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A small confederate flag stands at the base of a stone marking Confederate Rest at the Forest Hill cemetery in Madison in this 2000 file photo. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) A small confederate flag stands at the base of a stone marking Confederate Rest at the Forest Hill cemetery in Madison in this 2000 file photo. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

A small confederate flag stands at the base of a stone marking Confederate Rest at the Forest Hill cemetery in Madison in this 2000 file photo. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

By D.L. Davis October 23, 2017

Debunking the claim that "The KKK was founded as the military arm of the Democratic Party."

The Ku Klux Klan,  a white supremacy group, has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the most infamous — and oldest — of American hate groups.

The group’s heyday may be over, but controversy over Confederate monuments has brought the group back into the spotlight.

The debate over Confederate symbols and monuments was reignited in June 2015, after Dylann Roof killed nine African-Americans in a Charleston, S.C., church in an attempt to "start a race war." There are numerous photos on the Internet showing Roof’s car with an ornamental Confederate license plate and Roof holding the Confederate flag.

One month after the shooting, the Confederate flag was removed from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds and the issue receded.   

It escalated again Aug. 12, 2017, when a group of about 50 Ku Klux Klan members and other white nationalists rallied to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a public park in Charlottesville, Va. The white nationalists were met by a crowd of about 1,000 counter-protesters. After the rally dispersed, a car plowed into a group near the city’s downtown mall, killing a 32-year-old woman.

Two weeks later, on Aug. 26, 2017, a Baltimore man identified as a Klan imperial wizard was arrested and charged with firing a gun during the rally.

It was in this atmosphere that Madison Mayor Paul Soglin announced the removal of two Confederate memorials from the city’s Forest Hill Cemetery. A total of 140 Confederate soldiers -- prisoners of war who died at Camp Randall -- are buried in the cemetery.

After the announcement, a ground-level "Confederate Rest" plaque installed in 1981 was removed. The fate of a larger, 4-foot tall monument installed in 1931 has been referred to the Common Council, while the debate over what to do with it continues.

Soglin’s initial order prompted a news release from the Republican Party of Dane County, in which Chairman Scott Grabins scolded Soglin for an "antiseptic wipe to the memory of American voters."  

The Aug. 25, 2017  release went on to cite various historical instances where Democrats opposed civil rights initiatives, ending the list with this assertion: "The KKK was founded as the military arm of the Democratic Party."

When asked to back up the party’s claim, Grabins said the history of the Klan is well-known and cited the History.com website’s entry on the KKK.

Let’s go to the history books.

Klan history

According to a History.com entry on the Klan:

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Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and black Republican leaders.

Though Congress passed legislation designed to curb Klan terrorism, the organization saw its primary goal – the reestablishment of white supremacy – fulfilled through Democratic victories in state legislatures across the South in the 1870s.

Historians weigh in

James Marten, an author and chairman of the history department at Marquette University, disputed the Dane County GOP claim the Klan was "founded" as the military arm of the Democratic party.

"It was at its simplest a secret fraternal organization, but it very quickly became an organization dedicated to preserving white supremacy and intimidating African Americans," he said. "They and other groups like them broke up schools, torched houses, and interfered with black social and church gatherings.  

"And, along with those other groups as well as individuals and gangs, committed thousands of acts of terror, violence, and murder throughout the South. However, the early Klan — the founding generation of the Klan — really only lasted into the 1870s before it was driven underground, and it was not an overtly political organization."

Eric Foner, a Columbia University history professor, noted the Klan was a "military force."

"In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy," he said. "Its purposes were political, but political in the broadest sense, for it sought to affect power relations, both public and private, throughout Southern society."

But serving the interests of the party is not the same as being part of the party. Consider the political landscape today, where super PACs and other entities work outside the formal party structure.

In a June 10, 2013, PolitiFact Virginia article, Carole Emberton, associate professor of history at the University at Buffalo, noted that the "party lines of the 1860s/1870s are not the party lines of today."

"Although the names stayed the same, the platforms of the two parties reversed each other in the mid-20th century, due in large part to white ‘Dixiecrats’ flight out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican Party after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964," she said. "By then, the Democratic Party had become the party of ‘reform,’ supporting a variety of ‘liberal’ causes, including civil rights, women’s rights, etc. whereas this had been the banner of the Republican Party in the nineteenth century."

Our rating

The Republican Party of Dane County claimed "the KKK was founded as the military arm of the Democratic Party."

There is little doubt that the political interests of the Klan and the Democratic Party, at least in the early years, intersected. But there is no evidence that it was founded as part of the Democratic Party, or that the party ever even had an official "military arm."

If a Democrat today claimed the KKK is the military arm of the Republican Party, we’d have a similar point of view.

We rate the claim False.

Our Sources

Southern Poverty Law Center, entry on "Ku Klux Klan" 
 
"Press Release: RPDC Corrects Mayor Soglin,"  Republican Party of Dane County, August 25, 2017 
 
History.com website, entry on the Ku Klux Klan
 
Madison Mayor Paul Soglin’s "Statement and Historical Perspective of Confederate Monuments at Forest Hill Cemetery," August 21, 2017. 
 
CNN, "Dylann Roof pleads guilty to state charges in church massacre" by Jay Croft and Tristan Smith, April 10, 2017, 
 
WISH-TV.com, "KKK Imperial Wizard charged with firing gun at protesters at Charlottesville" by Kyle Bloyd Published: August 29, 2017 
 
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Madison Common Council asked to consider future of Confederate memorial in city-owned cemetery" by James B. Nelson, Sept. 3, 2017
 
Email from Columbia University history professor and author Eric Foner, Sept. 11, 2017
 
The New York Times, "Battle Over Confederate Monuments Moves to the Cemeteries."  by Julie Bosman, Sept. 21, 2017
 
Email from Marquette University professor, author and chairman of the Department of History James Marten, Sept. 15, 2017 
 
Phone call and email exchange with Melanie Conklin, communications director of Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Sept. 20, 2017. 
 
Email from State Rep. David Bowen, vice chairman of Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Sept. 20, 2017 
 
The New York Times, "Man Charged After White Nationalist Rally in Charlottesville Ends in Deadly Violence," by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Brian Rosenthal, Aug. 12, 2017. 
 
CNN, "Confederate flag’s half-century at South Carolina Capitol ends," by Jason Hanna and Ralph Ellis,  July 10, 2015.
 
Email from Madison Common Council President Marsha Rummel, Oct. 4, 2017 
 
Email from Scott Grabins, chairman of the Dane County GOP Party, Oct. 4, 2017. 
 
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. "Table 1: Presidential Vote and Party Identification of Blacks, 1936-2008," Page 9.  
 
"State Sen. Stephen Martin says Democratic Party created the Ku Klux Klan," PolitiFact Virginia, June 10, 2013, 
 
U.S. Senate "Landmark Legislation: The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871" 

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More by D.L. Davis

Debunking the claim that "The KKK was founded as the military arm of the Democratic Party."

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