0:01

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production

0:04

of I Heart Radio. Hey,

0:11

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

0:13

There's Charles W Chuck Brian over there,

0:15

and this is stuff you should know about

0:21

vile racist jerks. Boo

0:25

meis

0:28

jerk. Yeah,

0:30

so, Chuck. Do you remember when we did

0:32

our two part episode on The Simpsons

0:35

and one of the first things I said was like,

0:38

I didn't want to record because all

0:40

I wanted to do is sit around and research the Simpsons

0:42

for the rest of my life. I

0:45

felt basically the opposite way

0:47

about researching the Clan, like I

0:49

didn't want to record because I didn't want

0:51

to research the clan anymore. Yeah,

0:56

that wasn't a fun one. Well,

0:58

here's my personal history

1:01

here in regards to the clan

1:03

is and and now I'll this

1:05

will be peppered throughout a little bit because I grew

1:08

up in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Oh

1:10

that sounds familiar, which is very uh

1:13

uh. You know some of the early days

1:16

of the second wave of the Clan, which

1:18

you know, we'll get to all this garbage in

1:20

this episode. But um, some Mountain

1:23

was kind of one of the larger national seats

1:26

and one of the leaders

1:28

of the clan in Stone Mountain had

1:30

kids, or it was either kids or grandkids

1:33

that went. I guess I had to be grandkids that

1:35

went to my elementary school. Then

1:38

the Venables, and I was like, you know,

1:40

I heard about the Venables, and I knew about their

1:42

story and that his granddad

1:44

was the grand Wizard, and like,

1:47

it scared the crap out of me. I

1:50

was scared. And then I got older and

1:53

I was like, these are just dumb

1:56

cosplaying rednecks. And

2:00

then I got a little older still and

2:02

I was like, well, that's not fair either, and I tried

2:04

to start in my life look at things to the

2:07

lens of minority people's

2:10

even though you can't you know, as a as

2:12

a white man, but you can do your best

2:14

to walk a mile and someone choose and see

2:16

what it might be like. And then I was like, I can't

2:18

dismiss it as rednecks cosplaying,

2:21

because they killed people

2:23

and lynched people, and it

2:25

was a fear of feared group

2:28

two black people, and you know, all

2:30

kinds of other minorities. As we'll see as

2:32

they as they kind of progressed. But

2:36

I felt it was dismissive to say they're

2:38

just a bunch of dumb rednecks and don't

2:40

give them that power. Uh So,

2:42

you know, it's just interesting to sort

2:44

of go through that evolution as a kid growing

2:46

up in the South who, no doubt

2:48

in my lineage and

2:50

ancestry have horrible things

2:53

that happened in the Deep South that I

2:55

had to rectify as like, you know,

2:58

just because I'm related to great great great

3:00

grandparents who probably did awful things,

3:03

doesn't mean that I'm that person or you

3:05

know, no, not at all, not at all. You

3:08

certainly aren't that person at all, I can attest,

3:10

but you have to come to terms with it as someone who

3:13

is the opposite of those people, for sure.

3:15

And I think it is wise of you and very

3:17

thoughtful of you to be like, no, I can't just you

3:20

know, use I guess white privilege

3:22

to dismiss the clan because it does

3:24

kind of infringe on like the

3:26

impacts that they've had on people of

3:28

color in the United States. For sure. I think

3:30

that's very insightful. At the same time,

3:33

yes, the Clan are dumb, redneck cous

3:35

players. They're just ones who will

3:37

also get whipped up into into violence

3:40

and carry out horrific

3:43

acts. So they're dumb redneck cause players

3:45

who you really have to keep an eye on and then break

3:47

the backup as an organization by

3:50

putting them in prison whenever they do something like

3:52

that or start to Yeah, and as

3:54

we see through their history, depending on when

3:56

it was and which sort of iteration, because there's

3:58

there's been at least three, uh,

4:00

some were more violent and dangerous than

4:03

others, and some were sort

4:05

of like cosplaying rednecks. Um

4:08

not to you know, of course that doesn't excuse

4:10

it. It's just like a fun social club or

4:12

anything like that. But um, it

4:15

is fairly interesting. But

4:17

I'm ready to be done with this as well, so let's let's

4:19

do it. Yeah. Well, the thing that kind

4:21

of strikes me about the clan the most is they

4:24

the clan enjoys its largest

4:26

popularity when America is feeling it's most

4:29

racist. And usually America

4:31

feels it's most racist at times

4:33

when um, the rights

4:36

of minorities or anybody who's

4:38

not basically white Protestants are

4:41

being advanced in society.

4:43

It's not an accident, right, Um,

4:46

but then the clan always always

4:48

oversteps because America maybe racist

4:50

in America might be I can't

4:52

even say why, America is definitely based

4:55

on white supremacism um

4:57

or white supremacy and enforcing

5:00

that the but the

5:01

the taste for

5:04

violence and the willingness to like kill people

5:06

of color just for being people of color

5:09

is not a mainstream thing fortunately, So

5:12

the Clan has always been on the fringe and always

5:14

will be on the fringes. It's just hopefully

5:17

eventually society will learn it's less and

5:19

like, you know, advancing

5:21

the rights of people of color doesn't mean that

5:23

there has to be some spasm of anti

5:26

minority sentiment that inevitably

5:29

leads to violence carried out by groups

5:31

like the Clan. I really hope we get to

5:33

that point, um, rather than just keep

5:35

existing trapped in this cycle, you know,

5:38

And I think we will. I think we are approaching

5:40

that eventually. I don't know when

5:42

it will be, but I I feel like

5:45

with each of these cycles

5:47

that we go through, there's less

5:49

and less people who react horribly

5:51

the next time or the next time

5:53

or the next time, so that eventually that

5:56

reaction will just kind of fizzle out. That's

5:58

my hope. Yeah. Uh. And it's also

6:00

interesting, Uh, I watched a documentary

6:03

that wasn't really do it's sort of like a

6:05

uh, several part news show from

6:07

this British um might

6:09

have been a BBC crew that about the modern

6:12

clan just from a couple of years ago during like the ferguson

6:15

Upper or Missouri. And he went not undercover

6:17

because he was um, a

6:19

British guy. He was interviewing him. He went he

6:22

went in deep uh with the

6:24

clan there for seven months and

6:27

it's interesting to see the

6:30

just the scattered ideology and that kind

6:32

of is a bit of a hallmark of the clan

6:35

period through their history. Is it

6:37

seems like there's never been a very codified

6:41

thing of this is who we are, because there's people

6:43

in this documentary that are like, you

6:45

know, three of the members were arrested for plotting

6:48

to kill a black man, and the people

6:50

they talked to and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, they're out man.

6:52

We're not into that. We don't want to commit

6:54

violence against black people. And we're

6:56

not even bigoted. We're just a superior

6:59

race who who are

7:01

white separatists, but we don't want

7:03

to you know, we might burn across for

7:05

our ceremonies, but we're not doing bombings

7:08

and lynchings. And we're not down with that at all.

