During the 1800's did the Ku Klux Klan exist in New York or did it not exist in the North at all?

Answer 1

The following article was published in Workers Vanguard No. 722, 29 October 1999. WV is the biweekly newspaper of the Spartacist League/U.S., American section of the ICL.

New Yorkers came out in their thousands on October 23 determined to make sure the KKK didn?t ride in their city. They were mobilized by the call initiated by the Partisan Defense Committee, ?All Out to Stop the KKK on October 23!? Hundreds of working people, students and others joined in distributing 175,000 of the PDC?s mobilizing leaflet in workplaces, campuses and neighborhoods throughout the city.

Thousands came out in defiance of the efforts of the Giuliani administration, its cops and the courts to deny their right to mobilize to stop the Klan. They came out in opposition to appeals by the phony ?friends of labor? in the Democratic Party and self-appointed spokesmen for the black population who preached a ?demonstration for tolerance? for the ?rights? of the KKK. They knew this wasn?t an issue of ?free speech? but of stopping Klan terror and murder. They came out to drive the Klan lynchers off their streets. And that?s exactly what they did. :)

The above answer is totally out of context, as the question is about Klan activities in the 19th century, not the 20th!!!

To answer the question, YES, the KKK was active in the North during the period after the ACW, and the state with the most membership in the North was Indiana, with Ohio running a close second. In NYC the Klan was a annual part of many public parades and festivals, with up to 5,000 men marching and on horseback, in full regalia.

You have to remember that at that time, the prevailing attitude was against blacks, and there were not many Americans who would speak out for equal rights, that came about 100 years later, in the 1960's with the enactment of federal Civil Rights legislation, by President Lyndon Johnson.

In the years proir to 1917 the KKK organized itself against immigrants coming here that were illiterate...............In 1917 congress overrode a veto by Woodrow Wilson and it was inacted that there be a ''literacy test'' that immigrants would have to pass to enter the US.The reason being that the language barriors were exhausting as well as well as the impact it had on the competition of factories bidding for jobs..........Educated immigrants were more desirable as employees but the real reason behind it was that the bids of uneducated employees could be lower because they could be taken advantage of due to their demising situation..........the immigrants were taking Americans jobs and forcing the pay to be low so as it is today..........In 1952 this ''literacy test'' was abolished and now here we are losing jobs and factories...........not due to the government but because of the REMOVAL of this ACT OF CONGRESS...not everything the KKK has done has been objectionable........