Book Review: Behind The Mask of Chivalry

A few interesting facts about the second Ku Klux Klan

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I recently read Behind The Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, a history of the Klan in the 1920s. It draws primarily on a trove of resources about the Klan in Athens, Georgia, which unlike most Klans failed to destroy its records. (The author italicized every name she had to change because of libel law, in one of the greatest pieces of academic passive-aggression I have ever seen.) Here is an assortment of things I learned.

One. The Klan’s aesthetics are so so bad. Sample Klan vocabulary includes:

• Terror (officer)

• Klaliff (baliff)

• Klokan (investigator)

• Kleagle (traveling organizer)

• Kligrapp (secretary)

• Kludd (chaplain)

Also, Klan-owned businesses named themselves things like Kwik Kar Wash, Kountry Kitchen, and Kars Kars Kars so people would know to buy from them. In a great show of self-restraint, Klan lore was called “Klancraft” instead of “Klankraft.”

I will say that the name “Exalted Cyclops” is pretty cool. It should be a Magic: the Gathering card. Can’t believe some loser has been squatting on it since 1920.

Two. The Klan was basically a normal organization? If I had thought about this for a minute, I think I would have figured this out, but I didn’t, and reading about it was super weird. They had meeting minutes! They paid dues! The treasurer had to tell everyone how much they’d spent on fiery crosses last month! Part of me believes that if you are lynching people then you should spend your meetings going “muahahahahahahahaha!” and petting a white cat, and not following Robert’s Rules of Order.

Three. The existence of centrists on the issue of the Klan delights me. Some people in Athens, Georgia petitioned against the Klan, saying that its goals were noble and it had been necessary during Reconstruction but in current times the state should be in charge of ensuring law and order. The first white minister in Athens to condemn the Klan made a point of saying that good men participated. I love the thought process here. “I’m a moderate. I'm in favor of white supremacy but I think violent lynching goes too far.”

The less racist kind of white centrist also didn’t have a great track record in my opinion. The Commission on Inter-racial Cooperation, founded by antiracist white liberals, tried to separate "rebellious, defiant, and contemptuous" black radicals to whom "one talks... in vain as to the need for patience" from "thoughtful, educated Negro leaders” (pg. 29-30; quotes from an internal account of the CIC’s origins). I will point out that the Klan was engaged in a program of mass murder and torture at the time.

Four. The Klan arged that selective intolerance was necessary to defend liberty, and that was why it was okay for them to lynch people. I thought this was a fascinating take on the paradox of tolerance.

Five. The Klan was in fact explicitly opposed to reason and rationality, favoring emotion and instinct. They claimed that white people should rely on “race pride and loyalty” to make decisions (pg 131; quote from Klansman). One Klan writer opposed even arguing about racial equality, saying that the question would only be settled by “race instinct, personal prejudices, and sentiment” (pg 131; quote from Klansman). Man, you could not put that in a novel. It is too unsubtle. Good job confirming all my personal prejudices, guys.

Six. The Klan actually perpetuated a lot of violence against people who weren’t black. While their most horrifying violence was consistently directed against black people (details in footnote)¹, the Klan was equally likely to attack white men and black people. (White women were almost never attacked.) White men were attacked for for failure to support their families, beating women, allowing their wives to violate the Klan’s preferred gender roles, having sex with other men’s wives, cheating on their wives, bootlegging, and unwillingness to marry women they’d had sex with. The Klan attacked black people whenever they felt like it, but there was an extrajudicial legal process for deciding whether to attack white men with witnesses and evidence, and an appeals procedure if a man felt he was falsely accused.

The Georgia state Klan office received an average of twenty letters a week suggesting people that the Klan should use violence against, often genuinely awful men—adulterers, gamblers, alcoholics, abusers—although they also complained about things that were more in the stereotypical Klan’s wheelhouse. For example, one woman appealed to the Klan to beat up her husband until he gave her a divorce because he beat her, cheated on her with the black nanny, and was Catholic. This fact apparently created an interesting contradiction in Klan ideology, which wanted to chivalrously protect women, but was uncomfortable with the fact that women mostly wanted to be protected from their husbands and not Jews and Catholics.

It’s important to note that a lot of terror that wasn’t violent assault was only directed against black people (again, details in footnote)².

Seven. Popular sources often overestimate how much violence the Klan committed. They didn’t go out nightriding every night. It’s difficult to estimate how much violence the Klan committed, because a lot of incidents weren’t recorded in any period sources. But the primary harm of the Klan wasn’t the violence they committed against individuals. It was the atmosphere of terror they created among black people. You don’t actually have to assault that many black people to make every black person in your town afraid that they’re next. In towns where the Klan dominated, black people were always aware that if they put a toe out of line they could be tortured—and you don’t actually need that many individual incidents to make everyone justifiably afraid that they’re next.

Eight. Apparently the Klan claimed that the burning cross was a reminder to pattern your life after Jesus.

Behind The Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, by Nancy K. McLean. Published 1995. 336 pages. $19.99.

1. As just two examples, the Athens Klan ripped a black man’s arm to bits and beat a pregnant black woman to the point of unconsciousness. Conversely, white men were generally just flogged, although the Klan sometimes incorporated sexual humiliation elements such as stripping them naked.

2. For example, the Klan randomly shot into houses in black people’s neighborhoods.