General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow did the man on Ralph Northam's yearbook page get his Klan outfit?
As one of the speakers on MSNBC said, you just can't buy one at a costume store, not in 2019 or 1984.
Did someone, cough, know someone in a domestic terrorist organization?
Soxfan58
(3,479 posts)Empowerer
(3,900 posts)Pointy sleeves, etc.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Empowerer
(3,900 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Whoever put it together really cared.
Empowerer
(3,900 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Either it's a Klan outfit or Ralph or one of his friends took a significant amount of time to put it together.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)I can't seem to find an image of any Klan outfits where the hood is that round and conical, instead of pleated, and I can't find any with mouth holes in the front. Do you have a reference image you are using?
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Let's say I saw four men beating a black man and I called the police, and the assailants looked like the man in the sheet and hood on Ralph Northam's yearbook page. The police would ask me what they were wearing and I would say, Officer, it looked like they were wearing Klan outfits. That would be my honest recollection.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Going from:
1. it is a genuine Klan outfit, to
2. It is something that someone might think looks like a Klan outfit,
Are two different statements.
So, if I show you a ring with a rock in it, and say "this is a diamond ring" then what matters are the similarities, instead of the differences? Like, it's a ring, and it has a rock. So does a diamond ring - end of story.
Your question was about "Is this a genuine Klan outfit", not "does it look like a Klan image to me".
Usually, if the question is "Is this a genuine X", then you compare the sample to known exemplars of X, and look for differences, not similarities. Unless, of course, you are trying to force a predetermined result.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)If I was asked what that outfit looks like to me I would say it looks like a Klan outfit to me. If I was asked to testify to its provenance or authenticity I would say I don't know.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Okay, I misunderstood the point of this thread. I had believed it to be a question about whether or not the robe may be a genuine Klan robe, based on the subject line of the OP, since there is usually not much of a reason to ask other people "What do I think?"
Carry on.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)I was using idiomatic English. It looked like a Klan outfit to me so I called it a Klan outfit. Do I know if he borrowed it from David Duke or it's an artifact from Nathan Bedford Forrest's garage, if he had one, or he sewed himself I don't know.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)By, for example, determining whether there are any significant differences between the outfit in the photo and actual Klan outfits.
One question that might inform such an inquiry - as the OP is posed as a question - is "Do Klan outfits have mouth holes?"
Another might be "What sort of belt is worn with a Klan outfit?"
Or one can simply pretend one is blind, and insist that the answer is unknowable.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)I was looking at Klan depictions in movies including Blazing Saddles and Django Unchained. I can't link them because the dialogue might get me a hide. Anybody can google them. They look very much like the outfits Mr. Northam or his partner are alleged to have worn.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Otherwise, what is the point of asking?
Having made the mistake of taking your question seriously, i've looked at a bunch of Klan outfits and capirotas on Google images. Not a single one with an ordinary belt or mouth hole, and none of the Klan outfits were that tall and conical.
You want to believe that the person in the picture is a Klan member, so far be it from me to get in between someone and their dreams.
The answer to the question "Do Klan outfits have mouth holes" is, I suppose, as fundamentally unknowable as the distinction posed by your question between a "real Klan outfit" and something that someone cocked up with an ordinary robe, cardboard, fabric and glue. However, in the event you had a genuine interest in looking at many exemplars of actual Klan outfits, Google Images is a click away. If one assumes that the overwhelming run of Google Images searches reflects an objective reality, then it is pretty obvious that either (a) it is not an actual Klan outfit, or (b) it is an extremely unusual one in failing to resemble many actual Klan outfits in fairly significant and apparent ways.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Nowhere in this entire thread have I said the person in the photo is a Klansman. What I have suggested is the person in the photo might have borrowed it from a Klansman.
At the risk of an appeal to popularity fallacy almost everybody who has seen the photo assumes the photo is a photo of a man in blackface and photo of a man in a Klan uniform or I have imagined this whole controversy?
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)At the risk of an appeal to popularity fallacy almost everybody who has seen the photo assumes the photo is a photo of a man in blackface and photo of a man in a Klan uniform or I have imagined this whole controversy?
The discussion has become silly. Obviously, it is someone dressed in a way as to suggest they are a Klan member. Just as obviously, this person's impression of a Klan outfit, on which they premised their costume, was mistaken in several details. However, for the purpose of a costume, as opposed to an actual uniform, it clearly serves the purpose.
