Defying The Klu Klux Klan Blog #2

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    The KKK's original roots date back to 1866. Confederate veterans organized the KKK hoping to prevent former slaves from exercising their newly acquired rights, but within 3 years the veterans felt their work was done and the KKK took a 49 year brake.

    After the KKK's long brake they made their come back , and this time they weren't planning to stay for only three years. The KKK came back and wanted to let everyone know they were here and that they wanted to have a huge impact on American beliefs, rights, and society. Their return was in the fall of 1915 , in Atlanta,Georgia. William Joseph Simmons, a former preacher, led a dozen men up to Stone Mountain where he started burning a pine cross. While the cross was burning and William holding his Bible, he led the men in a vow of allegiance to the Knights of the KKK. This ceremony would be the start of an organization that would spread across the nation trying to do everything possible to gain power. In Texas, the KKK elected one of their members to the U.S. Senate, in Oregon a member was governor, in Colorado they won the senate race and in Indiana one of them became governor and 2 became senators. This proves to us that the KKK was serious and they had a lot of power in their hands.

SWEEPING the NATION

• Edward Young Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler, two enterprising promoters, persuaded William to pay them 1/4 of the $10 each new Klan member paid.
• Klan membership sky rocketed to 4 million  by 1924.
• Clarke and Tyler urged their 200 recruiters to fill their rhetoric with phrases like "pure womanhood," "100 percent Americans," and "the tenets of the Christian religion", the Klan wanted to let their members know that the country was being overrun by enemies within.
• KKK recruiters promised to provide betters schools and improve law enforcement.

THE NEW YORK WORLD HURLS a HAND GRENADE

• The first journalistic crusade in defiance of the Klan was an expose in the newspaper NEW YORK WORLD.
• The opening article characterized the Klan's growth as a financial scam that had stolen $40 million in initiation fees and Klan regalia.
• One article recorded the names and addresses of  214 Klan recruiters,which was very similar to an FBI most wanted list.
• The WORLD published another story in which there was a 1919 raid on a house of prostitution in which Tyler and Clarke were found on the same bed and charged with disorderly conduct.
• The WORLD editors later found out that their brilliant plan to embarrass and destroy the KKK had backfired.
• The WORLD gave the Klan free publicity and informed potential members of the Klan's acts of bigotry and violence and it also published a copy of the Klan's application form.

THE  COMMERCIAL APPEAL in HAND-to-HAND COMBAT

• The next Klan vs newspaper battle would take place in Memphis in 1923, where KKK membership exceeded 10,000, against the city's major newspaper, the COMMERCIAL APPEAL.
• The editorial page of this newspaper condemned the Klan's use of vigilante violence against African-Americans, Catholics, and Jews.
• This newspaper included many cartoons against the Klan, portraying them as cowards and unAmerican.
• The Commercial Appeal  played a key role in the 1923 Memphis  elections.
• Mayor Rowlett Paine defeated the hooded society's nominee, W. Joe Wood.

THE MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER WAGES WAR

• Editor Grover Cleveland Hall wanted to encourage a state law to be passed that prohibited people from wearing masks and disguises in public places and make it a felony for men that were disguised to attack citizens of Alabama. Hall wanted this law to be passed because of the KKK's violent crimes of physical punishment to people just because of their skin color or religion and in some cases just because of their gambling and drinking habits.
• Progressive representatives from both houses introduced tough anti-mask bills outlawing masks and robes like the ones used by KKKers, stipulating that masked floggers would be tried as felons.

As we can see the KKK had alot of power in their hands, having member occupate Senate seats and form a part of the legislature. But it was proved to us that journalism is even more powerful and helped stopped the KKK's rise to power. Thanks to 3 big newspapers: MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER,  COMMERCIAL APPEAL, and NEW YORK WORLD the Klan was stopped and defeated and we can thank journalism for this.

Blog 1 Sowing The Seeds of Revolution

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Dissension Takes Root

Ÿ         The 1763 British victory over the French meant that the French were finally kicked out of the American Colonies, leaving the fur trade only for the British.

Ÿ         The high cost of a decade of fighting left the British nearly bankrupt so officials in London decided to make the colonists should pay the war debts.

Ÿ         Economics wasn’t the only factor for the colonists to start a revolution, the contrast of ideas between the British and the colonists was also a big factor.

Ÿ         The colonists wanted the citizens to make the laws not King George . They wanted to be in charge of the colonies themselves.

