Unhappy Halloween: How Disguise Enforces Terror

The photos depict the evolution of KKK disguises, from the 1870s to 1920s to current. Next week, one of my classes will read Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Leavitt’s fascinating business-model analysis of the KKK, “Hatred and Profits: Getting under the Hood of the Ku Klux Klan.” The glossy Ku Klux Klan disguise above reflects the glitzy version of the KKK in the 1920s. Fryer and Leavitt state:

The Ku Klux Klan reached its heyday in the mid-1920s, claiming millions of members. In this paper, we analyze the 1920s Klan, those who joined it, and the social and political impact that it had. We utilize a wide range of newly discovered data sources including information from Klan membership roles, applications, robe-order forms, an internal audit of the Klan by Ernst and Ernst, and a census that the Klan conducted after an internal scandal…. We find that individuals who joined the Klan were better educated and more likely to hold professional jobs than the typical American….   

Rather than a terrorist organization, the 1920s Klan is best described as a social organization built through a wildly successful pyramid scheme fueled by an army of highly-incentivized sales agents selling hatred, religious intolerance, and fraternity in a time and place where there was tremendous demand.

My research focuses on the 1870s and current forms of the KKK. I show a much darker side. Here is how the KKK invoked disguises as part of a terror campaign to discipline a black household domestic:

A witness to KKK depredations in 1868 (S.W. Rainey, Democrat) testified before Congress:

Question: Have you ever seen or heard the whistles or movements of what are known as the Ku Klux?

Answer: I saw some three men some two different times in disguise. They came to my house last year. They had a whistle. I heard them blow it several times.

Question: Do you know of any negroes being whipped, or in any way punished, by the Ku Klux preceding the election last November?

Answer: Yes, sir; one negro woman at my house. The men in disguise— don’t know who they were— took her out, at the request of my wife, and gave her, my son said, sixty-five lashes with a leather strap, and it done her good; I thanked them for it. They done it at the request of my wife. They told my wife they would do that much for her.

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My point? To show how terror was used to coerce work. I then connect this racial terror to certain American workplaces.

This Halloween, think about the role of disguises in white nationalist terror. The Ku Klux Act of 1871— now, too narrowly interpreted by conservative courts, but still alive— says:

U.S. Code § 1985(3). Conspiracy to interfere with civil rights

If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, for the purpose of depriving, … any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws; … the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators.

My research aims to provide attorneys and courts a broader framework for holding white nationalists responsible for their terror.