The Birth and Death of the Ku Klux Klan

Visualizing the Expansion (1915–1935) and Disintegration (2000–2020) of Klaverns in the United States

Tyler Oldham

12/7/2021

Introduction

The Ku Klux Klan, or KKK, is one of America’s oldest and most notorious hate groups. The KKK was officially established in post-war 1865 by a small group of confederate veterans. Founding members of the KKK believed that Reconstruction-era progressive policies were a threat to their Southern-white way of life. That is to say, white supremacy and the systemic oppression of Black and other minority communities. As their ranks grew, the KKK used intimidation, violence, and hegemony to directly combat Reconstruction efforts. Despite nationwide efforts to halt their influence, by the end of the 1870s they had largely accomplished their mission of curbing reconstruction and reestablishing white supremacy in the south. Klan activity stagnated towards the end of the 19th century, due to military suppression by President Grant and the completion of their goal. 1 2 3

The second generation of the Ku Klux Klan started in 1915 and continued up to The Great Depression. KKK membership peaked during this time, with some sources estimating that the total members exceeded 4 million at one point. Founded by Protestant Fundamentalists, Christianity played a major role in the second KKK. While still advocating for white supremacy, the new groups also came to oppose Judaism and Catholicism, as well as immigrants and organized labor. They often used the symbol of a burning cross in their rallies, marches, and parades. This era, 1915-1935 will be the first range of years that we will visualize. 1

Definitions

Klavern: a local unit of the Klan. Source

Datasets

Mapping the KKK 1921–1940

The first dataset I utilized was the Mapping the KKK 1921–1940 data from Kaggle. Despite the dataset’s somewhat misleading name, it contains data from the first revitalized klavern in Atlanta, 1915 to the start of WWII, 1942. The data was collected from local newspaper archives across America to confirm the existence and info of each klavern.

The only time-based variable in the dataset just gives the year that the klavern was founded. When I attempted to animate the map over time, the points were only visible for one year. To solve this, I wrote a script that would loop for a select range of years, each time parsing through each data frame row. The script would then copy the row to a new data frame if the year of the loop is greater than the year founded. While it runs, the total rows for each year of the new data frame grow exponentially, so I don’t recommend using this for any longer than 30 loops.

Code

df <- read.csv("/path/to/file.csv") # Read in csv
df <- df %>% arrange(desc(-year)) # Arrange by year ascending
df <- df[!(df$year == 0),] # Remove zero values
df_new <- data.frame() # Create blank dataframe# For range of yearsfor (i in 1915:1942) { 
  message("year: ", i)for (row in 1:nrow(df)) { # For rows in dataframe

    temp_row <- df[row,] # Save the row temporarily if (temp_row$year <= i) { # If the year founded <= year of loop# Give row new column of year of loop value and# copy row to new dataframe
      temp_row$year_folded <- i 
      df_new <- rbind(df_new, temp_row)}}}

write.csv(df_new, "/path/to/file_folded.csv") # Write to disk

SPLC Hate Map

I downloaded the secondary data from the Southern Poverty Law Center: Hate Map, a spatial database of SPLC known hate groups. I downloaded the spreadsheet from each year (2000–2020) and merged them using the code below. The dataset contains a variety of different ideology variables, however, for this analysis, we’ll filter it in Tableau to only include the KKK.

Code

# Sets working directory and loops for amount of files in folder
setwd("/Path/to/folder/")for (data in list.files()){# Create the first data if no data exist yetif (!exists("dataset")){
    dataset <- read.csv(data, header=TRUE)}# If data already exist, then append it togetherif (exists("dataset")){
    tempory <-read.csv(data, header=TRUE)
    dataset <-unique(rbind(dataset, tempory))
    rm(tempory)}}

write.csv(dataset, "/Path/to/file.csv") # Write to disk

Results

The maps were constructed in Tableau using the animate pages feature and compiled to video using Adobe Premiere.

Klan Expansion 1915–1935

Click here to interact with map

Notice the cities generally extend outwards from Atlanta. This is unsurprising due to the nature of mass communication back then. The three primary mediums for receiving information in the early 20th century are radio, newspaper, and word-of-mouth. Each of these is limited in its reach, especially by proximity. Limited range of radio, logistical issues of transporting local publication to other cities, and the tendency to travel close to home all contribute to the sprawling trend we see.

Some napkin math tells us that during the years 1915–1935, the number of Klaverns grew by an average of 70% per year. That’s an incredibly fast growth rate for an organization, especially during a time with less access to mass media. The Klan’s nationwide influence might account in part for this spiking, as many Klan members were people of great social influence. Based on modern estimates of Klan membership in the mid-1920s (3-8 million), each Klavern hypothetically contained 1,500-4,000 members. 4

Klan Disintegration 2000–2020

Click here to interact with map

The groups appear to bounce around throughout the years, likely due to greater efforts to conceal their activities. Notice that the locations of groups in the 21st century are less condensed within the south than in the early 20th century. Southern states are still a hotbed, but with the addition of more groups in the midwest and the west coast. You can clearly see a large number of klaverns disappear in 2014, likely marking the beginning of the recent dissolution.

This graph of Klaverns monitored by the SPLC makes evident that significantly fewer groups are active in the 21st century, though not a disconcerting amount. This does not account for all modern Klaverns, as many take great efforts to conceal their activities, evident by the unstable dips and spikes. The moving average line was added to emphasize trends.

The economic crisis of 2008 marked the beginning of the end for this wave of the KKK. This is surprising because more often than not people become more extreme in times of economic trouble. The monitored groups spike in 2015, thanks in part to the emboldening of confederacy supporters from efforts to remove confederate monuments. Despite the dips and spikes, the number of Klaverns still continually decreased on average. By the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Klaverns had dwindled to just 13 groups nationally. 5

Unfortunately, the SPLC claims that while the pandemic did help to decrease hate group membership, social isolation drove the groups to more online activities, making them harder to track. 6

Conclusion

In the 21st century, the Ku Klux Klan’s influence remains a micron of what it once was. The data clearly show a significant drop in average Klan activities between the two year-ranges, and an equally significant drop between 2000 and 2020. Barring an ideological resurgence, I can confidently say that we are in the midst of the end of an era for the Ku Klux Klan.

Regardless, the decay in the Klan shouldn’t be cause for celebration. Just because a group dissolves, doesn’t mean its members do. While the Klan may be sinking, most of its members are simply jumping ship to any of the variety of other notorious hate groups.

While this is a win for the south’s escape from bigoted influence, it’s simply a microcosm of the dispersion of all hate groups across the nation, regardless of region. I would like to continue this research by analyzing the growth of recently founded hate groups and comparing it to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.