freakonomics

“Klansman, do you solemnly swear by God and the Devil never to betray secrets
entrusted to you as a Klavalier of the Klan?”
“I swear,” Kennedy responded.
“Do you swear to provide yourself with a good gun and plenty of ammunition, so as to be
ready when the nigger starts trouble to give him plenty?”
“I do.”
“Do you further swear to do all in your power to increase the white birth rate?”
“I do.”
Kennedy was promptly instructed to pay $10 for his initiation into the Klavaliers, as well
as $1 a month to cover Klavalier expenses. He also had to buy a second hooded robe, to
be dyed black.
As a Klavalier, Kennedy worried that he would someday be expected to inflict violence.
But he soon discovered a central fact of life in the Klan—and of terrorism in general:
most of the threatened violence never goes beyond the threat stage.
Consider lynching, the Klan’s hallmark sign of violence. Here, compiled by the Tuskegee
Institute, are the decade-by-decade statistics on the lynching of blacks in the United
States:
YEARS
LYNCHINGS OF BLACKS
1890–1899 1,111
1900–1909 791
1910–1919 569
1920–1929 281
1930–1939 119
1940–1949 31
1950–1959 6
1960–1969 3
Bear in mind that these figures represent not only lynchings attributed to the Ku Klux
Klan but the total number of reported lynchings. The statistics reveal at least three
noteworthy facts. The first is the obvious decrease in lynchings over time. The second is
the absence of a correlation between lynchings and Klan membership: there were actually