Why do kkk wear masks

Many early Klansman also wore blackface, simultaneously scapegoating and mocking their victims. During the Reconstruction era , this variety was what helped keep early versions of the Klan a secret. While testimonies from witnesses referenced the outlandish costumes, people in power denied that these attacks were evidence of efforts by a coordinated hate group.

In , with the ushering in of the Jim Crow laws , the Klan's first iteration mostly disbanded , as their prejudices had been successfully codified into law— meaning there was no need for lynch mobs to hide their faces and identities. A nostalgia for the Reconstruction-era Klan surfaced among white Southerners around the turn of the 20th century.

Thomas F. General Hate Symbols. Ku Klux Klan Symbols. Additional Images:. More from this Section. Hate Symbol. Love Your Race. He appeared to be a middle-aged white man, although police have not released his name. Wearing a KKK cap, he was asked to remove it by Security personnel, but not to leave the store. Address this issue. Witnesses said several store clerks confronted the man about the mask.

He refused to take it off until a manager told him he would have to leave if he did not comply. Vons grocery store and the mayor of Santee condemned the incident in separate statements last week. Another Santee man and his wife wore face masks with swastikas on them to a different grocery store last week, just a few days after the KKK incident occurred. Our community is outraged. Are you?

The marine was paralyzed in the attack. The grocery store mask cases have sparked outcry among activists and everyday residents of San Diego County. Georgia's highest court ruled the opposite way in a decision upholding that state's anti-masking law, In that case, Klan member Shade Miller challenged his conviction for publicly wearing a Klan hood. The Georgia Supreme Court found that the purposes of the law were the same as those of the Goshen, Ind.

But, unlike the federal judge in Indiana, the Georgia court found that these purposes far outweighed the Klan's right to associate anonymously. Looking at the history of the Klan in general, rather than at the activities of the particular group whose member had filed the case, the court emphasized that masked Klansmen had a long record of "harassment, intimidation and violence against racial and religious minorities. Unlike laws struck down by the U. Supreme Court, the Georgia court reasoned, the anti-masking laws do not require the Klan to reveal the names and addresses of its members, nor do they stop Klan members from meeting secretly or wearing their hoods on private property.

The anti-masking law "only prevents masked appearance in public under circumstances that give rise to a reasonable apprehension of intimidation, threats or impending violence. Miller, Ga. Many people gave their lives in the civil rights struggle, battling against forces like the Ku Klux Klan, to establish the principle that the Constitution applies equally to all of us.

The question today is: does the Constitution apply equally to the Ku Klux Klan? However convenient law enforcement officials may find anti-masking laws to be, few would be convinced by the Georgia court's assessment.