Unpacking the Re-emergence of White Supremacist Groups: The 1960s Ku Klux Klan

• In Event: New Perspectives on Race and American Political Development

Abstract

Vigilante violence was critical in upholding the White supremacist order in the 20th century US. When one of the dominant vehicles for that violence – the Ku Klux Klan – re-emerged in the 1960s, it did not appear everywhere in the South. Curiously, it re-surged primarily in North Carolina and Mississippi. In order to elucidate this particular puzzle and the broader forces driving White supremacist terrorism in the US, I leverage under-utilized data on North Carolina klan rallies from 1963-1967. I implement a finite mixture model to evaluate three competing explanations of KKK activity: generational klan legacies, racial threat, and school desegregation. Preliminary results suggest that generational klan legacies were important in determining rally locations at the beginning of the klan's resurgence and that racial demographics predicted rally events throughout the 1960s.

Author

• Trellace Lawrimore, New York University