It is a shame that in 2006 we have to pick up our local paper and see a feature story on the Ku Klux Klan ("KKK had local footing," April 5, Page A1). After reading the article, it was as if the image of the Klan was sanitized.
In the '20s, the Klan in this area was characterized as anti-Catholic or against Jews. That, however, was only a small part of their legacy.
The real and most lasting legacy of the Klan yesterday and today was and is the lynching, burnings, torture, murder and intimidation of blacks in the North as well as the South. Never forget that.
Indiana was the founding state of the Klan last time I checked is still in the North.
Please keep in mind there were 500,000 lynchings after Reconstruction. Don't forget the race riots of 1920 and '21 in Tulsa, Okla., and Rosewood, Fla.
What is the fascination with the Klan in this country? Is the Klan really a relic of the past? Blacks are more disenfranchised today than during Jim Crow era.
America's dirty little secrets of poverty and racism were exposed again to the world via Hurricane Katrina.
America cannot distance itself easily from the legacy of the Klan because even today's policies regarding race are from the minds of white supremacists, rich and powerful bankers, and wicked industrialists.