7:11

Uh, But you also get the feeling that behind

7:13

closed doors, they're probably like, hey, I wish those

7:15

guys would have been able to carry that murder out

7:18

right, and that that seems to have been a transition

7:20

that kind of went in the

7:23

seventies. Started in the seventies, I

7:25

believe, where there's like a

7:28

a different public face to the clan

7:30

where they tried different like okay, well

7:32

that everybody hates the clan, what if we what

7:34

if we explain it like this? What

7:36

if we put it like this in society is

7:38

like, no, that's nice. Try

7:41

it's not gonna work, all right? Should

7:43

we get into this in the origins? Yeah,

7:46

so so, like you said, there's been three iterations

7:48

of the clan, and this the

7:50

first iteration of the clan started

7:52

out is they think

7:55

basically a social club made up of UM

7:58

disgruntled Confederate veterans

8:00

in Pulaski, Tennessee in eighteen sixties

8:02

six. And this group

8:05

of veterans got together at a time where

8:08

um, there was a real trend,

8:10

a craze basically for secret societies

8:13

in the nineteenth century. UM, apparently

8:15

in the the eighteen

8:18

nineties up to the nineteen thirties is called

8:20

the Golden Age of fraternalism, where something

8:22

like a third of American men were

8:25

members of a secret society or something based

8:27

on like actual, real ancient

8:29

secret societies like the Knights Templar, the

8:31

Rosicrucians. These are just kind of fake

8:34

ones that gave you a reason to like leave

8:36

the house on Tuesdays and Thursdays and go, like,

8:38

you know, have whiskey down at the Moose

8:41

Lodge, and groups

8:43

like the Moose and the Elks and the Knights of

8:45

Columbus Um, they all grew

8:47

out of that. And in fact, Woodmen of the World

8:50

Insurance UM, it's called

8:52

that. It's kind of a weird name if you think about

8:54

it, but Woodmen of the World UM

8:56

was a secret society from the nineteenth century

8:58

and they would sell their members insurance

9:01

policies. And that's where that insurance came

9:03

from. So this is kind of like the context of

9:05

where the ku Klux klan of originally

9:08

came from in the nineteenth century, this

9:10

crazer trend for secret societies.

9:13

Yeah, and by all accounts, it was started

9:15

on Christmas Eve, like you said

9:17

in Pulaski in eighteen sixty five by

9:20

six men Calvin Jones,

9:23

Richard Reid, Frank McCord, uh,

9:27

John Kennedy, and John uh

9:30

Kessler I think, and then I believe

9:32

it or not. The final guy's name was Jim

9:35

crow No James

9:37

crow No, Yeah,

9:39

in Pulaski, Tennessee. And um,

9:42

they

9:45

they were sort of based on this one of those

9:47

secret groups called the Sons of Malta, but

9:49

it seems like it was more inspired by

9:52

because they weren't around by the time the Civil War

9:54

ended. But they definitely sort

9:56

of, um, kind of cribbed

9:59

some stuff from from the Malton's as

10:01

far as uh. And this is the whole

10:03

thing with the secret societies, like outfits

10:06

and costumes and rights

10:08

and initiations and dumb names

10:11

of leadership that you make up. It's all a

10:13

big part of it. I

10:16

have never understood the desire,

10:19

and not just obviously the clan because UH

10:22

clearly not interested in that, but any fraternal

10:26

group like that, I just including

10:28

fraternities in college. I just I never got

10:31

it. Yeah. Um, that Sons

10:33

of Malta you mentioned seemed to have been directly

10:36

impactful. Um. I don't

10:38

know if there were members who were who were

10:40

from the Sons of Malta or how they heard of it. But the

10:42

Sons of Malta and then another group called the Ku

10:45

Close Adelphin and both of

10:47

them seemed to have been party cruise or cruise

10:49

from Marti Gras in New Orleans.

10:52

And then this all Sons of Malta somehow made their

10:54

way up to Boston, and that's where they really

10:56

kind of got

10:58

hold or got pop ler, I guess,

11:00

but neither one of those were racist

11:03

groups from what I could tell, UM,

11:05

and from also what I could tell,

11:07

the Ku Klux Klan wasn't necessarily

11:10

intended to be a racist terrorist

11:12

political organization, at

11:14

least at first. But UM

11:17

shortly after they formed

11:19

in eighteen sixty five sixty six

11:22

UM, the federal government

11:24

passed the Reconstruction Acts UM,

11:27

and reconstruction definitely

11:29

deserves its own episode. Really

11:32

want to do one or two on reconstruction

11:34

at some point. But when

11:36

they passed that act,

11:39

that UM that

11:41

kind of changed or gave focus

11:43

to this what may have been like

11:45

just kind of a UM A

11:48

group of racist people, and turned

11:50

them into a racist political

11:53

terrorist organization. Now they had something

11:56

to do besides meat at the moose lodge

11:58

and that was to a forced white supremacy

12:01

in the Deep South through acts

12:03

of violence and intimidation and terror

12:05

techniques. Um. And that

12:07

was the first incarnation of the clan, and they spread

12:10

really quick from Tennessee down

12:12

to um Georgia and other neighboring

12:14

states, thanks in part to personal

12:16

visits for organizing by a guy named

12:19

Nathan Bedford Forrest Uh, a

12:22

Confederate general who is not a great

12:24

guy. Yeah he was. Uh, there

12:26

are a lot of complications with that guy. We'll we'll get

12:28

to him in a sec. But um the name

12:31

KKK or ku klux

12:33

Klan um they think might have and there's

12:35

no again. It's it's been such a sort

12:37

of willy nilly organization as

12:39

far as having a national, sort of codified

12:42

presence that there's not

12:44

even like a website that

12:46

I saw that you can go to. It's all regional. Man,

12:49

those are some terrible websites. They're

12:51

pretty bad. Comics sands everywhere.

12:54

Yeah, they're they're pretty bad. When this

12:56

like a black background and like pink fonts

12:59

and stuff that spewing racist

13:01

bigotry and ideology and oh

13:03

my god, it's pretty bad. I wanted to

13:05

like throw my laptop out in the window at one point. UM.

13:08

But they think it might have derived from

13:10

the Greek word uh

13:12

key close k y k l

13:15

o s, which was

13:17

basically denotes um what people

13:20

thought were like the natural cycles

13:22

of government or types of government that

13:24

a civilization could have, which is pretty

13:26

haughty if you think about it. For the k k k

13:29

I mean of political philosophy

13:31

that dates back to the third

13:33

century PC. That's it's

13:35

really something. But ku close is

13:37

what it um k u k l os

13:41

is what it was sort of translated as and

13:43

and modern and well not the modern

13:45

era, but back then and uh

13:48

clan with a K, Like what I

13:50

saw was it was originally ku

13:53

klux one word and then clan

13:55

with a c uh. And

13:57

they think that may have come from maybe um

13:59

Scottish clans. They play Scottish music

14:01

sometimes at their rallies, but

14:03

that's not affirmed either. But

14:06

eventually I think that C was replaced

14:08

with a K. It became kkk

14:11

and these lodges started

14:13

popping up um

14:15

all over right after the Civil War because

14:17

kind of like you said, once um of my adority

14:19

gets a little bit of freedom. Uh,

14:22

there's a bit of an uprising and clan membership.

