlled. The Klan was an issue at the 1924 Democratic National Convention in New York City. The convention initially pitted California Senator , a dry (supporter of prohibition) against New York Governor  a Catholic and outspoken wet (opponent of prohibition). The issue was a resolution denouncing the Klan by name, versus a generic denunciation of un-American activities. No leading delegate claimed Klan membership. After days of stalemate both candidates withdrew in favor of a compromise candidate and the plank condemning the Klan by name lost only by a very close vote.    1926 Decline In many cases, the second Klan’s efforts at the local had only short-lived effects, the organizers left town when their main drive was completed. During this period, the Klan was also left with almost no infrastructure or budget. The final collapse took place in different states at different times. The most spectacular episode was a scandal involving , the Grand Dragon of Indiana and fourteen other states, who was convicted of the rape and murder of  in a sensational trial in 1925. The Klan had promoted itself as the enforcer of morality, so the scandals permanently destroyed its main attraction to people. As a result of these scandals, the Klan withered away. Grand Wizard Hiram Evans sold the organization in 1939 to an Indiana veterinarian, and Samuel Green, an Atlanta doctor, but they were unable to staunch the exodus of members. The Klan’s image was further damaged by Colescott’s association with Nazi-sympathizer organizations, the Klan’s involvement with the 1943 Detroit Race Riot, and efforts to disrupt the American war effort during World War II. In 1944, the IRS filed a lien for 5,000 in back taxes against the Klan, and was forced to dissolve the organization in 1944. The name Ku Klux Klan then began to be used by a number of independent groups. The following table shows the decline in the Klan’s estimated membership over time.[26] (The years given in the table represent approximate time periods; years after 1944 represent the total for all groups using the Klan name.)   Ku Klux Klan members march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., in 1928. Folklorist and author Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the Klan after World War II and provided information, including secret code words, to the writers of the Superman radio program, resulting in a series of four episodes in which Superman took on the Klan. Kennedy intended to strip away the Klan’s mystique, and the trivialization of the Klan’s rituals and code words likely did have a negative impact on Klan recruiting and membership.   Later Ku Klux Klans Following the demise of the second era KKK, there were three periods of resurgence, dubbed by some scholars and Klan participants as the third through sixth era Klans. After World War II, the Klan’s victims began to fight back. In a 1958 North Carolina incident, the Klan burned crosses at the homes of two Lumbee Native Americans who had associated with white people, and then held a nighttime rally nearby, only to find themselves surrounded by hundreds of armed Lumbees. Gunfire was exchanged, and the Klan was routed in what is known as The Battle of Hayes Pond. In 1966, was preaching Black Power methods to African American communities across Mississippi. He stated that the only way to end terror by whites, such as the Klan, was to meet them with armed resistance. As a result, several Blacks had their guns ready when the Klan came to harass their communities, and that caused the Klan to leave some communities once and for all. A new focus of the postwar Conservative Klan was to resist the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In 1963, two Klan members carried out the bombing of a church in Alabama that had been used as a meeting place for civil rights organizers. Four young girls were killed, and outrage over the bombing helped to build momentum for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Klan used threats, intimidation, and murder to disrupt voter registration drives in the South, and to prevent registered black voters from voting. The Klan was involved in the 1964 murders of civil rights workers  in Mississippi, and also murdered , a Southern-raised white mother of five who was visiting the South from her home in Detroit to attend a civil rights march.    1949. In 1964, the FBI’s COINTELPRO program began attempts to infiltrate and disrupt the Klan. COINTELPRO occupied a curiously ambiguous position in the civil rights movement, since it used its tactics of infiltration, disinformation, and violence against violent far-left and far-right groups such as the Klan and the , but simultaneously against peaceful organizations such as  Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This ambivalence was shown dramatically in the case of the murder of , who was shot on the road by four Klansmen in a car, of whom one was an FBI informant. After she was murdered, the FBI spread false rumors that she was a communist, and that she had abandoned her children in order to have sex with black civil rights workers. Regardless of the FBI’s ambivalence, , a newspaper reporter who infiltrated in the Klan in 1979, reported that COINTELPRO’s efforts had been highly successful in disrupting the Klan; rival Klan factions both accused each other’s leaders of being FBI informants, and one leader,  of the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was, in fact, later revealed to have been working for the FBI.   Violence at a Klan march in Mobile, Alabama, 1977. Once the century-long struggle over black voting rights in the South had ended, the Klans shifted their focus to other issues, including affirmative action, immigration, and especially busing ordered by the courts in order to desegregate schools. In 1971, Klansmen used bombs to destroy ten school buses in Pontiac, Michigan, and charismatic Klansman David Duke was active in South Boston during the school busing crisis of 1974.  also made efforts to update its image, urging Klansmen to “get out of the cow pasture and into hotel meeting rooms.” Duke was leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan from 1974 until he resigned from the Klan in 1978. In 1980, he formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People, a far-right white nationalist political organization. He was elected to the Louisiana State House of Representatives in 1989 as a Republican, even though the party threw its support to a different Republican candidate. In 1979, the Greensboro Massacre occurred in which five members of the Communist Workers Party were shot and killed while participating in an anti-Klan demonstration. The CWP had been active trying to organize black workers in Greensboro, North Carolina.   