Let's see if this can be made clearer...
Do you suppose this person is a soldier? Or is it someone wearing a costume that is supposed to sufficiently resemble a soldier for the purpose of wearing a costume?
I'm not sure, but I'm going to guess that your position would be that it is impossible to tell, so reality essentially becomes a "choose your own adventure" proposition, despite the numerous differences between what that person is wearing, and the regular issue clothing for soldiers in any identifiable fighting force on the planet.
The "mouth hole" KKK units are obviously a select and elite group, because outside of this particular photograph, there is no trace of their existence in any documented photograph of actual klansmen that can be found.
In answer to your question, I do not believe as you do that the "whole controversy" revolves around whether someone is wearing an actual Klan outfit as opposed to a costume designed to resemble one in a superficial way. Because I don't think the offensiveness of the image depends on the Klan outfit being real.
If you believe the "whole controversy" is about this being an actual Klan outfit, I would charitably suggest that you do not understand why it is offensive to dress that way, regardless of whether the outfit is in any sense "real", as this one is obviously not.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Let me preface my remarks by saying I have always been civil to you. That is such a gross mischaracterization of my views on the topic that I have to believe they were intended to demean me, and done with actual malice.
It's a guy in blackface and a guy in a Klan outfit or a facsimile of one. Both images are extraordinarily offensive, regardless of the provenance or authenticity of the latter.
That being said I will be the bigger poster, take the high road, and not respond in kind.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)At the risk of an appeal to popularity fallacy almost everybody who has seen the photo assumes the photo is a photo of a man in blackface and photo of a man in a Klan uniform or I have imagined this whole controversy?
You want to believe it is a 'real' Klan outfit, whatever that may mean, because you want to advance the hypothesis that Northam and/or the person in the picture was a member of the Klan. That is the only way to understand the OP. After having pointed out distinctions between the costume in the photograph and literally thousands of pictures of actual Klan members you can conjure up on Google Images just as readily as anyone else, you pose the question above, suggesting that the whole controversy revolves around whether it is a Klan uniform, or something that someone put together in order to resemble one.
Both images are extraordinarily offensive, regardless of the provenance or authenticity of the latter.
Indeed. So perhaps I have misunderstood the point of the question which is the premise of this thread, in which you advance the proposition - in the form of a question - that the Klan outfit is 'authentic' in some sense. It is obviously not, but that bothers you for reasons I could not begin to guess.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Nowhere in this entire conversation did I suggest either man in the photo was a member of the Klan or that the righteous anger and outrage the photo provoked is contingent on either person in the photo being an actual member of the Klan. It's the mere image that inflames. Any dispassionate reader can see that. What I did suggest is perhaps he borrowed it from an actual member:
It seems the implication as well as the logical inference one would make is I was suggesting he borrowed it.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Which brings us back to whether the costume in question is a "genuine Klan outfit".
So, I asked "When did mouth holes become a thing in Klan outfits?" because even a casual search and comparison of news photographs of persons wearing Klan outfits strongly indicates that Klan outfits don't seem to have mouth holes as a matter of course.
From there, you went to statements along the line of "it looks like one to me", and being offended at the suggestion that comparison with actual Klan outfits suggests this one differs from others in several respects. This leads me to the conclusion that there is some problem in acknowledging that this costume seems to be significantly different from news photographs of actual Klansmen, and that you find this disappointing or offensive in some way.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Believing it is not an official Klan outfit and believing wearing a reasonable facsimile of one and putting it your med school yearbook is inherently offensive are not mutually exclusive. Some posters seem to believe that outfit is something you can just throw together. That doesn't seem likely to me.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)The OP is not asking if it is offensive. The OP is asking if the robe is real.
It is offensive either way. I'm not the one who suggested the "whole controversy" revolves around whether it is real.
That doesn't seem likely to me.
Okay, on what facts do you base your opinion of whether it is likely an actual Klan robe or not, and how do you address the several facts suggesting it is not?
That's a typical way of sorting out what might be "true" in the event one subscribes to an objective reality - by considering facts.