14:24

And that's what happened from the first iteration

14:27

is like, there we have these enslaved people that are

14:29

now free. We need to basically

14:31

intimidate them into feeling

14:33

like they still have no freedoms even though the

14:36

loss as different. Right. So

14:38

one of the first things they did was, Um,

14:41

you know when when reconstruction

14:43

came along and all of a sudden there were you

14:45

know, black people in the South could hold

14:47

political office or be judges or all this Like

14:50

this was like flipping a switch as

14:52

far as the South is concerned, um.

14:55

And it's like I said,

14:57

it laser focused like the a

15:00

times of the Ku Klux Klan, and that

15:02

they now took up an

15:04

intimidation and terrorism campaign against

15:07

black people in South, against Republicans

15:09

in the South. The Republicans at the time

15:11

were a much different party than they are today, and

15:13

that they were into the idea of

15:15

big government to support and enforce

15:18

social justice. Um. And then

15:20

years later around the turn of the last century,

15:23

UM Williams Jenning Bryant was a candidate

15:25

who was a Democrat

15:28

who basically ran on the Republican platform

15:30

a big government to enforce social justice.

15:32

And then later on it was cemented by FDR is

15:35

a big kind of transition or um

15:39

um switch basically of

15:41

ideologies between the parties. UM.

15:43

But at the time, if you

15:45

were a Republican, you were probably if you're

15:48

in the South, you were probably for UM

15:51

equal rights for black citizens,

15:53

and you were a target of their intimidation

15:56

campaigns as well, big time,

15:58

because not only were they of

16:00

battling these politicians, but UM voter

16:02

intimidation was a very real thing, UH

16:05

and voter suppression, and they

16:07

would UM, they would murder people,

16:09

UM like hundreds, maybe thousands

16:11

of people in the South, especially

16:13

Louisiana. UM reports ahead of

16:15

the eighteen sixty eight election UM

16:18

where that they murdered people for intimidation

16:20

and literally to keep them from voting. Yeah,

16:22

dude. There was one town called opal Loosis,

16:24

UM, Louisiana, a town

16:27

of twenty five thousand, so it was pretty big. UM.

16:29

It was the county seat of the parish. You can't remember what parish.

16:31

But in two weeks, two

16:34

hundred people were murdered around the

16:36

eighteen sixty eight election. Two hundred.

16:38

That's fourteen people a day in this

16:40

town of twenty five thousand people, UM,

16:43

all because of terrorism. Carried out by the

16:45

KKK. Yeah,

16:47

and Ed helped us put this together. And

16:49

Ed is keen to point out and I think we should too, is

16:52

that a lot of

16:54

what the Clan has always tried to do is is

16:56

lead their groups by fear. And

16:59

you still see that to day, not only through the Clan

17:01

but other groups, like fear of you know,

17:03

that the immigrants gonna take your job, or fear of this,

17:05

fear of that, And back then it was fear

17:07

of um these enslaved people

17:09

that are now free rising up, you know, and

17:12

and getting revenge, and that

17:14

didn't happen, like even

17:17

though slavery happened, Like once

17:19

black Americans earned their freedom,

17:22

they did not all of a sudden say,

17:24

oh yeah, well payback time, we're

17:26

angry, we're gonna come after you. They

17:29

were happy to be freed and just

17:31

to try and live as

17:33

regular people with rights and society.

17:37

And that wasn't the message that the Clan

17:39

was putting out. They were like, you need to be

17:41

afraid of them, even though there are no accounts

17:44

of that happening. It was just black people trying to

17:46

be regular, normal people, right.

17:49

And the other problem with that kind

17:51

of thing is is like when somebody does

17:53

stuff like this, when they carry out a terror campaign,

17:56

um, it makes people wonder like, geez,

17:58

well, what did the other people do to deserve this?

18:01

Well, the other people didn't do anything to deserve

18:03

this. And that's that's what's called the false balance

18:05

or balance fallacy, where there

18:08

the idea that there's you know, there's

18:11

problems on both sides, or there's good people

18:13

on both sides. It's it's like no, sometimes

18:15

one side is the problem basically

18:19

of the problem. And I think that was really

18:22

important of to point out and for

18:24

us to point out too, that there was nothing

18:26

that the the Clan was

18:29

defending against except white

18:32

supremacy and black

18:35

black suppression, the suppression of rights among

18:37

black people. That was it. It's

18:39

as despicable as it sounds. There

18:41

was nothing gallant or good about

18:44

it. There was nothing honorable bull about

18:46

it. And in fact, they were so

18:48

violent and so criminal and so

18:51

despicable that within three years

18:53

of their founding, the Grand

18:55

Wizard of the KKK, Nathan

18:57

Bedford Forrest, who we Um mentioned

19:00

earlier, issued his

19:02

one and only basically executive orders

19:04

Grand Wizard, saying, we have to disband

19:07

and burn all of our stuff because

19:09

this has gotten out of hand. That's how violent

19:12

they had become and how despicable their acts

19:14

had been. Yeah, Forrest Gump's

19:16

namesake. Yeah, Um,

19:18

he was, like I said, he was a

19:20

pretty controversial remains a

19:23

controversial dude. Uh. And

19:25

that he was one of the generals of the Confederacy.

19:27

And um, he was in charge when

19:30

the Fort Pillow massacre happened, which was, uh,

19:33

something we can get into in detail, maybe in a short stuff

19:35

maybe, but um, essentially,

19:37

you know, hundreds of largely black soldiers who

19:39

had given up and surrendered were

19:42

just massacred on this day at

19:44

Fort Pillow. And Um,

19:46

he was known as a brilliant general, the

19:48

Wizard of the Saddle, which is what he

19:50

was called because he was a cavalry guy. Uh.

19:53

And that later became you know, they kind of gang

19:56

that for the clan as far as the Grand Wizard, they kind

19:58

of stole that from there. Um.

20:00

But he uh,

20:03

he seemed to be a vile man. But then later

20:05

in life, like you said, um became

20:07

disillusioned with the clan. Some people

20:10

said it was just because he didn't think they were organized

20:12

enough. Some people said it was because he thought

20:14

they got too violent. But in Memphis

20:16

late in life, he gave this big speech about um,

20:20

you know, basically trying to

20:22

hold up the black man and give them jobs

20:24

and put them in positions of important

20:27

positions in our government, and

20:29

to make them doctors and lawyers. So I

20:31

don't know if it was a change of heart. There's

20:33

been a lot of controversy

20:36

since since then about like should

20:38

we honor this guy or

20:41

you know, or talk about like his

20:43

entire life up until that moment. No, I

20:45

think it's it's like he

20:48

he deserves to have like his

20:50

like it all spread out on the table. But

20:53

I feel like once you oversee like a massacre

20:55

of of unarmed black

20:57

soldiers came home, oversee like

21:00

at in a white supremacist terrorist

21:02

group, that's pretty tough to come back

21:04

from. Even though I mean, it is definitely

21:06

worth noting and I think fair to note that

21:08

he did have at least something

21:10

of a change of heart, at least publicly. I

21:13

saw that he wrote to uh, I think the

21:15

governor of Tennessee or somewhere and

21:17

offered to help destroy um

21:20

white vigilantes who were harassing

21:23

UM black citizens because

21:25

he thought it was uncalled for. So

21:27

yeah, he was a

21:29

a unusual

21:32

person over the span of his life, but he still

21:34

did some pretty horrible stuff of course. And

21:36

this, you know, this pops up anytime there's um

21:39

a debate over whether they should strip the

21:41

name from this or that, you

21:43

know, because there's plenty, plenty of stuff named for him.

