Recently I completed reading a haunting book that simultaneously captivated as well as horrified me. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan relates the rise of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) from the immediate post-Civil War era in 1866, by disgruntled former Confederates in response to the liberation of the blacks. How this organization expanded to its pervasive domination in the US is mind-boggling and then to realize that as recently as 2022 there was legislation as a direct result of this reprehensible part of our American history. It is almost unfathomable that I never realized the magnitude, scope, or depravity of this situation.

            It would be plausible to believe that my naivete to this topic was due to geography—far northern New York—or the life situation in which I learned—rural agricultural—or my own place in society—white, middle-class, and Protestant. But am I to blame for my ignorance?

            Several years ago, my husband joked that we needed to keep the old set of encyclopedias so that we could know what really happened. We laughed, but not so much anymore. There has been much discussion recently about “rewriting history” but this may be a different form, notably failure to educate. As a youth I thought of the KKK’s activities as far away and in the past. Ironically, less than a mile away from the school where I was being educated, was the location of a former KKK orphanage. In fact, this very town where the school was located, was ranked #2 at one time as having the greatest density of Klansmen in the state. Just a few miles away from my house was the location of KKK rallies. My husband learned only fairly recently that his grandfather had a cross burned on his yard. The reason? He was Catholic and married a Protestant woman.

            To realize how current this issue is to note that in March 2022, President Joe Biden signed into law The Emmett Till Antilynching Act making lynching a federal crime. This was after the first legislation was originally introduced in 1900, and subsequently 200 attempts were made for its passage. Named after a black Chicago boy, who at age 14 was brutally murdered in 1955 while visiting family in Mississippi, his name became synonymous with the Civil Rights Movement in the 50’s and 60’s. Unfortunately, it has been estimated that 4,743 people, primarily blacks, were either lynched or tortured. There is no way to come to an accurate figure for the number of  deaths as some were done without much awareness on the part of others. It is also estimated that 99% of those who committed these acts were never prosecuted.

            So, even though this is an atrocious part of history, what does this mean to us today? Well for starters, as Christians Jesus exhorts us to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16). He did not, however, encourage us to accept the “ignorance is bliss” concept. Certainly, we cannot expect to have all knowledge on any specific topic but this is different from the intentional bending of the truth to meet contrived goals. In 1992 Robert Proctor and Iain Boal coined a new word, agnotology, to describe the intentional perpetuation of cultural ignorance. It has many of the similarities of “Gas Lighting” but is done on a broader group. We see it in action in so many ways, we may have become insensible to it’s happening. This was certainly the basis of the tobacco industry until its advertising was curbed. The liquor industry today postures how alcohol is part of any great party

            During its heyday, the KKK perpetuated the belief that certain people were inferior and undesirable and ultimately a menace to good society. So pervasive was their influence that many, many churches, clergy, and devout laypeople fell in with this deception. Much of the political arena was controlled by members of the KKK or their sympathizers, from Presidents down to local officials and the police force. Many of the same principles held later by Nazi Germany were seen in the KKK s adherents. So, while we malign Nazi Germany for its pogrom (and rightfully so) we need to realize that many within the US held similar thoughts as well, for example Charles Lindbergh.

            With that said, you begin to see how the Black Community today is fighting back with many of the same tactics as the KKK. This is not to condone such behavior but to acknowledge that there is a history for such violence. But to this I would ask, how can anyone justify doing the very things that were found so appalling in the past? Christ does not call us to acts of violence but to treat others with respect. He calls us to “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:38-40).

            This brings out several questions:

 1) If we had a greater realization of the impact of the KKK, would we be better able to understand the situation and deal with it more effectively?

2) What can we apply as the implications for treatment of immigrants now as we look at how things were handled in the past?

3) How can we use our Christian world-view as a way of interpreting this history?

            As believers we accept as true that there are no racial distinctions but instead genetic groupings as it goes back to the Tower of Babel (as told in Genesis 11).

            The Bible deals with the subject of “willful ignorance” as seen in Job 21:14, Zechariah 7: 11,12, Matthew 13:15, and Romans 1:28. That Christians then, and now, opt to ignore what the Bible teaches displays this kind of “willful ignorance”. Can we ignore the clear teachings of the Bible and choose to intentionally decide not to study about the topic? Christians are often seen by non-Christians as non-thinkers. The people in Berea (Acts 17) were given as an example of how they did not take things on face value, even from the apostle Paul, but studied to discern what is right. If Christians had not displayed the failure to look into the true situation of the KKK, how much death and suffering could have been avoided?

            So…back to the question: “Who’s To Blame?. Perhaps it is me.

           

This picture is public domain. For more information, read “The 1925 Ku Klux Klan March on Washington” by “Alec”, edited by John Kuroski, November 2023 and available on-line.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/ku-klux-klan-march-on-washington