2.5: Initiation Charge of the Ku Klux Klan (1869)
A Guided Journey through Key Documents, 1865-present
Table of Contents
2.5 Initiation Charge of the Ku Klux Klan (1869)
Historical Context
Guiding Questions
Document Text
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Abstract
You may have been surprised reading the Principles of the KKK that it sounded like a rational and civic-minded organization. Do not be fooled—members joining the group knew exactly what they were signing up for, as demonstrated in the text of the Initiation Charge.
Contents
- 1.1: Early America and the Civil War
- 1.2: Richard Frethorne: Letter to His Parents (1623)
- 1.3: Virginia Slave Acts (1660s)
- 1.4: Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)
- 1.5: South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession (1860)
- 1.6: Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address (1865)
- 1.7: Unit 1 Review
- 2.1: Reconstruction and Redemption
- 2.2: The “Civil War Amendments”: Excerpts from the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution
- 2.3: Black Code of Mississippi (1865)
- 2.4: Organization and Principles of the Ku Klux Klan (1869)
- 2.5: Initiation Charge of the Ku Klux Klan (1869)
- 2.6: Richard Harvey Cain: “All That We Ask Is Equal Laws, Equal Legislation, and Equal Rights” (1874)
- 2.7: Unit 2 Review
- 3.1: Westward Expansion and American Identity
- 3.2: Letter from Wong Ar Chong (1879)
- 3.3: Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
- 3.4: Wounded Knee Massacre: Statements and Eyewitness Accounts (1891)
- 3.5: Frederick Jackson Turner: “The Signiscance of the Frontier in American History” (1893)
- 3.6: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
- 3.7: Unit 3 Review
- 4.1: Industrialization and Social Reform
- 4.2: Wendell Phillips: “The Foundation of the Labor Movement” (1871)
- 4.3: Samuel Gompers: Editorial on the Pullman Strike (1894)
- 4.4: Upton Sinclair: The Jungle (1906)
- 4.5: Ida B. Wells: “Lynching: Our National Crime” (1909)
- 4.6: Jane Addams: “Why Women Should Vote” (1910)
- 4.7: Unit 4 Review
- 5.1: World War I and the Turbulent Twenties
- 5.2: Navy Poster from World War I (1917)
- 5.3: W.E.B. Du Bois: “Returning Soldiers” (1919)
- 5.4: Walter F. White: “The Eruption of Tulsa” (1921)
- 5.5: Marcus Garvey: “The Principles of the Universal Negro Improvement Association” (1922)
- 5.6: Ellen Welles Page: “A Flapper’s Appeal to Parents” (1922)
- 5.7: Unit 5 Review
- 6.1: The Great Depression
- 6.2: Herbert Hoover: “Rugged Individualism” Campaign Speech (1928)
- 6.3: Franklin D. Roosevelt: First Inaugural Address (1933)
- 6.4: Wayne W. Parrish: Letter to Harry Hopkins (1934)
- 6.5: New Deal Legislation (selected excerpts from 1935 and 1938)
- 6.6: John P. Davis: “A Black Inventory of the New Deal” (1935)
- 6.7: Unit 6 Review
- 7.1: World War II and the Home Front
- 7.2: Franklin D. Roosevelt: Four Freedoms Message to Congress (1941)
- 7.3: Executive Order 8802: Banning Discrimination in Government and Defense Industries (1941)
- 7.4: Order for Internment of Japanese Americans in San Francisco (1942)
- 7.5: GI Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944)
- 7.6: Harry S. Truman: Statement Announcing the Use of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima (1945)
- 7.7: Unit 7 Review
- 8.1: The Cold War
- 8.2: George F. Kennan: “Long Telegram” (1946)
- 8.3: Harry S. Truman: Truman Doctrine (1947)
- 8.4: Joseph McCarthy: “Enemies from Within” Speech (1950)
- 8.5: Richard M. Nixon: “Kitchen” Debate with Nikita Khrushchev (1959)
- 8.6: John F. Kennedy: Report to the American People on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba (1962)
- 8.7: Unit 8 Review
- 9.1: Aruence, Unrest, and Civil Rights
- 9.2: Advertisements from the 1950s and 1960s
- 9.3: Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
- 9.4: Southern Manifesto (1956)
- 9.5: Martin Luther King Jr.: “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963)
- 9.6: Stokely Carmichael: “Black Power” (1966)
- 9.7: Unit 9 Review
- 10.1: Expanding Civil Rights
- 10.2: Betty Friedan: The Feminine Mystique (1963)
- 10.3: Indians of All Tribes Occupation of Alcatraz: Proclamation (1969)
- 10.4: Statement of Cesar E. Chavez before the U.S. Senate (1969)
- 10.5: Gay Liberation Front: Program Platform Statement (1970)
- 10.6: Combahee River Collective Statement (1977)
- 10.7: Unit 10 Review
- 11.1: Vietnam and Counterculture
- 11.2: Bob Dylan: “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963)
- 11.3: Martin Luther King Jr.: “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” (1967)
- 11.4: Richard M. Nixon: Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia (1970)
- 11.5: John Kerry: Testimony of the Vietnam Veterans against the War (1971)
- 11.6: Richard M. Nixon: Special Message to Congress about Establishing the EPA and NOAA (1970)
- 11.7: Unit 11 Review
- 12.1: The Triumph of Conservatism
- 12.2: Barry Goldwater: Acceptance Speech for the Presidential Nomination of the Republican Party (1964)
- 12.3: Ronald Reagan: “A Time for Choosing” (1964)
- 12.4: Richard M. Nixon: “Silent Majority” Speech (1969)
- 12.5: Jerry Falwell: Listen America (1980)
- 12.6: Ronald Reagan: First Inaugural Address (1981)
- 12.7: Unit 12 Review
- 13.1: Deindustrialization and the Booming Nineties
- 13.2: Bill Tolan: “In Desperate 1983, There Was Nowhere for Pittsburgh’s Economy to Go but Up: A Tide of Change” (2012)
- 13.3: George H.W. Bush: “Read My Lips” Speech (1988)
- 13.4: Bill Clinton: Remarks on Signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (1993)
- 13.5: Republican Contract with America (1994)
- 13.6: Bill Clinton: Farewell Address (2001)
- 13.7: Unit 13 Review
- 14.1: Twenty-First Century America
- 14.2: George W. Bush: Address to the Nation on September 11, 2001
- 14.3: Robert C. Byrd: “The Emperor Has No Clothes” Speech (2003)
- 14.4: Barack Obama: “A More Perfect Union” (2008)
- 14.5: Sarah Palin: Keynote Speech at the Inaugural Tea Party Convention (2010)
- 14.6: Donald J. Trump: Inaugural Address (2017)
- 14.7: Unit 14 Review