All language subtitles for Who.Put.The.Klan.Into.Ku.Klux.Klan.2018

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[Narrator] On the
17th of June, 2015,

Charleston in South
Carolina saw one

of the worst racially
motivated killings

in recent American history.

Nine black worshipers
were shot dead

during a prayer meeting
at this downtown church.

The killer was identified as
21 year old white supremacist

Dylann Roof.

He confessed to
committing the massacre

in the hope of
igniting a race war.

All of America was shocked
but in the southern state,

where race has been an
issue for centuries,

the shooting also triggered
a passionate argument

about the past.

Much of it focused on the
Confederate battle flag.

For many, the very
symbol of racism and hate

but what is it about the
past that stokes the flames

of racism here?

That's the question
that interests me

because it seems
that the bedrock

of the southern
states of America,

the old, confederate,
deep south is,

deep down, more than
a little Scottish.

He lifted the blazing emblem.

The fiery cross of
old Scotland's hill.

It would become the most
identifiable symbols

of race hatred, of
the Ku Klux Klan.

I think that white southerners

do think of themselves as Celts.

It is absolutely a
core idea for a lot

of these white
supremacist groups

including the original
Klan which of course

was thinking of
Scottish clans with a C

when they called themselves
the Ku Klux Klan with a K.

I've spent a lot
of time celebrating

the legacy of
Scots who left home

and helped lay the foundations

of the United States of America.

When they arrived here,
they had the chance

to create something
new, something perfect.

A new world.

A (mumbling) of the signatories

of the Declaration of
Independence were Scots.

The pursuit of happiness,
the most famous part

of the declaration is
arguably a Scottish idea

but the new world is not perfect

and I want to find out why.

If the Scots had
a significant hand

in conjuring the American dream,

to what extent were
they also responsible

for the nightmare?

That ugliest of stains.

The bloody, violent
history of race hatred

that blights
America to this day.

I'm traveling over 2,000 miles

of the southern
states of America.

It's somewhere I've
never been before

and I'm going to explore how
early Scottish immigration

evolved and see whether it's had

an enduring impact on
race relations here.

This seems like a
natural place to start

as I'm told it's living evidence

of the Scots that
originally settled here.

(bagpipe music)

I'm in Greenville
in South Carolina

on the eve of an
annual gathering

for the highland games.

I can hear the pipes.

Must be Scottish people here.

Come on people,
let's hear you!

We're Scottish American.

Okay, you do the
Scottish parts?

We do tonight,
yes, absolutely.

You claim Scottish descent?

Yes.

If you were to score
yourself out of 10

as a Scot, what numbers
would you give yourself?

Today, a 10.

I have a four year old.

If I could get him out
here, he's still scared

of bagpipes, but as soon
as I can get him over that

it'll be fantastic.

He's scared of bagpipes.

That's a worrying,
oh, there we go.

The next day at the games proper

I asked yet more
(mumbling) Scots

what they thought of the effect

of Scottish migration
to the states.

They influenced everything.

The first governor
of South Carolina

was a boy from Oxfordshire
and he very quickly

wanted state laws that reflected

the way things were
back in Scotland.

(cheering)

Some historians will tell you

to look at the Confederate
flag from the civil war,

very similar to St.
Andrews in terms of design

and they see a connection there

because it was a lot
of Scottish heritage

in those early days.

Coming from a place
where you weren't allowed

to have your own
land and you felt

you were kept down
by the landlords.

The first thing you do when
you get here is buy slaves.

There's a kind of disjuncture
there isn't there?

(downbeat music)

Greenville's not unique.

All over the south
I'm finding people

who keep to describe themselves

or their ancestors as Scottish.

How and why did the
Scots arrive here

and what does that tell
us about the nature

of the south today?

I found one man who
has written extensively

on trans-Atlantic immigration.

Barry Vann has
studied the subject

in the United States and the UK.

He brought me to
one of the peaks

of the Blue Ridge
Mountains in Virginia

to look down on the
great Appalachian Valley

that most of the early
Scottish settlers

would have passed through
during the 18th century.

- They were going to
the frontier, looking
for cheap land.

Ran into those mountains.

