The Church, the Klan, and the Police

Their Long-Intertwined History

See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I don’t know whether the chicken came before the egg, but the order is clear regarding the Klan, the police, and the church in America. The church came first, and although Europeans who arrived in America claimed to be seeking religious freedom. Many states had official religions until the 1830s. The police came second, with forces springing up in Boston in 1838 and New York in 1845. By the 1880s, every major city had an organized police force, although there existed private part-time cops in several of those cities previously. The Ku Klux Klan originated just after the Civil War in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. The Klan arrived after the other two groups but depended heavily on them for support.

At some point during this story, I’m going to have to issue a disclaimer, so I might as well get it out of the way. I will refer to the Klan, which has always been a splintered organization with various names when I’m speaking of any white nationalist group, instead of referring to the Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois, Oathkeepers, and the literally hundreds of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups operating today in the US. I will generally refer to them as the Klan.

Furthermore, it goes without saying that every police officer or minister doesn’t have a relationship with those groups, and some no doubt detest them. While at one time, some police forces were thoroughly infiltrated and often led by Klan members, that mostly isn’t the case today. There are no longer up to 40,000 ministers who are active members of Klan-like organizations, like in the 1920s when Klan membership was between 3–5 million members in the North alone. In those days, ministers actively recruited Klan members from the pulpit. The Klan ran newspaper ads and held parades and state fair-like “Klonvocations,” where families could gather and strut around in white robes.

Indeed, the Ku Klux Klan has mostly died out, though their modern counterparts are growing exponentially. Unfortunately, a lot of them are disproportionately represented in police forces and the military, where they get opportunities to take out their hatred of other people. It’s alarming to hear or read what some police officers say to each other when they think they aren’t being observed or sent in texts or e-mails. Of course, racist conversations and messages don’t necessarily link those officers to the Klan. A 2017 FBI report notes that the anti-government militia groups (the Klan) have active ties to law enforcement.

“Since 2000, law enforcement officials with alleged connections to white supremacist groups or far-right militant activities have been exposed in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and elsewhere. Research organizations have uncovered hundreds of federal, state, and local law enforcement officials participating in racist, nativist, and sexist social media activity, which demonstrates that overt bias is far too common. These officers’ racist activities are often known within their departments, but only result in disciplinary action or termination if they trigger public scandals.”

I want to focus on the statement that the departments know who they are and do nothing unless it results in a public scandal. That takes me back to the “few bad apples” argument, suggesting only a limited number are bad. If everyone knows who the bad ones are, or in this case, racist cops are and do nothing. They are guilty of protecting them and share the blame for all that they do wrong while wearing a badge.

Police forces didn’t just wake up one day and decide to admit racists. They are doing what they’ve always done. They were formed to protect the interests of rich white men. In the South, what preceded the police forces were the slave patrols. Every able white man served a turn to maintain the enslavement of Black people, catch runaways, and enforce capital punishment as they saw fit. They had a license to kill, which some of their modern-day counterparts also believe they have. During the war, the military served as law enforcement, but afterward, police forces were modeled after the slave patrols who enforced segregation and protected the interests of rich, white men. It was a perfect place for the Klan to hide and often lead, with the full support of town leadership and the clergy.

In the North, police forces protected the docks and their cargo. They also managed the immigrant population that at the time included those one might consider white today. The Irish were pitted against other immigrants and made up a disproportionate proportion of Northern police forces. The cops ran roughshod over their charges and, while less likely to shoot at (or hit) them, had no problem using blackjacks and breaking a few bones here and there.

The first rendition of the Klan, which began in 1865, was put out of business by the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which followed two previous Acts passed within the prior year. Once upon a time, we had a Congress that recognized and fought back against white supremacist organizations, though it didn’t last long. The first Klan didn’t reach far into Northern police departments. It took the second rendition to do that. Inspired by the movie “Birth of a Nation,” Methodist minister William Joseph Simmons and more than a dozen others climbed Stone Mountain in Georgia, built an altar, and burned a cross while reforming the Klan. Membership was limited to Christian white men; white women formed auxiliary organizations; the family that hates together. . .

“The angels that have anxiously watched the reformation from its beginnings must have hovered about Stone Mountain and shouted hosannas to the highest heavens.” — Reverend William Joseph Simmons — Imperial Grand Wizard

By 1920, the revived Klan had up to five million members, most of whom were in the North. It existed in many locations with little to no significant Black populations. The Klan had spread its hate to include Catholics, Jews, and other immigrants, so they were still busy. The states with the highest per capita membership were Indiana and Oregon. They saw themself as a Christian organization and were regularly welcomed into churches in full regalia.

Some Protestant Churches Welcomed Revival of the Ku Klux Klan

Not to leave out the South, the Klan there was busy trying to keep Blacks from voting and protecting the honor of white women for alleged slights. The four-year period between 1918 and 1921 included sixty-four lynchings. In 1918, the Red Summer Riots encompassed several cities, and eighty-three more lynchings. In 1920, the Klan, including police officers, drove out the entire Black population of Ocoee, Florida, killing hundreds after two men tried to vote. 1921 brought us the Black Wall Street massacre, where police led the destruction of 35 blocks and the murder of hundreds. Mass graves are being uncovered at this time. The Klan and the police acted as one, so where was the church?

Time for a second disclaimer: part of the church was active in America, seeking emancipation for enslaved people and educating them. Religious institutions, including the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church, the American Baptist Church, the American Missionary Association, the Catholic Church, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded most of the initial Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). They are excluded from this discussion. It’s the churches that are comingled with, recruited for, and providing cover for the current variations of the Klan that I’m addressing.

The Klan was/is serious about its commitment to Christianity, their version of it at least. They initially only admitted male, white Christians (only Protestants were welcome) and insisted that their members attend church and support the church financially. Famous evangelist Billy Sunday started receiving Klan donations, for which he absolved them of their sins and assured them they would go to heaven despite violating all those commandments. Multiply that by 40,000, and you have an idea of the church’s impact on white supremacist movements.

“It is exceedingly doubtful if lynching could possibly exist under any other religion than Christianity. No person who is familiar with the Bible-beating, acrobatic, fanatical preachers of hell-fire in the South, and who has seen the orgies of emotion created by them, can doubt for a moment that dangerous passions are released which contribute to emotional instability and play a part in lynching.” — Walter White — NAACP

The cops, Klan, and the pulpit are now and always have been interwoven. I should also throw in politicians, but there isn’t enough time to tell that story. There is a reason Congress last pursued white supremacists in 1871, because too many elected representatives were either members or dependent upon them for their reelection. The Klan has always been a political organization that tried to impose its views on education, law enforcement, and the separation of church and state. Long before the Million Man March on Washington, DC, was the Million Klan March, where the Klan demonstrated its power.

The Klan acted with impunity, having received absolution from the church and protection from the police, many of whom were members. The Klan counted among its members Supreme Court Justices, Governors, Senators, and four Presidents are rumored to have been Klan members (Harding, Coolidge, Truman, and LBJ). The political infrastructure supports the police despite their racist behavior. Instead of certain punishment, they receive qualified immunity. Instead of condemnation from certain segments of the church, they get praise. Neither cops, the Klan, nor white evangelicals could exist in their current forms without the participation and support of others. They all support white supremacy, and each one benefits from the actions of the others. The link between the cops and the Klan has always been clear. Don’t leave out the church, without which neither could prosper.

“If you were recruiting for a white supremacist cause on a Sunday morning, you’d likely have more success hanging out in the parking lot of an average white Christian church — evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, or Catholic — than approaching whites sitting out services at the local coffee shop. — Robert P. Jones — Public Religion Research Institute