COMPARISON OF TWO WHITE SUPREMACIST GROUPS:
And damn his treacherous flattery . . .
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps.
- excerpt taken from a KKK ritualistic initiation
Groups advocating racial or religious hatred and violence are common in American history. Indians, Blacks, Irish, Catholics and Jews have all been included as objects of this intolerance. The political impact of hate groups has varied. On some occasions, they have helped shape governmental and societal policies; on many others, they have existed as political pariahs on the margins of American society. The purpose of this paper is to compare the development, philosophy and activities of two such groups: the Ku Klux Klan and the Skinheads. Roots of the Klan run deep in American history, dating back to the post-Civil War period. There is a considerable body of secondary and primary literature which examines their activities. The Skinheads appeared during the 1980s, so initial assessments of their role and significance are still underway.
The original KKK was created in 1865 by six young Confederate soldiers as a social club and as a form of amusement. From the Greek word for circle, kuklos, they derived the appellation Ku Klux. Many ritualistic ceremonies were conducted with Klansmen arranged in a circle. Klansmen frequently rode across the country on horseback wearing white robes, symbolizing purity, with a burning cross adopted as their symbol. They soon realized the effect that they were having on blacks, many of whom were very superstitious. This form of "amusement" spread quickly across the South, and in 1867, an official KKK organization was established. The Klan soon ev...