21:45

There's a high school in Jacksonville, Florida

21:48

that was named Nathan F.

21:51

Nathan B. Forest High

21:53

School until two thousand fourteen.

21:56

Yeah, two thousand fourteen, there

21:58

was a high school named after the basically

22:00

the founder of the Ku Klux Klan in

22:03

Jacksonville, Florida. They should just name all

22:05

the high schools in Florida, Tom Petty High School.

22:08

It's he from Florida. He's from Gainesville.

22:10

I didn't know that. Yeah, big, big time

22:13

music scene down there back then. Okay,

22:15

what happened to the music

22:17

scene? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe there're still

22:19

this one. Who else came out of Gainesville

22:21

at that time? The

22:24

Don Felder, the guitar player for the Eagles,

22:26

was Tom Petty's guitar teacher. Uh.

22:29

And then um like Leonard skinnerd

22:32

hung out in Jacksonville, and I

22:34

think the Almond Brothers they were making guys, but they hung

22:36

out down there too. Okay,

22:39

should we take a break? Sure, all

22:41

right, let's take a break. I didn't think Tom Petty and the

22:43

Almond brothers would make a appearance in the

22:45

Clan episode, but they did.

22:48

And we'll be back right after it to talk about the enforcement

22:50

x all

23:19

right. The enforcement x uh.

23:22

This is basically when the federal government

23:24

stepped up starting in eighteen

23:26

seventy and said, you know what,

23:28

we can't count on these states,

23:31

especially in the South, and

23:33

we should point out and ed Ed makes

23:36

a good point of pointing out that like there was racism

23:38

all over the country, always has been. There have

23:40

been claim groups all over the country, but in

23:42

the South, it was in the government,

23:45

it was in the courts, it was in the

23:47

school systems, like it was

23:50

nowhere else in the country. So

23:52

the federal government said, we can't

23:54

count on the Southern states to do the right

23:57

thing and to have real investigations

23:59

and prosecute people and

24:01

to protect black citizens. So

24:03

we're gonna pass the Enforcement Acts that basically

24:05

says, uh, we can go in there

24:08

and we can kind of take care of business on our own

24:10

if we have to. Yeah, and

24:12

take care of business. They did. Um,

24:15

General Grant Ulysses Grant,

24:17

who was then President. Grant had

24:19

an Attorney general named Amos Ackerman

24:22

Disguss Awesome is awesome.

24:24

It's one of the heroes of this story. He doesn't

24:26

even have a Wikipedia page. He

24:28

doesn't know. That's pretty lame

24:31

Wikipedia. It's bad. He's a Georgia

24:33

boy too. Yeah, yeah, he is so.

24:35

UM. This guy ended up the attorney

24:38

general under Grant, and he basically

24:40

used everything at his disposal, from forming

24:43

UM like basically the prototype

24:46

of the FBI to UM

24:49

to getting federal troops and getting

24:51

martial law declared down in South Carolina

24:53

to oversee the presidential

24:55

election down there. UM

24:58

like all sorts of different stuff. Everything

25:00

he had he would throw at the clan and ultimately

25:03

kind of broke the back of that first clan.

25:06

That combined with um Bedford

25:09

Forrest UM. I don't

25:11

know why you have to say both of those names, but you just

25:14

kind of do UM.

25:16

That combined with his executive

25:18

order disband like the clan, the

25:20

first clan went away very very quickly. Actually,

25:24

yeah, and it's hard to tell how big it was at

25:26

its first peak. Uh.

25:28

Some people say maybe a half million

25:30

people, But like you said, it faded

25:32

out pretty quickly. Um,

25:35

and you know, we'll talk

25:37

about when the clan fades out. You know, it

25:40

doesn't really go anywhere as far as these

25:42

people go. It's not like everyone all

25:44

of a sudden was awesome and not racist.

25:48

It just means the formal clan just

25:50

lacks membership basically. I

25:53

don't know. I think I think when

25:55

when suddenly, like the four the federal

25:58

government and like you know, maybe

26:00

your senator or your representative,

26:03

or you hear the President talking smack

26:05

about this group that you know, you used to

26:07

think was pretty cool, but now all of a sudden you realize

26:09

that the rest of the country thinks you're a backward dummy

26:12

for looking up to these clan members.

26:14

It can kind of it can kind of make

26:17

people self reflect a little

26:19

bit, you know. So I wonder how many people

26:21

do change their minds

26:23

or have historically over

26:25

over the course of this, not necessarily like,

26:28

well, I'm not racist anymore, but I think that

26:30

that's that's a possibility that somebody

26:32

can reflect like that, or at the very least the next

26:34

time they're not going to participate or

26:37

agitate or join in. You know,

26:39

I don't know, I saw, did you see

26:41

that mem of the dude in I

26:44

think Indiana,

26:46

Illinois, I can't remember. He's I

26:48

believe, in a wheelchair and he's had

26:50

a Black Lives Matter rally. He's

26:52

holding a sign that says, I'm sorry,

26:55

I'm late. I had a lot to learn, and

26:57

he apparently was. I don't know if he was

26:59

racist, but he was certainly not in favor of Black

27:01

Lives Matter, and I guess started

27:03

reading about it and looking into it and

27:05

doing his research and had a complete

27:08

change of heart and showed up at one of their

27:10

rallies and support of them, which was pretty cool.

27:12

Have you seen that? I have not seen that. So

27:14

it is. I mean, it can't happen. Like people, sentiments

27:16

about this kind of stuff can change. And I feel like

27:19

when people are like, oh, oh, I'm

27:21

in favor of of keeping other human

27:23

beings down for really no reason

27:25

whatsoever except they don't look like me, I

27:27

feel like that that's like a there's

27:30

a lot of room for improvement that can happen.

27:32

Um in in that in that sense, you

27:34

know, yeah, I mean, I'm

27:37

I'm sure individuals have changed like that. I

27:39

wish it was on mass Um.

27:42

There were other violent racist groups

27:45

when the clan was not as popular during

27:47

that period. Um, they

27:49

just didn't have uh, they didn't have that

27:52

sort of unified Um.

27:55

Look, well

27:57

so let's talk Yeah, let's talk about that. Look

28:00

if you're if you're ready to want to

28:02

Yeah, I mean you can thank you d

28:04

W. Griffith and Thomas Dixon Jr. For

28:06

that, Yeah, because prior to

28:09

this, the clan um

28:11

did not really look like what you would think.

28:13

They they wore masks

28:15

and hoods and um, you

28:17

know, disguises, and they tried to disguise

28:20

their voice. Apparently sometimes they would pretend

28:22

that they were the ghosts of Confederate

28:24

soldiers coming to terrorize black families.

28:27

Um, fooling absolutely no one.