If you want to say "I just believe that way", that's fine. In my experience, asking questions invites answers. Fact-based answers may conflict with faith-based beliefs.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Nowhere in my myriad posts on this topic did I suggest the controversy is contingent on the provenance or authenticity of the outfit. That was a a little chestnut you introduced. What we are discussing is if there is an official Klan outfit.
Because it has the general appearance of a Klan outfit and I'm not convinced an official Klan outfit exists. Wouldn't we need expert witnesses to ascertain that?
We could get David Duke or Jeff Sessions.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Your point is about whether Northam and his circle associated with KKK members, such that one of Northam's associates would have been able to casually borrow a KKK member's outfit. Because, yeah, sure, Klansman loan them out all of the time because they're friendly like that.
Wouldn't we need expert witnesses to ascertain that.
You need an expert witness to answer the question:
"If you do a Google Image search for 'KKK outfit' and compare actual news and other photographs of actual KKK members (and sorting out ones which clearly aren't, like that light purple number), do you see any with mouth holes?"
That doesn't require expertise of any kind.
As to the existence of "official" ones, yes, there certainly used to be:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/your-official-ku-klux-klan-robe-catalog
But in the game of "One of these things is not like the others" I don't recall Sesame Street calling in expert witnesses for what is a fairly simple one-to-many comparison.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)The photo we are discussing is from 1984. Do you have a more recent catalog and not one that was nearly sixty years old when the photo was taken?
And how does a nearly one hundred year old official catalog that was sixty years old at the time establish what was and wasn't an official Klan outfit in 1984?
Wouldn't it be appropriate to use a catalog of the same vintage of the outfit of which we are trying to divine its provenance and authenticity?
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)However, it is clear that you are no longer even bothering to read the words I am writing.
I do not believe there is an "official Klan uniform". I do believe the various Klan groups are surprising consistent, despite that fact.
As to the existence of "official" ones, yes, there certainly used to be:
Let me explain the meaning of the phrase "used to be", since it seems to have passed you by. When someone says there "used to be" something, they are intending to indicate that the "something" in question existed at some time in the past, but no longer exists in the present.
Hence, your reply: "And how does a nearly one hundred year old official catalog that was sixty years old at the time establish what was and wasn't an official catalog in 1984?" is what is called a non sequitur. In the course of Googling this subject, which you refuse to do for reasons only known to you, I saw that old catalog, and included the tangential observation that apparently there used to be one - using that apparently unfamiliar phrase to indicate that it was something that existed in a past time, but no longer does.
This of course comes down the familiar problem (to some.. I won't guess) of "proving a negative". I have tried, through diligent effort in an earnest inquiry based on your question in the OP, to find a documented actual KKK person in news photographs through recent decades - a single one - with a mouth hole in their hood, an ordinary belt instead of a rope or sash, and a hood that tall and pointy. I cannot show you the absence of those things, because an actual klan outfit looking like the one in the Northam photograph does not appear to exist.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)How does that mitigate the horror the imagery it conveys?
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)What does this suggest to you:
"That it is offensive is not subject to debate, nor the point of the OP"
Do you understand the first clause of that sentence? "That it is offensive is not subject to debate"
That post, just up from this one, goes on to say:
"The OP is not asking if it is offensive. The OP is asking if the robe is real.
It is offensive either way."
For the sake of "discussion", it is helpful when the participants are each actually considering what the other one is saying.
I don't believe it mitigates Jack Shit, and if you had read my post above you would know that.
The OP appears to suggest that the outfit was obtained through the generous loan of a big-hearted KKK member, as they are prone to renting out their regalia like tuxedos and such, with the point being, I guess, that someone in Northam's social circle was a KKK member so-inclined, and of a handy suit size.
Since it is your OP, and I would imagine you would be the best person to explain why it is important to you to maintain that it is a genuine article, instead of asking me. I did not post the OP, so I don't know why it is important to you to insist the robe is genuine, in the sense that it is actual KKK apparel used by a member thereof.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)All this obscurantism about whether or not the outfit is official obfuscates the horror of the imagery.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Obviously, I misunderstood whatever point you were trying to make in the OP. Could you perhaps rephrase and restate your question?
Based on the fact that you were led to post an OP proposing that it was a genuine Klan outfit, perhaps obtained from someone in Northam's social circle, I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that this question was important to you in some way - important enough to solicit the opinions of thousands of strangers as to whether it is or is not a genuine item.
