Ku Klux Klan in the 1920's

The Ku Klux Klan, or the "Hooded Order", was founded during the year of 1866 by men who opposed Blacks' rights after the Civil War. After Reconstruction started to die off the Klan disbanded. Almost 50 years later, "Colonel" William Joseph Simmons, revived the Klan in 1915. Simmons made a living by selling memberships in fraternal organizations such as the Woodmen of the World, and looked to the Klan as a new source of personal income and memberships. In his first act as a leader, he climbed to the top of a nearby mountain and set a cross on fire to mark the rebirth of the Klan.

At its peak in the 1920's, the membership rate was estimated at 4-5 million people. Although the actual numbers were probably much smaller, the Klan had grown rapidly to about 30,000 by 1930. Its eventual collapse was mostly due to state laws that forbid masks and eliminated the secret element, to the bad publicity the organization received through its thugs and swindlers, and apparently from the declining interest of the members. With the depression in the 1930s, dues from paying for a membership of the Klan shrank to almost nothing.

During its second return, the KKK moved beyond just targeting blacks, and broadened its message of hate and terror to include Catholics, Jews and foreigners. The Klan mostly supported fundamentalism along with promoting white supremacy. They wanted to get rid of bootleggers, motion pictures and preached a return to "clean" living. Appealing to the people who were uncomfortable with the "destruction" of America from a rural agricultural society to an urban industrial nation. They attacked the elite, urbanites and intellectuals who threatened their simple and clean life.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/flood-klan/

http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/hist409/klan.html