28:29

But they they didn't wear necessarily

28:32

what you would think of as like the clan

28:35

today. And like you said, that strictly came

28:37

from d. W. Griffith, and

28:39

I guess Dixon Thomas Dixon do

28:41

a lesser extent, but Griffith like really

28:43

put it up there for everybody to see. With the Birth

28:45

of a Nation. Yeah, Birth of a Nation was

28:47

a movie based on play

28:50

that was based on a book from Thomas Dixon Jr.

28:52

He published The Klansmen with

28:54

a C. Colon h

28:57

historical romance of the Ku Klux Klan and

29:00

where they were depicted as heroic, heroic

29:03

sort of noble Christian warriors, and

29:06

that became a play that had was a little

29:08

bit more popular, and then d W.

29:10

Griffith based the movie on that play.

29:13

Um, and it was you

29:15

know, this is where you saw crosses burning,

29:18

and this is where you saw those white pointed hoods

29:21

and horses with robes on them. Those

29:23

poor poor horses. They have no idea what

29:26

they're doing. It makes me feel the horses

29:28

into this show. I wish they wouldn't, but

29:31

you know what we know as sort of the

29:33

look of the clan was

29:35

fully put forth by d W. Griffith

29:37

on screen. Um. I was kind

29:40

of curious because I know he was a

29:42

huge, huge name in Hollywood and a pioneer

29:44

in Hollywood and was a founding partner

29:46

of United Artists with Chaplain

29:48

and Mary Pickford and I think Douglas

29:51

Fairbanks maybe, um,

29:53

but I was curious about both those guys, like were

29:55

they super racist or was this just

29:58

a movie to them? And uh, Dixon

30:00

was supposedly really racist. Um,

30:02

although he supposedly denounced bigotry

30:05

in the wake of this sort of new clan that was created.

30:08

I had a harder time finding out what d.

30:11

W. Griffith was all about. He never

30:13

apologized for anything, and

30:15

he seems to have sort of escaped

30:17

scrutiny, uh in some ways,

30:20

so in his lifetime I think so,

30:22

but I'm not really sure because it didn't have time to

30:24

really do a deep dive into whether or

30:26

not, like he believed the stuff or he was like, I'm

30:28

gonna make a salacious movie that's going to be super

30:31

controversial and get banned and get me a

30:33

lot of attention. But the the

30:36

you know, whether his heart was in it or not,

30:38

the impact that his movie had was astounding.

30:42

It was like, imagine if when Star Wars

30:44

came out, all of a sudden, like, um,

30:48

Jedi schools popped up in real life,

30:50

and like they would form together and go out and

30:53

run for office as like Jedies. Basically,

30:56

sweet, we need a third party, right,

30:58

yeah, the Jedi party. But

31:00

imagine if those Jedis were like virulent

31:03

racists who were um dedicated

31:05

to suppressing the rights of minorities.

31:07

What do you think about that? It's much less good. It's

31:10

much less good, and um, that's yeah,

31:12

that's kind of what happened. It's a good point. Yeah, but based

31:14

on this movie. It was a popular movie

31:17

that kicked off what's what's considered the

31:19

second wave or second incarnation

31:21

of the Ku Klux Klan and gave us all of

31:23

that, the symbolism, the

31:25

grandiose um

31:28

look and feel, and just kind

31:30

of like gave it this almost legend

31:32

that really didn't exist because

31:35

the first claim was never like that. They were a bunch

31:37

of hooded um,

31:40

murderous thugs who would ride around

31:42

on horseback at night and set people's

31:44

houses on fire. They didn't look anything

31:46

like that. Um. So yeah, you can lay

31:48

you know, the resurgence and interests

31:51

of the clan almost squarely

31:53

at the feet of d W. Griffith, and

31:55

then only because it wasn't as

31:57

popular to a lesser extent, Tom Dixon's

32:00

eat. Not Tom Dixon, the great

32:02

great lighting designer, Tom

32:04

Dixon, the racist author. Yes, Thomas

32:06

Dixon Jr. I think right, uh.

32:08

And in fact, the Birth of a Nation part

32:11

of it was filmed in the neighborhood

32:13

I lived in l a and lous felis right there where

32:15

I remember where we shot the driving

32:18

around stuff for the Toyota commercial. Yeah.

32:20

Can I just say one of my favorite

32:23

gonna say is, well, we were talking,

32:26

Yes, you didn't look to the right, and you started

32:28

to pull through a crosswalk and this lady

32:30

with her husband and like three kids started like,

32:32

I think, smack the hood of the priest that

32:35

we were filming in and like yelled at you,

32:37

and you like yelled back at her and shook your fists.

32:39

Like you you got in there like a match.

32:42

You did. You did in every

32:45

way except physically shaking your fist.

32:47

But you've got in like a shouting match with some pedestrian

32:50

while we were filming a Toyota commercial. Beautiful.

32:52

It wasn't quite a shouting match. It was very brief. She

32:54

she way overreacted totally.

32:57

I don't know. I'm not saying you were in the wrong, but it was just

33:00

reminded me of everything I hated about living

33:02

in l A. I think in that one moment was like,

33:04

how bad this lady overreacted? Yeah,

33:07

it was fun though. That was a great, great memory.

33:09

Yeah, but Birth of a Nation was

33:11

filmed like right down the street from there.

33:13

Part of it. Um the my favorite

33:16

movie theater in l A. The Vista was right on this

33:18

corner, and also the movie

33:20

theater that doubled as Detroit for

33:23

True Romance for the Karate Kung

33:25

Fu Theater at the beginning. Um,

33:27

but yeah, like right out there in front of

33:30

that, it's this big like convergence

33:32

of five streets and apparently

33:34

like some of the huge like marching scenes

33:36

from Birth of a Nation, we're film right there anyway.

33:40

Um, this second birth

33:42

of the clan, a lot of it can be credited

33:44

also to the actions of William

33:47

J. Simmons, who was inspired

33:49

from the movie in in nineteen fifteen went to the

33:51

top of Stone Mountain here in Georgia and

33:53

burned across and inspired

33:55

by a movie. Yeah, well

33:58

and ass and hate

34:00

in the previous clan, like you

34:02

know, it was all still there. Um.

34:04

But James Venable, who I mentioned earlier,

34:07

who I went to school with his grandkids, he was a kid

34:10

on top of the mountain with William

34:12

Simmons at the time, and

34:14

he was up there and I think with his uncle and

34:17

this was kind of looked at it sort of one

34:19

of the first meetings of the newly reborn

34:23

Ku Klux Klan and the nineteen fifteen

34:26

to twenties. Yeah, so in addition

34:28

to having like a much more unified

34:30

look and um,

34:33

I guess uh design ethos

34:36

um. The this version of the clan,

34:38

the second version of the clan, seemed

34:41

more organized. At least they were organized

34:43

enough to actually become a

34:45

political force, not just in

34:48

support of you know, um,

34:50

say the Democrats at the time, or

34:53

uh, in support of just whatever local

34:56

judge was known to be a racist and you

34:59

know they they would they would support

35:01

him and intimidate voters against him. They would

35:03

actually put forth candidates who were

35:05

members of the clan and publicly members

35:07

of the clan. Um probably most famously

35:10

Robert Bird, a senator

35:12

from uh West Virginia, was

35:15

a clan member and

35:17

like never backed away from the clan at at

35:19

any point. There were other Southerners

35:22

like from Georgia who

35:24

were senators, I mean, who

35:26

were also Southerners from Georgia who

35:28

were from the clan, some representatives,

35:31

lots and lots of local officials, and

35:33

like the clan would actually they became

35:36

something of a political force as well.