Under the mistaken impression that the OP was posted for the purpose of discussing possible answers to the question it posed, I did an image search to get an idea of what "real" ones look like, in order to compare them to the one in the Northam picture, to advance what I believed to have been the purpose of your questions posed in the OP. The results strongly suggest that the outfit in the Northam picture is quite unlike any actual news photographs of actual klan persons.
You have taken great exception and offense to my stating that the image search results suggest it is not a genuine klan robe.
As I pointed out, I don't see why it matters, but then again I am not the one who posted an OP posing the question in the first place, or got upset at the suggestion that it does not resemble any news photographs of actual klan persons in recent decades.
mcar
(42,372 posts)Are you trying to say that the outfit in the photo isn't an "official" Klan outfit? Why is that significant? You seem to have gone to a lot of research to prove your point, but I don't see why it matters.
Seems to me DSB pointed out that the outfit doesn't look like a thrown together pillowcase and bedsheet costume. Thus, someone went to some work to produce it.
In 1984.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)This thread is premised by a question about whether the depicted outfit came form an actual member of the KKK. If there is some other way to understand the inquiry in the OP, then feel free to explain it.
Did someone, cough, know someone in a domestic terrorist organization?
Perhaps I'm inordinately dense and this question means something else. If so, please explain what this question is trying to ask. The question is not about the effort involved or the degree of elaboration in the costume. The question is whether it came from an actual member of the KKK.
(and, yes, from the unusual branch of the KKK which has mouth holes in the front flap, and who have hitherto avoided being photographed)
mcar
(42,372 posts)The fact that there is a mouthhole and does not, therefore, confirm with you definition of proper KKK garb, does not take away from the question.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)I don't know what you mean by "take away from the question" if by "take away" you mean "pose a suggested answer based on verifiable facts."
It's an eternal mystery, like whether the moon is made of cheese or rocks. There is just no way to know.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Do you really believe you have established that there is such a thing as an official Klan outfit to your own satisfaction?
I'm not an expert on the Klan but were they or are that much of a regimented organization?
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)I doubt there is a single "official Klan outfit".
In a Google search of the many and varied news photographs taken of Klansmen - who may be of various splinter and competing organizations - there is a complete absence of outfits with mouth holes. The front flap appears to be, for the most part, removable, since if you were interested in facts you would no doubt see in quite a number of such news photographs.
So, no, I don't think there is an "official Klan outfit".
There is a marked absence of actual Klan outfits of any sort which have mouth holes, use regular belts, or are that tall and conical. Those are simply observations of the vast quantity of actual news photographs of Klansmen in recent decades. They are facts.
It is a highly unusual Klan outfit, virtually unique to this picture. So, it was a very small troop, or brigade, or whatever they call themselves in groups, possibly limited to one member who, by amazing happenstance, was a friend-of-a-friend of Northam.
mopinko
(70,208 posts)a little joke, white face, black face.
Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)Looks like the genuine article.
Probably why the governor wont claim to be either of the people in the photograph.
Both outfits are disgusting.
Empowerer
(3,900 posts)Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)They all know why.
I grew up in the south, a few years before Northam. I went to lots of parties, and I never saw these characters at any of them.
My friends and I did refuse to don blackface for a high school event in 1975. No one from my school ever blacked their face for that event, or any other, again.
Ps...I almost find the name they called him more offensive than any other slur. Im not sure exactly why, but I hate it. I wont type it.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)The only time I saw blackface or a Klan outfit was on tv.
Mariana
(14,860 posts)Plain white robes aren't hard to find, and they weren't hard to find in 1984.
marble falls
(57,204 posts)TheCowsCameHome
(40,168 posts)it's as basic as it gets...
This isn't exactly from the wardrobe department at Downton Abbey.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)Likely to this very day.
LongtimeAZDem
(4,494 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Rorey
(8,445 posts)I don't know much about hate apparel, but it looks like more than just a sheet.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Rorey
(8,445 posts)A decent human being would have raised a big fuss if that photo was included under his name in a yearbook.
It's him.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)The level of detail suggests he knew that photo would be preserved for perpetuity. Ditto for the man in blackface.
Rorey
(8,445 posts)Not that one is better than the other.