They couldn't go north
because that land

was already occupied
and they couldn't

go over the mountains
because it was too difficult

to get over them and
they were probably

hostile natives over
there so they came

down the valleys this way.

It's such a massive
undertaking for these people.

What's driving it?

One was economic
because they were coming

from a place where the
lands that they had farmed

for generations were no
longer available to them

'cause they weren't
able to afford

the money rent that was
required to stay on those lands

but here they
could acquire lands

and become their own lords.

In lot of respects,
they were trying

to recreate the
imagined Scotland

that they had back there
but they wanted it here

because they had more resources.

Look at those beautiful
trees, water was plentiful.

Nice longer growing seasons.

This was a bountiful place.

This was the Scotland
that they had imagined.

Scotland 2.0.

That's right.

It's the upgrade.

The upgrade, absolutely.

[Host] But it wasn't just
the prospect of a better future

that drew Scots to what they
called the back country.

They were tempted here
because of the reputation

as fighting folk.

Recruited to help
defend the coastal areas

already settled by the English

from native Americans
and the French.

They wanted them to
go to the back country,

to this part of the state
or colony at that time

and to be a buffer zone
against potential invasion.

(gentle music)

This is probably the oldest
part of the cemetery right here

and these are some of
the founding families,

second generation.

Down in the valley
lies the resting place

of many of those early
frontiers people.

Yeah, look at that,
Scott, Kirkpatrick, Bell.

They came from Scotland
and from Alston

and they quickly
exceeded the number

of English settlers
in the south.

Next to the
graveyard, we can see

what united these newcomers.

This church is built on the site

of one of the earliest
Presbyterian places

of worship in the area.

Were they a happy
lot, do you think,

or were they coming in with lots

of emotional and
religious baggage

on account of the old
country they had left behind?

When they got here,
they were interested

in acquiring land
and they also knew

that they were gonna be
facing potential hostiles

and so they were not
necessarily coming here

with an open hand saying
we wanna be friends.

They came here for the most part

interested in
farming if they could

and they wanted to live in
strategically important places.

That's why we call
them today hillbillies

and hilltoppers
because they wanted

to live up in the hills
where they could see

the enemy coming.

For those Presbyterians,
who were the enemy?

Who was it they
thought was gonna come

and attack them on their hills?

Anybody who wasn't them.

It could be the
English because they

had a history of conflict
with the English.

They had a history of
conflict with the Catholics.

They had a history of conflict

with almost anybody who was
not dissenting if you will.

Some of those
settlers, confident

about who they were
and just as importantly

who they weren't strode out
into the untamed back country

moving further south and
west with each generation.

But at the end of
the 18th century,

the settlers simply way of life

was transformed by something
that changed the course

of this part of America forever.

It was the arrival of cotton.

To the frontier farmers,
the economics were simple.

Cotton was a cash crop that
brought relatively easy money.

It also offered an
easy life as long

as those picking the
cotton were slaves.

As the cotton industry
grew, so did slavery.

By 1810, the number
of slaves in the US

rose to 1.2 million,
almost double

what it was 20 years earlier.

Now, the descendants
of many oppressed

and downtrodden refugee
Scots took the path

of racism to become
oppressors themselves

and their simple
farmhouses became

increasingly grand
plantation houses.

Like this one, built in
1851 just outside Charleston

by William Wallace McCleod.

He owned one of the largest
plantations in South Carolina

but like many, he
never forgot his roots.

He called the grand
house Inverness.

The impression
planters wanted to give

was one of affluence and
the most striking display

of wealth at that
time was measured

by the number of slave cabins

that lined the
drive to the house.

Here there were 23.

I asked Heather Williams
to show me around.

Not only is she an
expert in slavery

in the south but she's known
this place for some time.

When I first
came to this place,

for me it was a really
powerful sense of the past.

The cabins, it seemed
as though slavery

has just ended one
day and everybody

had packed up and left
and that I had been,

in a sense, transported
back to that time period,

the late 1860's.

In order for a
society to survive

you need the top
people who think

and then you have the
people who do the work.

This is what James
Henry Hammond said.

He was a senator
from South Carolina,

governor and so on.

You need a mud seal,
he said, in the society

and we have found
them in these Africans

who are so well-suited
to do the work

that we don't want to do.