35:39

Yeah, I mean the local thing is really um

35:41

was a big deal because it could be and

35:44

you know politics, we all get worked up

35:46

over national politics as well. We should but

35:49

if you really want to see a difference in your life day

35:51

to day, local politics is where it's

35:53

at, and you know, county

35:56

commissions and school boards

35:58

and boards of directors like that. The local level

36:01

is really where the Clan could get in there on

36:03

a more low key basis and

36:05

do a lot of damage. Um.

36:08

So that you know, they had official uniforms.

36:10

Now, they had official ranks and titles, um.

36:14

They were still sort of like, hey, we're just a

36:16

a fraternal order, um,

36:18

and that's kind of all we are. But

36:21

at the same time they expanded there

36:24

ethos and it wasn't just black people

36:27

anymore. It was they were anti

36:29

anti Semites, they were anti Catholic, they

36:32

were against communists, they were against

36:34

anything that wasn't white. And all of

36:36

this was sort of under the banner

36:38

of hey, what we really

36:41

are, uh, because you know

36:43

they would also like trying out pedophiles

36:45

and stuff like that. What they said

36:47

they really were were patriots and heroes

36:50

and good Americans, which

36:52

sounds very familiar these days. It really

36:54

does. This, This this version of the clan very

36:57

much um reflects the

36:59

kind of supremacist bs

37:01

that you see today in America,

37:04

where it's it's UM

37:07

very much spread across different groups that

37:10

that are kind of held together by this thread that

37:12

you know, white people are losing

37:15

ground and they need to make it back up through

37:17

whatever whatever we need to do. UM.

37:20

That that really seems to reflect

37:22

a bit. Also the fact that there are crazy

37:25

nut jobs in Congress today

37:27

who hold white supremacists values

37:30

basically publicly really bears a

37:32

striking resemblance to the second resurgence

37:34

of the clan. Yeah, who I mean

37:36

we should point out again at like white Christian,

37:40

white Protestant Christian, right, that's

37:42

important. Seemed to be the only thing that

37:45

was that was okay, like

37:47

anything else, like anti Catholic, anti

37:50

Jew, anti everything except

37:52

white Protestant Christian and so

37:54

like the the This was the largest

37:56

UH popularity of the widest popularity

37:59

of the clan. The Southern Poverty Law

38:01

Center estimates that they may have had

38:04

around the mid nineteen twenties

38:06

as many as four million members spread

38:09

across the US. And it wasn't

38:11

just in the South. I mean, there were plenty in

38:13

industrial cities in the North. There are plenty

38:15

on the West coast, plenty in the midwest.

38:18

UH. Indiana UM was known

38:20

as a stronghold of the clan, and I read

38:23

that as many as half a million. UH

38:26

had half a million members, which would have

38:28

been a third of the population of

38:30

white men in Indiana at the time in

38:32

the nineteen twenties. So you

38:34

might ask, like, why was everybody in the clan

38:37

just in the same way that UM. The reconstruction

38:41

gave I guess purpose

38:44

to the clan. UM. Massive

38:47

waves of immigration that had started in the late

38:49

nineteenth century to the United States was

38:51

making America generally racist, and they

38:53

were easily whipped up by things like

38:56

you're gonna lose your job to all these immigrants.

38:58

Yeah, Like it was very much based

39:00

on local grievance, grievances like whatever

39:02

the local fear was, and a

39:04

lot of times you're right, that was immigrants

39:07

coming into the town and taking your jobs, or black

39:10

men marrying white women, or whatever

39:12

they felt the local thing was that would be most

39:14

effective at recruiting. Kind of

39:17

was what they kind of honed in on. UM.

39:20

The mystique of it all was very I

39:22

think intoxicating to a lot of these people, UH

39:24

and still is in that documentary.

39:27

It's amazing to see these people two

39:29

years ago talking about clearly

39:34

that's an important thing for them, like

39:37

getting dressed up, meeting together

39:39

in the woods and burning across, riding

39:41

around at night on your night rides

39:43

or midnight rides in your car, putting up

39:45

flyers under the under the

39:47

cloak of darkness. Um there,

39:50

it's like cosplay, it really is. They're

39:52

they're playing like they're in some important

39:55

club. Um. It's

39:57

interesting that the women, the women in this documentary,

40:00

all of them said, well, you know,

40:02

this isn't the kind of thing I probably would have been into,

40:04

but it really improved

40:06

my marriage when I got on board and

40:10

uh and joined, and now my husband

40:12

and I have something to talk about. We have

40:14

commonalities. And you hear

40:16

this and you're just like crawling out

40:18

of your skin at at

40:20

seeing this marriage which is clearly just you

40:23

know, a male dominant marriage.

40:25

And uh, you know, but if you,

40:27

if you, if you join my clan, or if you like my football

40:29

team, we'll finally have something common. Right,

40:32

And I love football, so I don't want

40:34

to throw a football into the but but but so yeah,

40:36

so I mean it makes sense like if you don't

40:38

have much of an identity, or you

40:40

are looking for something to give your

40:42

life purpose, like a group

40:45

or a club, especially one that's you know,

40:48

and some looked up to it

40:50

by some people. I can really give

40:53

your life a real shot in the arm, you know, I guess

40:55

in good ways. I mean those there are so many great clubs

40:58

where people that feel like they brother, big sister.

41:01

Yeah. But I mean it is

41:03

interesting that so much of it in this documentary

41:06

ly seems to come from that mystique

41:08

and that wanting to belong to a group. And

41:10

I'm just a uh. This one

41:12

guy, he was like, you know, I'm just a landscaper

41:15

and I was just out partying and now now I have focused,

41:17

now have something to do these brothers.

41:22

So um. One of

41:24

the one of the things you mentioned was the

41:26

midnight rides and going on at midnight, and one

41:28

of the one of the reasons they do that is because the

41:30

clan has always thrived on anonymity.

41:34

Like they they don't. I mean, that's

41:36

that's not to say that they don't show their face

41:38

in public. Some of them do, but

41:40

plenty of them don't, and that

41:43

there's strengthen that. Um.

41:45

And one of the reasons that they would ride

41:47

at night was because it afforded

41:50

that much more anonymity even if

41:52

they're they weren't particularly anonymous,

41:55

and that you know, their neighbor who

41:57

they were terrorizing probably recognized

41:59

their voice, but the

42:01

fact that they their face wasn't shown,

42:03

there was plausible deniability to that. Well.

42:06

Speaking of anonymous though, in

42:09

this documentary, Anonymous outed this one

42:11

group in Missouri. They

42:13

got shut down and they put their all their

42:16

information on the web. And it

42:18

showed a little bit of the video with the guy and the guy fox

42:20

mask and the uh, the

42:23

the computerized voice or whatever saying

42:25

that you know we're coming after you, We're going to put your names

42:27

online. Uh, And it was it was fairly

42:29

interesting doing doing God's work. That's

42:31

actually yeah, for real, And that's actually like a traditional

42:34

anti clan tactic that groups

42:37

like the Double A c P or the

42:39

Anti Defamation League UM

42:42

used back during this time when the clan was

42:44

at its peak popularity in the nwies.