Rorey
(8,445 posts)The person in blackface is significantly taller than the person in the klan costume. That should answer Northam's stupid question about which one is him.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)The typical Klan hood looks more like the "pointy" part is supported by pleats:
...not to be confused with the capirote - a traditional robe worn during Easter processions in some parts of Spain, which is much longer and more conical:
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)The hat is fairly conical for a Klan hood. My bet would be cardboard and a pillow case.
If it is an actual Klan hood, then someone didn't want to use it anymore, since Klan hoods don't have mouth holes.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)As an attorney who has to evaluate whether your clients and other litigants are telling you the truth what do you make of the fact he said one of the men in the yearbook photo was him on Friday and then said it wasn't him on Saturday?
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)You can make a liar out of anyone, because of fairly common habits of mind that people have - particularly doctors and engineers. Doctors and engineers are ripe for this, because they are used to making inferences based on facts all of the time, and relying on those inferences.
He may have initially assumed it was him for the obvious reason that it is in a section with his name and other pictures around it, even if he had no specific recollection of the photograph being taken, because people tend to make reasonable inferences and weave them into their "memories" - which are no more reliable than anything else that goes on in people's minds. Memory is much more malleable than most people tend to believe it is.
Having no specific recollection of the event, and then later finding out that other pictures in the book are mis-assigned and mislabeled, then the basis for the initial inference may no longer be reasonable.
People say contradictory things all of the time without "lying" - intentionally making a false statement. That's one of the reasons why, when a client is going to be deposed, it is extremely important to get them to understand the difference between something they can specifically recall, and something they would infer. For example, if the witness usually parks his car in his garage at night, and the witness is asked "Did you park your car in your garage on Wednesday of last week?", then most people who usually park their car in their garage will say "yes" even if they have no specific recollection of parking their car in their garage last Wednesday night. Later, when reminded that their kid's band was rehearsing in the garage that evening, they'll change the story to not having parked the car in the garage - which still might be an inference.
But, seriously, most people are really shitty with facts - much more than they believe. That's pretty consistent, and has nothing to do with "lying".
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)yardwork
(61,703 posts)The inference that can be drawn from his apology is that he had dressed up in this manner on some occasions. He's just not sure if he did this time or not. And, in fact, he immediately supports that inference by mentioning the Michael Jackson masquerade in 1984.
It sounds defensive and it's never good for politicians to sound defensive.
The photo is on his yearbook page. That looks very bad. His apology followed by non-apology made it worse. Big mess, poor leadership, ineffective politics.
sprinkleeninow
(20,255 posts)I would have fracken remembered if I had.
I remember what I dressed up as on halloween.
Never even entered my mind to do this.
25 yr. old. "It's me. It's not me. It's me, but I dint do it."
yardwork
(61,703 posts)I did some very stupid things in my 20s but I didn't accidentally dress up to mock black people. And if a photo suggesting that I did was on my yearbook page I sure as hell would have noticed.
His excuses aren't believable. And that's a huge problem, as it calls into question his integrity and credibility, not just 35 years ago but right now.
PeeJ52
(1,588 posts)Decoy of Fenris
(1,954 posts)That said, patterns are freely available online and it's not exactly like the costume is a hard one to make. Hell, this happened just earlier last year in San Francisco.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ku-klux-klan-kkk-costume-los-angeles-harbor-teacher-preparation-academy-a8401511.html
I found a site selling them bulk in stacks of 20 for around a hundred bucks a robe. The internet is a strange and fickle place, where everything can be bought and sold if you know where to look. (Tangentially, if you have an interest, I know where you can buy a mail-order pallet of 500 skinks for a buck a head.)
ON EDIT: I know the Internet wasn't really a huge thing in 1984, but you can most certainly buy anything you can think of in 2019.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Decoy of Fenris
(1,954 posts)sprinkleeninow
(20,255 posts)in my 'hat'. Looked authentic. Baton, white tassled boots, the whole nine yards. She put blush circles on my cheeks. The directions with the costume must've said to?
Also went as a cowgirl/boy with entire gear. Sometimes a skirt, sometimes chaps.
Now I don't do halloween anything.
ret5hd
(20,518 posts)Polybius
(15,476 posts)It's clearly not a real KKK uniform.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)We can agree that when you're a governor and the question is "How did the man on your yearbook page get his Klan outfit?" you're in a bit of a pickle?
