The Worst Thanksgiving Days in History
Author John Marr takes a dark look at a holiday tradition of “good old all-American chaos” on 10 Zen Monkeys:
Founding of the Ku Klux Klan, Atlanta, 1915: At 35, failed preacher William Simmons had found his true calling as a fraternal lodge leader. In addition to commanding five regiments of the Woodmen, he was a heavy in several Masonic orders and a Knight Templar.
But his dream was to have his own personal fraternal organization. And he wanted more than funny hats and secret handshakes — he wanted to revive the Ku Klux Klan. His dream came to fruition Thanksgiving Eve when 40 handpicked men gathered to re-launch the Klan. A group of 15 stalwarts recessed to the top of nearby Stone Mountain for an early morning cross-burning. Simmons tied his first recruitment drive in with D.W. Griffith’s famous film The Birth of a Nation, which opened in Atlanta the following week.…
Georgia Ku Klux Klan Rally Video
Joeff Davis tipped us off about this KKK rally, reported in Creative Loafing:
Close to 50 members of the Georgia Knight Riders and Knights of the Ku Klux Klan rallied for a crowd of more than 500 on Feb. 20 in the town of Nahunta, Ga., about 275 miles southeast of Atlanta. Klan members stood in ornate robes and pointed hoods with faces exposed in front of a crowd of mostly enthusiastic onlookers for a two-hour rally. The few hecklers in the crowd were harshly scolded by supporters, while several dozen protesters, including the NAACP rallied nearby.