42:47

They would bribe people to get their hands

42:49

on a membership list. They would send

42:51

in people to infiltrate to get their hands on a

42:53

membership list, and then they would publish it. And now all

42:55

of a sudden, that anonymity and the strength

42:58

that's afforded by the anonymity is gone, and

43:00

you just broke up a clan chapter in

43:02

your local area because nobody

43:05

wants to be associated with anymore, and they probably

43:07

have to make some sort of public statement about how they

43:09

left, you know where they It's all

43:11

just a misunderstanding, they were never part

43:13

of it. Or you're in fear of losing your job

43:15

maybe, but that really helped

43:18

break up this this version of the clan

43:20

in the nineteen twenties and then um,

43:22

the federal government again. If you look

43:25

at these these successive waves of

43:27

the Ku Klux Klan, the federal

43:29

government is the one who steps in to break

43:31

the back of the clan. And they did it again

43:33

basically using the same playbook

43:35

from the enforcement Acts the I R

43:38

S and the nineteen forties. Somehow

43:40

the clan had gotten a tax exempt

43:42

status and the I R S removed

43:44

it and then sued him for back taxes equal

43:47

to about ten million dollars in today's dollars

43:50

um. And the clan broke up real quick after

43:52

that. So exactly

43:56

so, the federal government has used a bunch

43:58

of tactics to basically get rid of the clan and again

44:00

and then the clan went away, and that was that

44:03

for a while. Alright, so should we take another

44:05

break here? Yes? All right, what sucks

44:07

man? Where this is gonna be a long episode?

44:09

Hey, giving the clan a long episode. We'll

44:12

take a break and maybe we'll just come

44:14

back and sing protest songs and then

44:17

all right, we'll be right back. If

44:47

I had a hammer at

44:50

hammer in the morning, I

44:52

had hammer in the evening, hell

44:55

over this

44:58

ad hammer out Dange danger

45:01

had him or out the clan, the

45:03

clan boo outer

45:07

space? What

45:09

you get that reference? Is that from Hold

45:12

On, Hold On Best? No? Uh?

45:14

Uh? Which one was that one? Coen

45:18

Brothers? Oh no,

45:20

I was thinking of the one, um

45:23

the Christopher guest movie.

45:25

It was from the Cohen Brothers. The

45:28

folk music movie

45:31

that is Escaping mar right now, Isaac,

45:34

Yeah, yeah. Adam Driver has a really funny part

45:36

where they're recording in there and he's just doing

45:38

background speaking like that, and

45:41

uh, timber Lake is singing about

45:43

remember our space and he goes outer space.

45:46

What's the one where Harry Shear

45:49

ends up joining like a folk group at

45:51

the end? Oh yeah, uh

45:54

that was Mighty Wind, Mighty

45:56

Wind. Yeah, that was a good one, A good movie alright,

45:59

And for sad we have to wind this up and

46:01

talk about the third wave of the clan, which

46:03

was the Civil Rights era. UM.

46:07

You would think that the Civil Rights era clan would

46:09

be the biggest iteration,

46:12

but it actually wasn't. UM. They

46:14

were one of the more dangerous eras because

46:17

they were very famous for carrying out bombings

46:20

UM all over the South, mainly including

46:24

very sadly the bombing UH in

46:26

Birmingham. I think there were a hundred and thirty eight

46:28

bombings over like a seven

46:31

year period. But the bombing

46:33

in Birmingham where they bombed the church and

46:35

Addie May Collins, Cynthia Wesley,

46:38

Carol Robertson and Carol Denise McNair UM,

46:40

four young black girls were killed. UH.

46:43

And if you don't know this story, just go watch the

46:45

Spike Lee documentary Four Little Girls,

46:47

because it it really does a great

46:49

job of kind of retelling

46:52

what's an awful thing that was? Yeah,

46:54

and that definitely was the most famous UM

46:56

and most despicable. But they bombed a lot

46:58

of other people, murderle lot of other people.

47:01

There's UM a couple that lived

47:03

not too far from UM where my place

47:05

in Florida is UM named

47:07

Harry and Harriet Moore, whose house was bombed

47:10

by the clan on Christmas Eve. They chose

47:12

Christmas Eve because they knew that there I think

47:14

they're older children would come home. They

47:16

wanted to kill as many of them as possible. So

47:19

there there was a real reign of

47:21

terror that the clan was carrying

47:23

out during the Civil rights era, and Birmingham

47:26

apparently was UM called

47:28

Bombingham for a while because

47:30

it was just UM so prone to being

47:33

bombed like where the church

47:35

was bombed, but also UM

47:37

because it was where the clan was the

47:39

strongest and most politically backed

47:41

up, which to the civil rights

47:43

UM leaders credit, they said, well then we're going

47:45

to Birmingham. That's where we're gonna set up shop, which

47:48

made UM is what brought Birmingham

47:51

to basically the forefront of the Civil rights

47:54

War. Yeah.

47:57

You know, there were some other high profile events,

47:59

the accession, they assassination with Medgar Evers,

48:02

obviously the Mississippi burning case.

48:04

If you saw that movie again, it did a really

48:06

good job of the case of those three civil rights workers

48:09

uh in nineteen sixty four who were killed. Uh.

48:12

And you know there were still lynchings going

48:14

on and and uh

48:17

there were still people in seats

48:19

of power, attorneys and people

48:21

on juries and it was it was a

48:24

a very uh it's

48:26

very mixed up time in this country because

48:29

rights were being achieved, uh

48:31

while all this bloodshed was going on. And

48:34

like you mentioned before, it's like they're trying to hold onto

48:36

this thing that is, um,

48:38

not what America is anymore. No,

48:41

it's like t s America is a multicultural

48:44

society and it's better off for it. Like

48:46

let's just all get on the trolley, shall we.

48:48

Yeah? So um. The

48:51

FBI, it's worth mentioning, played

48:53

a dual role. Apparently Jaeger Hoover

48:55

knew all the way back in nineteen sixty

48:57

five who carried out the

49:00

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, but

49:02

just sat on it because he wasn't like a really big

49:04

fan of civil rights um

49:07

or the civil rights movement. But at the same time,

49:09

the FBI actually did have an integral

49:11

role in breaking up local clan groups

49:13

by using like co intel pro Um

49:16

that program where they would basically infiltrate

49:19

and start getting people to question the leaders

49:22

or start accusing each other of disloyalty and

49:24

just turn a group on each other, like what they did the Black

49:26

Panthers they did to the KKK to

49:30

far less frequently, but they did have an

49:32

impact on helping to to break

49:34

up the KKK in the Civil

49:36

rights era as well. Yeah, and

49:38

since the Civil Rights era kind of to

49:40

today, UM, the

49:43

clan has really lost a lot of its

49:45

membership. UM. It

49:47

has been and then again as not to

49:49

say that any of the racism went away, it's

49:51

been fractured sometimes into more dangerous

49:54

groups. UM. Further all

49:57

right, white white supremacist groups and neo

49:59

Nazis. UM. There have been

50:01

people in power. David Duke, you know, we

50:03

have to mention him. He was an

50:05

actual House member, UM from

50:07

the state of Louisiana. UM.

