fharcourt

That it was somehow a deviation from American norms. That we can blame lynchings solely on groups like the Klan and not on the wide cross-section of white society that participated in and/or endorsed racial violence.

They grow out of the theatricality of Reconstruction-era Klans, and are of a piece with the ghostly or demonic masks the nightriders wore. They were codified by the founder of the second Klan in 1915, William Joseph Simmons, in his handbook for the Klan, the "Kloran."

A significant number of statues to the Confederate cause were erected in the early 20th century as part of the same process of sanitization of public memory that allowed for the resurgence of the Klan in the post-WWI era. It is no coincidence that the Robert E. Lee statue at the heart of the Charlottesville protests was erected in 1924, the same year that the Ku Klux Klan's national membership peaked.

You're wearing your costumes wrong. The cross over the breast should be an "x" not a "+". If you're going to be racists, at least get your costuming right.

And if you're wrong about as simple a thing as your robes, just think what else you might be wrong about...

Depends on where in the country, and when. If you're in Indiana in 1924, then Klan meetings are openly advertised in the newspaper and everyone* is welcome to attend.

• Meaning white Gentile Protestant native-born Americans