13th March, 2024 in Society & Culture

Ask the author: Kristofer Allerfeldt on the Ku Klux Klan – An American History

By Kristofer Allerfeldt

Author Kristofer Allerfeldt is a professor of US history at the University of Exeter. He has written articles, both popular and academic; and lectured in Europe, the UK and the US. He has also produced four academic books. The Ku Klux Klan is his new book which seeks to demystify one of the most hated, feared and poorly understood organisations in history.

What drove you to spend so many years researching this ‘sinister order’?

As a History undergraduate studying the Holocaust I remember having a conversation about whether you could tell what subject a Professor taught by his or her appearance and nature. We decided that people studied what was least like themselves. I have spent 25 years trying to understand an organisation motivated by racism, hatred and bigotry. I think it is because I want to try to understand why some people feel driven to believe that the world is a better place if you exclude and torment those who are different from yourself.

Why do you think the Klan is so poorly understood?

People like to have a picture of their enemy. We respond to, and remember, visual signals. The Klan, with its sinister hood, white robes and burning crosses is visually striking. That has meant it has become the shorthand for white supremacy. What is more people like their enemies – for a variety of reasons – to be truly terrifying. The more fearsome they are, the more publicity they get. That in turn feeds their reputation and keeps them in the headlines. The result is that up until recently it seemed all racially motivated hate crime in the US was reported using these visual cues, attributing them to the Klan or perpetrators affiliated and motivated by the Klan. The result is that we have continued to feel the organisation is far more powerful than it really is.

What is the most surprising fact you learned during your research?

That the Klan in the 1920s briefly had a membership measured in the millions.

What would you say are the main reasons for the Klan’s decline in modern times?

A mixture of reasons have contributed to the Klan’s demise. In part it is due to the 1944 IRS demand for nearly $700,000 in back tax. That pointed the way for the Southern Poverty Law Center to adopt a strategy of civil prosecutions which have bankrupted many of the most powerful Klans since the 1980s. There has also been, I believe, a general improvement in American race relations since the 1950s – although we still have a way to go. The Klan has increasingly found itself called out, ridiculed, prosecuted and generally condemned. This has continued to the extent where today, although frequently protected under the First Amendment, the wearing of the hood and robes and burning crosses is universally and publicly condemned. Now, even many of their fellow white supremacists see the Klan, with their rituals and costumes, as just plain silly.

This book is entirely uncensored in language and content; can you tell us what went into making that decision?

The Klan is truly horrible organisation, and nothing should diminish how revolting it is. The language it has used is often shocking and censoring that somehow runs the risk of sanitising our image of the Klan. What is more using that language, with all its shocking connotations, reminds us of how far we have come. I feel the jolt we get from reading the uncensored N-word and other insults should remind us that the situation has improved, we have drawn the sting of much of white supremacy. We should be proud of that achievement, but not complacent. We still have a long way to go.

Is there a chapter you are most eager for readers to see? If so, why?

I would suggest the Epilogue as it lays out what I feel about the Klan. It also contains a statement made by the US Supreme Court’s first Black, female, Justice. I feel she sums up the essence of why I wrote this book. Ketanji Brown Jackson addressed an audience at the site of one of the Klan’s most shocking atrocities last year. Talking about the horrific and senseless 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, Justice Jackson forcefully argued that ‘Knowledge of the past is what enables us to mark our forward progress. If we’re going to continue to move forward as a nation, we can’t allow concern about discomfort to displace knowledge, truth, or history.’

How would you sum up the book in three words?

Shocking, revelatory history

What is the one thing you hope people take away from reading this book?

That the Klan can be made into history – both in terms of reducing it to historical phenomenon and writing well-researched, (hopefully) engaging, historical writing.

Was there anything you found out after your research that you wanted to include?

No, I hope not. But the Klan still exists so there is, of course, a risk that it will hit the headlines between writing and publication.

Which iteration of the Klan do you think was the most dangerous? Why?

I think the Reconstruction Klan, because it achieved its aims and provided a mythology which has persisted ever since.