Sam Adams: Firebrand of the Revolution

Ÿ         Sam Adams was the cousin of John Adams. Sam organized the Boston Tea Party. In the 1760s he wrote hundreds of essays and news article for the Boston Gazette. Other newspapers also printed his work helping  spread his thoughts throughout the colonies.

Ÿ         In 1764, Sam argued that the British Parliament was imposing too many taxes on the colonists. Sam insisted that the colonists’ liberty was in jeopardy. “ If our Trade may be taxed?” “Why not our Lands? Why not the produce of our Lands & every thing we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our Charter Rights to govern & tax ourselves.” Adams’s protests were against taxation without representation.

Ÿ         Adams and other radicals believed that the only way the colonies could resolve their disputes with Britain was to secure home rule.

Ÿ         They wanted the colonists to make their own laws not the British.

Ÿ         “Where there is a Spark of patriotic fire, we will enkindle it.”

“Journal of Occurrences” as News Service

Ÿ         Adams’s  service the “Journal of Occurrences” quickly became a communication network that spread his anti-British rhetoric to every corner of the colonies. Articles and stories for the journal were written by Adams and other Boston agents before being reprinted in the 35 weekly newspapers being published in the colonies at the time. Adams and the other writers would send accounts of events to John Holt, publisher of the New York Journal , and Holt would print the events in the next edition.

Ÿ          Adams’s impetus to establish the news service was Britain’s decision to send a large numbers of troops to Boston, because they were concerned that they were losing control of the colonies. The British concern rised when the number of protest over tax initiatives also rised.

Ÿ         The British sent four regiments of soldiers to Boston to maintain order and to remind the colonist that they were ruled by Britain.

Ÿ         The “Journal of Occurrences” began in September 1768, the same month the British troops arrived.

Ÿ         Adams’s published all the brutal attacks of the British against the colonists. Some of these acts were rape, burglary, and beating colonists.

Boston Massacre: Not to Be Forgotten

Ÿ         During the summer of 1769 British officials withdrew four regiments of militiamen from the streets of Boston, but they still left a few guards roaming the streets. The presence of these guards angered the colonists, and they decided to do something about it. On March 5, 1770 a few young colonists started throwing snowballs at the guards outside the British Custom House. What some colonists and these youngsters may have considered a childish and funny prank it escalated into something deadly for them. After they stopped throwing the snowballs one of the colonist boys hit one of the guards. One of these strikes knocked a soldier to the floor provoking him to fire his musket and the bullet struck a colonist. Then a huge fight broke out with colonist swinging clubs and the British firing their guns. After everything cleared up five colonists were dead. Colonial newspapers made this known to everyone as the Boston Massacre.

Tom Paine: Voice of Inspiration

Ÿ         The Writer of the pamphlet Common Sense Thomas Paine was a voice of inspiration for the colonist. This pamphlet encouraged and inspired all the Patriots to fight for their rights and independence. Thomas Paine had to convince colonists, because most patriots advised him not to mention independence because they weren't thinking of going to war. Paine wrote in Common Sense that if colonists gained their independence it would be the start to a new world.

Common Sense Ignites a Nation

Ÿ         More than 150,000 copies of Common Sense were sold and by the end of one year 25 editions of the pamphlet were made. This pamphlet was read in coffeehouses, taverns, and town squares throughout the colonist encouraging the colonists even more to fight for their independence. Thomas Paine's words were now describing the feelings of all the colonist it was like if he was The Voice of the colonist expressing his wrath to King George.

Crisis Essays Inspire an Army

Ÿ         Paine joined the Continental Army in August 1776. Him and his fellow soldiers felt the might of a much bigger and well trained British Army . The British defeated the Americans in many battles.

Ÿ         The Winter, poor food, and inadequate uniforms began to have a negative effect on the soldiers.

Ÿ         General Washington asked Paine to write a motivational essay to encourage the soldiers to keep on fighting.

Ÿ         In December 1776, the first Crisis papers were printed in the Pennsylvania Journal.

Ÿ         George Washington read the papers to his soldiers and a week later they won a crucial battle at Trenton.

Stunning Impact

Ÿ         The American Revolution was the first event in American History in which journalism had a huge impact on. News has helped shaped American History. Sam Adams’s “Journal of Occurrences” and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense were a big help in motivating colonist fight and gain their independence from the British.