RESURGENCE OF THE KKK
By the 1920s, America had become much more diverse culturally. Millions of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe had crowded into the nation’s biggest cities. Large numbers were Catholic or Jewish, and they brought with them strange languages and customs. To some, this seemed to threaten an older, mainly Protestant and Anglo­Saxon America. ​
Xenophobia​
, or fears about the foreign newcomers, helped to fuel a huge revival of the ​
Ku Klux Klan​
. The KKK was, and still is, a secret society (and arguable terrorist group) that is actively hostile towards African Americans and other ethnic groups. As in its earlier form, it still directed much of its hatred at African Americans. But the huge growth of the KKK in the 1920s, especially in the North, just as often targeted attacks on the new groups of immigrants. This photo of a parade in Washington, D.C., in 1926 shows just how popular the KKK had become. *IN YOUR ​
“ROARING tWENTIES” ​
pACKET, ANSWER THE
FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
1. What is xenophobia? 2. What fueled the revival of the KKK in the 1920’s? 3. How did the Second KKK differ from the First KKK? How did it stay the same? 4. Overall, do you think the Resurgence of the KKK was a positive or negative aspect of the 1920’s? Why?