(downbeat music)

They were legally owned.

They could be sold,
they could be traded,

they could be given away,
they could be mortgaged.

People could transfer them.

There was this perpetual sense

that they would be punished
if they didn't adhere

to the rules of the place.

So would this be
about as good as it gets

for enslaved people?

Yeah, I think, I've
seen cabins made of brick

which might have kept
people a little bit warmer

in the winter.

I would think that
there would be

at least six, seven
people in here.

William Wallace
McCleod enslaved up

to a hundred people
on his plantation

while he lived the life
of undoubted privilege.

Being here in a place where
slavery actually happened,

I have to admit I'm
filled for the first time

with feelings of disbelief
at the surreal nature

of the life that those elite
whites chose for themselves.

How you get to the point
where you can enjoy a life

that is composed of people
who are your captives

who are around you
in great numbers

every minute of the day, doing
things against their will

for no pay, they cook your food,

they work in the fields,
they fix up the house.

If it's a cold night,
you would order one

of them to lie across
your feet on your bed

so that you are warm.

At what point does
living like that

feel in any sense normal?

And it was another Scot
who provided the bomb

that made all this
seem legitimate.

By the mid 1800's,
almost every house

like this would
have contained some

of the many romantic
novels of Sir Walter Scott.

Scott's stories
of gallant knights

and brave highlanders
set in a golden,

mythical past were
wildly popular

but according to the
American writer Mark Twain

they merely fed this
fantasy lifestyle.

Twain felt the planters
were modeling their lives

on Scott's romantic
vision of the old country,

imagining themselves as
lairds of their own clan.

He wrote that the
civilization of the south

in the 19th century
is curiously confused

and co-mingled with
the Walter Scott

middle age sham civilization.

The inflated speech and
the Georgian romanticism

of an upset past that is
dead and like a charity,

ought to be buried.

I think that for
many people it felt

as though it was something
they were entitled to

and I think that
sense of entitlement

then passed from
generation to generation.

This sense that you are supposed

to have more than other people

and that some people
are supposed to serve

and you are to be served.

Twain also thought that
Scott's heroic romanticism

was partly responsible for the
terrible war that followed.

The northern states had wanted

to limit the
expansion of slavery

just as the worldwide demand
for cotton was booming.

Southern state planters
like William McCleod

saw their whole
lifestyle threatened

and were willing
to fight for it.

In 1861, the 11 slave states
with cotton based economies

left the union and a
horrific four year war began.

(guns firing)

Now, 150 years
later, people flock

to see the Civil
War as entertainment

and living history
groups meet regularly

to replay the battles
again and again.

This one is at Fort
Hollingsworth in Georgia

where reenactors from all

over the southern
states take part.

What is it important to remember

by taking part in and watching
a reenactment like this?

It's important to make sure
that the people understand

that what the
history is all about.

It's important that
they remember that this

is something that their
ancestors fought for

and something that's
actually a part of them.

This is something that they
were born ingrained with

and they should remember that.

What does define
the ancestors?

They didn't leave any
of their culture behind.

They just brought it here
and used that culture

and created something
completely new.

Even from the way we talk.

Even down to the patterns
in their clothes.

When the Scots came here they
brought with them the tartans.

Our way of life
is probably closer

to those in Scotland
that are now

in this part of the country.

We held on to a lot of
their ways, I think we did.

I think we did.

[Host] What was lost
when the war was lost?

The way we lived, actually.

They had plantations, a lot
of folks had plantations

and a lot of wealth and a lot
of that was lost in the south.

They had to go back
and start life over.

America's Civil War was
immensely destructive.

Well over half a
million soldiers died

and much of the south's
infrastructure was ruined.

For many whites,
the greatest fear

of all had just come true.

The enslaved were now free.

Not only that, but black
men could also vote

just as the vengeful north
took away the right to vote

for those that supported
the Confederacy.

Like the Jacobites in Scotland
a hundred years earlier,

the southern whites
had lost everything

but now they too had a
lost cause to believe in.

That lost cause found
its footing here

in the neat streets of
Pulaski in Tennessee.

This is where things first
started to turn ugly.