Polybius
(15,476 posts)But it's still clearly not a Klan outfit. I forgot to list that it has an opening for a mouth, which real Klan uniforms don't have, in addition to the mask being too pointy, skinny, and long, and the uniform having no symbols. Here's a real KKK uniform:
rampartc
(5,435 posts)my mom could whip up an angel costume for the christmas pagent very quickly. this isn't very different.
Mariana
(14,860 posts)Or maybe a graduation robe, which is pretty much the same thing. Anyway, the robe itself isn't something that would have to be sewn up from scratch.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Baptist churches have a supply of white robes in a range of sizes.
yardwork
(61,703 posts)Mariana
(14,860 posts)especially considering the Klan was and is explicitly a Christian organization.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)A capirote is a pointed hat of conical form that is used in Spain. It is part of the uniform of some brotherhoods including the Nazarenos and Fariseos during Easter observances and reenactments in some areas during Holy Week in Spain.
-----
In Spain, they have to point out to tourists that they are not KKK outfits:
yardwork
(61,703 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)In 1915, director D. W. Griffith adapted The Clansman as The Birth of a Nation, one of the very first feature-length films and the first to screen in the White House. Its most famous scene, the ride of the Klan, required 25,000 yards of white muslin to realize the Keller/Dixon costume ideas. Among the variety of Klansman costumes in the film, there appeared a new one: the one-piece, full-face-masking, pointed white hood with eyeholes, which would come to represent the modern Klan. Maybe it was Griffith who brought those pieces of fabric together in their soon-to-be iconic form; after all, his mother had sewn costumes for his Klansman father. Or, given the heterogeneity of Reconstruction Klan costumes, maybe Griffith got the idea from another source altogether: Freemason regalia. Or maybe it wasnt Griffiths idea at all, but that of Paris-trained, Costume Designer Guilds Hall-of-Famer Clare West, who worked on the film: maybe she had witnessed confraternal processions in the streets of Europe, or just made it up.
What we do know is that the blockbuster popularity of The Birth of a Nation gave free advertising to a traveling fraternal order organizer, former Methodist minister, and garter salesman, William J. Simmons. Simmons didnt just organize fraternities; hed joined fifteen of them, including the Knights Templar and the Masons. The 1915 lynching of Leo Frank had inspired Simmons to form a new anti-Semitic, nativist fraternity. One week before The Birth of a Nations Atlanta premiere, Simmons received his state charter for The Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Incorporated. He sold hoods and robes ($6.50) sewn in a local shop, wrote a handbookthe Kloranand, in 1920, hired publicists Edward Y. Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler to launch a massive campaign that attracted 100,000 new members in 16 months. Kleagles, or recruiters, arranged minstrel shows and screenings of The Birth of a Nation and other pro-Klan films.
In 1921, the Klan opened the Gates City Manufacturing Company in Atlanta to mass- produce regalia imitating The Birth of a Nations designs. The sumptuous, full-color, mail-order Catalog of Official Robes and Banners advertised all the standardized, factory-made hoods for the new hierarchy: Klansman (white cotton denim hood, red tassel); Terror (same hood, along with a red waist cord); Special Terror (white satin hood, three red silk tassels). Also for sale were ceremonial banners: The catalogs banner samples all represent Red Bank, in the Realm of New Jersey (New Jersey had 60,000 members at the peak of Klan membership, more than Louisiana, Alabama, or the original Klans home state of Tennessee).
d_r
(6,907 posts)Where y'all were in the 80's, I was in Florida and Alabama and I have no hard time at all believing that both costumes were rented as a pair from a costume store.
Sneederbunk
(14,300 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)One of the persons in the photo could be a woman but Occam's Razor suggests its two men, their relationship to one another has not been determined. One would presume they are acquaintances or do you believe a person made up in blackface just randomly ran into a person with a Klan outfit?
lostnfound
(16,189 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Traveled the south at least five times during that time period in a car and never saw a Klansman. As a Jew I guess I was lucky but on the other hand I don't have the horns they would be looking for.
lostnfound
(16,189 posts)And my friend and I were horrified to see them standing around in their robes on a street corner, holding signs. There was a black woman with her kids in the backseat of a car at that same intersection. I remember this clearly as my friend wrote a song about it.