An inflammatory cartoon that was used as evidence in the civil trial resulting from  murder. In this period, resistance to the Klan became more common. Jerry Thompson reported that in his brief membership in the Klan, his truck was shot at, he was yelled at by black children, and a Klan rally that he attended turned into a riot when black soldiers on an adjacent military base taunted the Klansmen. Attempts by the Klan to march were often met with counterprotests, and violence sometimes ensued. Vulnerability to lawsuits has encouraged the trend away from central organization, as when, for example, the lynching of  in 1981 led to a civil suit that bankrupted one Klan group, the United Klans of America.  related how many Klan leaders who appeared indifferent to the threat of arrest showed great concern about a series of multimillion-dollar lawsuits brought against them as individuals by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a result of a shootout between Klansmen and a group of African Americans, and curtailed their activities in order to conserve money for defense against the suits. Lawsuits were also used as tools by the Klan, however, and the paperback publication of Thompson’s book, My Life in the Klan, was canceled because of a libel suit brought by the Klan. Klan activity has also been diverted into other racist groups and movements, such as Christian Identity, neo-Nazi groups, and racist subgroups of the skinheads.   Knights of the Ku Klux Klan   The lynching of  1981. “Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” has been part of the title of at least ten organizations patterned on the original KKK. The most prominent of these was the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc., which was founded in November 1915 by  and disbanded in 1944 by  At its peak, this organization had around three to five million members. The most militant Klan group was “The White Knights of Mississippi” led by Imperial Wizard . Though not the largest, they were by far the most violent. They were responsible for many bombings, church burnings, beatings, and murders, including the killing of three civil rights workers,   and   Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff , along with  of Meridian, Mississippi and several other members of the Klan, murdered the three young men, who were all members of C.O.R.E, (Congress Of Racial Equality) by shooting them and burying their bodies in a dam outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi.  was convicted of these murders in 2005, 40 years after they occured. Price and Roberts are now deceased. In 1989, The White Knights of Mississippi went national, and appointed Professional Wrestler , who was also known as Johnny Angel as it’s new national Imperial Wizard, to succeed  appeared on many talk shows including , in an effort to build a new modern image for the Ku Klux Klan. It was thought that Clary could build membership in the Klan due to his celebrity status as a professional wrestler.  tried to unify the various chapters of the Klan in a meeting held in the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, Pulaski, Tennessee, only to have it fall apart by infighting which occured when the Klan came together.  girlfriend was revealed to be an F.B.I informant, which resulted in mistrust ofamong the different Klan members. Clary resigned from the Klan and later became a born again Christian and a civil rights activist. In 2005, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (Knights Party) was headed by National Director Pastor , and based in Zinc, Arkansas. It is the biggest Klan organization in America today. The sixth era Klan continues to be a racist group, for example group in the past produced such Klan stars as David Duke, but it is now continuing a long, slow decline. In 1991,  said that he foresaw imminent respectability for the Klan: “You take Exxon. They had an identity thing to overcome after that oil spill. Well, the Klan has an image problem to overcome, also.” The Ku Klux Klan today   KKK: the Nazi salute and Holocaust denial Although often still discussed in contemporary American politics as representing the quintessential “fringe” end of the far-right spectrum, today the group only exists in the form of a number of very isolated, scattered “supporters” that probably do not number more than a few thousand. In a 2002 report on “Extremism in America”, the Anti-Defamation League wrote “Today, there is no such thing as the Ku Klux Klan. Fragmentation, decentralization and decline have continued unabated.” However, they also noted that the “need for justification runs deep in the disaffected and is unlikely to disappear, regardless of how low the Klan’s fortunes eventually sink.” In some Klan units, anti-Catholicism has been dropped as a core principle; and, in some cases, Klan units have adopted neo-Nazism or Christian Identity as core ideological beliefs. Today the only known former member of the Klan to hold a Federal office in the United States is Senator (D-WV), who says he “deeply regrets” his roles as “Exalted Cyclops” and “Kleagle,” or recruiter, for his local Klan in the 1940′s. During his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1958, when Byrd was 41 years old, Byrd defended the Klan. He argued that the KKK had been incorrectly blamed for much of the violence in the South. Californian musical sisters  also perform at modern Ku Klux Klan rallies. Some of the larger KKK organizations currently in operation include: ·        Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan[31] ·        Imperial Klans of America ·        Knights of the White Kamelia There is a vast number of smaller organizations In 2005, there were an estimated 3,000 Klan members, divided among 158 chapters of a variety of splinter organizations, about two-thirds of which were in former Confederate states. The other third were primarily in the Midwest region. The American Civil Liberties Union has provided legal support to various factions of the KKK in defense of their First Amendment rights to hold public rallies, parades, and marches, and their right to field political candidates. In a July 2005 incident, a Hispanic man’s house was burned down in Hamilton, Ohio, after accusations that he sexually assaulted a nine-year-old white girl. Klan members in Klan robes showed up afterward to distribute pamphlets. [edit] Ku Klux Klan vocabulary The Klan had its own vocabulary, comprised of words mainly beginning with the letters Kl. The word Ku Klux is derived from the Greek kuklos, which means “circle” . Membership in the Klan is secret, and like many fraternal organizations, has signs members can use to recognize one another. A member may use the acronym AYAK (Are you a Klansman?) in conversation to surreptitiously identify himself to another potential member. The response AKIA (A Klansman I am) completes the greeting. The Klan has coined many secret words beginning with “KL” including: ·        Klavern: local chapter ·        Kleagle: recruiter ·        Klecktoken: initiation fee ·        Kligripp: secretary ·        Klonvocation: gathering     </div> Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

United States well known citizens group the Panther Movement and the Ku Klux Khan

This paper will discuss and will try to tackle the issue on two well known citizen’s group in the United States which are the B...