Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

KU KLUX KLAN • 365the Prohibition movement. By promoting itself as “100% American,100% Protestant, and 100% Christian,” the KKKK of William J.Simmons eventually recruited over four million members nationwide,including 500,000 women members.It should be noted that during this time Klan members includedsome of the most respectable elements of society, including Protestantministers, doctors, lawyers, and politicians, including Senator HugoBlack, who eventually renounced the Klan before becoming an associatejustice of the U.S. Supreme Court. For many of its ordinarymembers, the Klan represented just another exclusive social fraternity,not unlike the Masonic Lodge or Kiwanis Club, while its anti-Catholicand anti-Jewish sentiments were also openly held by a wider public inthat period. However, the personal and political scandals of the Klanleader of Indiana, David Curtis Stephenson, who was convicted for abrutal rape in November 1925, as well as extensive newspaper reportsof brutalities committed by Klan members in the south and of financialimproprieties by the national organization, led to a rapid loss of followerssuch that by 1930 the figure had fallen to about 100,000 members.In 1944 the Internal Revenue Service levied a lien for $65,000 in unpaidback taxes on the KKKK, which led to the demise of the group.Klan membership dwindled during the Depression, and following1944, Klan activity virtually ceased until the 1954 Supreme Courtdecision in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education ordering desegregationof public schools. Following that ruling there was a revival ofKlan activities and increasing memberships proportionate to the advancesin the civil rights movement. The revival of the Klan peakedin 1981, when the various Klan organizations together possessedabout 11,500 members. The use of civil lawsuits by relatives of Klanvictims greatly damaged some of these organizations and reducedtheir freedom of action. Three major Klan organizations have accountedfor most Klan activities in recent years:1. The United Klans of America (UKA), formerly headquartered inTuscaloosa, Alabama, was the old guard of the Klan, being the mosttraditional, the oldest, and one of the most active in its heyday. On 14May 1961, about 25 UKA members wielding clubs and metal pipesbeat up several “Freedom Riders” disembarking at the Trailwaysstation in Birmingham. A UKA leader, Robert E. Chambliss, alsoknown as “Dynamite Bob,” ordered the bombing of Birmingham’s16th Street Baptist Church in September 1963 that killed four young