It was nauseating. Saw them in North Georgia.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)I was in junior high when Volusia County schools were finally desegregated pursuant to a court officer. I remember one of my African American teachers telling me how white parents didn't want a black man teaching their kids. I also remember my teachers, for the most part, being pro integration, and anti war and anti-Nixon.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Youre very much mistaken if you think that.
Mariana
(14,860 posts)It's not like they go around in costume all the time. They usually wear civvies, like everyone else.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)What part of the assertion embodied in my statement is that I never saw a Klansman in Klan regalia don't you understand?
yardwork
(61,703 posts)That said, the photo doesn't look like a real klan costume. The ones I've seen in museums don't have mouth holes and the cones are different.
Gothmog
(145,554 posts)In 1979, I was with a group of ex-college debaters who went to judge a high school debate tournament. We got lost and I nearly had a wreck when one of the debaters grabbed the wheel of my car and pointed at the KKK bookstore in Pasadena. We were all extreme liberals and declined. That bookstore was open unti 1990s. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/Photographing-the-Klan-in-the-1980s-6395815.php
But the situations weren't always tense. In Pasadena and Clear Lake, I talked with Klan members about their daily co-existence with African-American and Vietnamese people. I found interesting parallels in what they were telling me about their economic conditions and the concerns I heard and witnessed in Houston's Third and Fourth Wards, primarily African-American communities where relentless fear-mongering and alarm over the "Asian invasion" had proliferated on local talk radio. At times, it seemed that many Klan members were as marginalized and afraid as those inner-city populations.
See also https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/03/us/6-protesters-arrested-at-houston-klan-march.html
I avoid Montgomery County Texas and Vidor Texas in that there are still active KKK chapters in those places.
JCMach1
(27,572 posts)You say...
Not a 'real' Klan outfit...
EffieBlack
(14,249 posts)have a lot of experience making Klan attire.
Mr. Quackers
(443 posts)He purchased it.
Mariana
(14,860 posts)A purchased costume would look more authentic. I think they used a white church robe or graduation robe or something like that, and rigged up the hat with a pillowcase.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,364 posts)I'd guess they were made at home, by hand.
I don't think there was a store named "Klan Outfitters".
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Last edited Mon Feb 4, 2019, 07:00 PM - Edit history (1)
But, yes, it was exactly "Klan Outfitters".....
https://newrepublic.com/article/127242/klan-got-hood
In 1921, the Klan opened the Gates City Manufacturing Company in Atlanta to mass- produce regalia imitating The Birth of a Nations designs. The sumptuous, full-color, mail-order Catalog of Official Robes and Banners advertised all the standardized, factory-made hoods for the new hierarchy: Klansman (white cotton denim hood, red tassel); Terror (same hood, along with a red waist cord); Special Terror (white satin hood, three red silk tassels). Also for sale were ceremonial banners: The catalogs banner samples all represent Red Bank, in the Realm of New Jersey (New Jersey had 60,000 members at the peak of Klan membership, more than Louisiana, Alabama, or the original Klans home state of Tennessee).
Hekate
(90,793 posts)Asking for a friend.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)There are aspects of the history of this country and its culture which do not appear to be taught in schools and about which there is a demonstrated ignorance among people who should know better.
Maybe you would prefer that people not understand the history of the KKK, what shaped its origins, and the continued legacy which it has.
Maybe you, like many, would like to think it is a bunch of goofballs in sheets instead of an organized pyramid scheme to sell memberships and which, incidentally, is easily the oldest terrorist organization in this country.
For someone to toss out an ignorant comment like "I don't think there was a store named "Klan Outfitters"" is, IMHO, an opportunity to point out that facts are preferable to ignorance. Yes, they were that highly organized that they ran a mail order catalog - literally "Klan Outfitters". IMHO, facts are preferable to completely uninformed idle speculation.
There are people who would prefer to believe that this was some sort of fringey group of idiots in bedsheets instead of the large, influential, and highly organized commercial operation which it was.
And there are obviously people who bristle at the idea that anyone would be interested in responding to ignorance with actual facts about a history which should not be swept under the carpet.
If you have any other concerns about me personally, feel free to follow up about.
Someone asked a question. I answered it. Do you have something to contribute to the topic? Or do you just prefer ignorance.
Alternatively, please send me by DM the Hekate-approved list of things I can post about, how often, and in how much detail.
TwistOneUp
(1,020 posts)He bought them at a ... wait for it ... "white sale"!