Separate but equal policy to 1939Attitudes of the Ku Klux Klan
Despite emancipation during the Civil War, Black Americans continued to face prejudice. Many states introduced legislation - known as Jim Crow laws - that segregated Black from White Americans.
The Ku Klux Klan was established in the southern states after the American Civil War. It was a secret organisation that targeted many African Americans, but also other groups such as Catholics and Jewish people.
The popularity of the KKK increased in 1915.
This revival was due in part to the film The Birth of a Nation, which showed the KKK protecting white families against groups of African Americans who threatened violence and rape.
The KKK had several core beliefs:
They believed that WASPs were the most important group within America and that African Americans were inferior.
They discriminated against Catholics, Jewish people, divorced women, Socialists and Communists. In fact the KKK opposed any groups who were not WASPs and threatened ‘the American way of life’.
They opposed rights for black people.
The video below describes The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.