50:10

He was the Grand National Grand Wizard

50:12

of the clan. And I

50:15

think they started to kind of push

50:18

away a little bit from the symbology

50:22

of you know, these kind of

50:24

crazy symbols and the hoods and the

50:27

cross burnings. I mean that stuff still went on on

50:29

local and state level, but I think

50:31

nationally they kind of tamp

50:34

that down a little bit and was like, I

50:36

think would be better if we could just hold office

50:39

right so lightly so, And that's basically

50:41

there's a direct thread to today,

50:44

this idea where they're just trying to soft

50:47

sell UM

50:49

racism and suppression of minority rights.

50:52

UM, and it just repackaged

50:54

it in other ways. But it's all the exact same

50:57

thing. And it doesn't matter how you dress

50:59

it up. You're trying to UM deny

51:01

the rights of other human beings. So you

51:04

say whatever you want to hold with your ideology,

51:07

you know, yeah, yeah, totally, it's

51:09

UM. There. There's never been a good handle on

51:11

the numbers because it hasn't been a superorganized

51:13

national thing. But UM they

51:16

think it is down to like less

51:18

than thirty thousand now. And when

51:20

they do these specials and kind of go to these

51:22

groups, the meetings you know in

51:25

these towns are a number

51:27

in the single digits. Sometimes

51:29

it's not it's not like hundreds

51:31

of guys getting together. Uh. And

51:34

of course there are women in there now. Keep saying guys,

51:36

but it's it's largely always been men because

51:38

they call them klansmen. But these

51:40

wives are getting involved as well

51:42

so they can have something in common with their husbands.

51:45

Yeah. The The good thing is is the numbers

51:47

are small enough that UM

51:49

basically local communities are strong

51:51

enough to come out and chase clan rallies

51:54

break them up UM, as was the

51:56

case in Madison, Indiana on Labor Day in two

51:58

thousand nineteen. That land said

52:00

that they were going to have a cookout, and apparently

52:02

about ten of them showed up and

52:05

the entire Madison, Indiana community,

52:07

or not the entire but a significant portion of

52:09

them, showed up and basically chased the clan out

52:11

of the public park um and

52:14

broke up their rally in ten to twenty minutes.

52:16

From what I read, that's that's usually par

52:18

for the course. And then the clan is relegated

52:20

to basically spewing hate online

52:23

or like you said, leaving flyers on people's

52:25

cars. So UM. Southern Poverty

52:27

Law Center says that they they have been tracking

52:29

their decline and they think they may have plateaued

52:32

UM, which is not good

52:34

because you like to just keep seeing them

52:36

decline, but they they bottomed out.

52:38

In other words, the problem is is there's

52:41

no lack of other racist groups

52:43

um that are that are equally

52:46

problematic, if not more so. Yeah,

52:49

there's one part in this new special where

52:51

this kid they are these two guys dressed

52:53

in their robes and putting

52:55

up a flag in their front yard or whatever,

52:58

a Confederate flag, and then one other um

53:00

I guess clan flag, and this teenager

53:03

in St. Louis comes across the street or whatever

53:05

suburb they're in, and

53:07

it's just like, hey, man, white power. I just want

53:09

to I just want to see what you guys are all about.

53:11

You know, I'm really interested in joining up. And

53:14

and these guys talk to him for a minute, and it's just like,

53:16

it's so troubling to see this dumb

53:19

kid, you know, reaching

53:22

out in all the wrong ways because

53:24

he's been taught something, you know,

53:27

And when you see that this family, he's in these

53:29

people's homes and there's five six year old

53:31

kids sitting around and

53:34

and the wife's got a cigarette and she's taking a shot of bourbon

53:36

and she got her Mountain dew in her hand and spewing

53:38

hate, and these children are sitting there, and you just want

53:40

to, like, you want to run in

53:43

there and steal these kids. You

53:45

know, you're not supposed to say that you

53:48

just did, though, but I just did. It's

53:50

awful. Yeah, it is pretty

53:52

awful. Anytime you're talking about Hey, it's

53:55

awful, and it should be. It should turn

53:57

your stomach. I hope and it has

53:59

learned stuff almost

54:01

totally. That's how Yeah, that's how it. Yes,

54:04

for sure, we already did one

54:06

on hate before it, and we maybe we should do a redux

54:08

on it. I don't know. I got one more quick thing

54:10

that's kind of always always thought it was kind of fun at on

54:13

a lighter note, at baseball games. I'm

54:15

not sure the history. I should look that up, but a strikeout

54:18

when you're keeping log is known as

54:20

a K, and fans

54:22

have bring K signs and they hang up with a picture.

54:25

Is known for a lot of strikeouts. Yeah, one for each

54:27

strikeout, one for each strikeout, and they hang it up in the

54:29

in the stands in front of their seats, and they have

54:32

always hung that third K

54:34

upside down as per

54:36

tradition, so it never says KKK, which

54:39

I think is great. Yeah, it is great

54:41

way to go baseball fans, sticking it to the way

54:43

to go baseball fans. Well

54:45

you got anything else? No, nothing else. If you

54:47

want to know more about the KKK, go

54:50

visit the Southern Poverty Law Center. They have some

54:52

really good research on it, including

54:54

sum were just like this is just just pathetic.

54:57

Um, it's kind of reassuring in some ways.

55:00

If you're bothered by this, maybe that'll help. And

55:02

since I said that, it's time for a listener mail,

55:07

let me see here. I'm gonna call this Ezra

55:10

the Podcaster. Hey guys, my name

55:12

is Ezra. I'm fourteen years old. I've started

55:15

a podcast on my own and it is inspired

55:18

by your show. I'm doing

55:20

a school project on my podcast and I would love it if

55:22

you could respond with a couple of year tips for beginners.

55:25

My podcast is called high School is a joke.

55:28

Uh. I listen to you every day and it would mean a lot if

55:30

you responded and even mentioned me in an episode.

55:32

Thank you for always making me laugh to be more

55:34

knowledgeable at the dinner table. You guys

55:36

are really cool. I don't want to let you know that you've inspired

55:38

me to start my own show. Sincerely. That's

55:41

awesome, Ezra. Congratulations got

55:43

the advice, Well,

55:46

I'll give you the advice I found is the best

55:49

of all time, and that is

55:51

just talk about stuff that you find interesting.

55:53

Because even if people aren't listening, um,

55:56

you're still gonna enjoy doing it and that will make

55:58

you keep it up. And if you keep it up, then other

56:00

people start to notice and come around and next

56:02

thing you know, you'll have an audience. That's great advice.

56:05

Stay away from the clan. It's

56:08

even better advice. Chuck everybody,

56:10

whether you're a podcast or no, steer clear

56:12

of the clan. Don't even talk to him.

56:15

Well, if you want to get in touch with us, like Ezra did,

56:17

you can send us an email. Send it off

56:19

to stuff podcast at iHeart radio

56:22

dot com.

56:26

Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio.

56:28

For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart

56:31

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56:33

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