I've come to meet local
historian Bob Wamble

to find out what
happened in the town

after the end of the Civil War.

Bob, when the war was over
and the soldiers came back

what did they find
here in Pulaski?

Right here in
town where we are,

they found a courthouse and
that was pretty much it.

This entire side of the square
was burned to the ground.

It was done by Union soldiers
that were stationed here.

There were all these
Confederate soldiers

that came home and had nothing.

If they had owned a
business before the war

it was gone, it was
burnt to the ground.

They had no government,
they had no law really.

Anybody that had supported
the Confederacy couldn't vote.

Any law that was here, they
didn't have a part of it.

- [Host] So they were
effectively aliens
in their own town.

[Bob] Yes, this was their home

but it wasn't their government.

The destruction
here was typical

of many towns in the
south but this town

has a claim to fame that
it would rather forget.

One group of former
Confederate officers

bold and fearful of the future

now that black man had the vote,

set up a secret
fraternal society.

They drew on ancient Greek

and their Scottish
heritage for the name.

They called it the Ku Klux Klan.

This is the spot where
the Klan was formed.

The Ku Klux Klan
was six young men,

met right here in this office

and decided that they wanted
to form an organization.

This is a plaque showing
this to people of Pulaski

and they were proud
of the Ku Klux Klan.

The plaque is turned backwards.

About probably 20,
25 years ago...

[Host] Oh, it's got
its face to the wall now.

It's face is to the wall.

The man that owned this building
turned it around like that.

So what's on the other
side of the plaque?

Well it lists the
names of the young men

that formed the Ku Klux Klan.

I have a copy of it right here.

[Host] These are
the key players.

Alvin Jones, John B. Kennedy.

Frank O. McCord,
John C. Lester,

Richard R. Reed
and James R. Crowe.

They were all
Confederate soldiers

that had just come
home just really

didn't have anything
better to do

than to form an organization
just for amusement.

They played their
musical instruments

and sang songs and went out
and serenaded the girls.

They were out hunting all
the pretty girls of Pulaski.

[Host] Is that really all
it was in its first form?

Its very first stages,
that's all it was.

This photograph,
discovered by Bob,

is thought to show Frank McCord

and the rest of
the original Klan.

It was John B. Kennedy
who apparently suggested

that they should call
themselves a clan

as they were all of
Scotch Irish descent.

Some of them were
educated obviously

because the drawing on
Greek, kuklos is a circle

and a clan is a family group

that shares some kind of
blood or a name, a surname.

I think there's
an intention there

to declare yourself as a group

that will stand shoulder to
shoulder against outsiders.

Pulaski has another revelation.

Tucked behind this store front

is a small scale opera house.

A good place, it
seems, to understand

how the Klan moved from
make believe to reality

according to author and
academic Elaine Frantz Parsons.

Amazing, look at that.

[Elaine] For a town this
size, it is impressive.

[Host] Created in 1867,
almost exactly the same time

as the Klan, this theater
gives us a fascinating insight

into what might have
influenced them.

They're trying to
figure out who they are

and they're really interested
particularly in culture.

They don't have power anymore.

They don't have
politics but maybe

they can keep culture or
they can create a culture

that means something.

Particularly pretending they
were in a different time

and place pretending
they were in the world

of Sir Walter Scott I
think was very attractive.

Just a couple of
years after the war,

they embark on this and it's all

about theatrical
and make believe.

Was that in forming
the Klan as well?

Was it about the
costumes and pretend?

Yeah, I think that's
a really good way

to think about it actually,

that the world, the real
world, wasn't something

that they necessarily wanted
to spend a lot of time in.

I think that part
of what happened

is that they realized
that this play

that they were doing
could be brought to bare

on this competition,
this problem

that they were having with
black claims to rights.

If you were in the 19th century

and you're going to the theater,

a lot of the time you were
going to a minstrel show

and the minstrel show wasn't all

about making fun of black people

but that was an important
part of the minstrel show

and so part of what
the Klan wanted to do

was to force black
people into situations

where they looked
ludicrous or ridiculous

and what better way to do that

than pretend like
you're a monster

and attack them and
then tell everybody

how scared they were
by this monster.

What flicks the switch
from it being make believe,

harmless, costumes, music,
what flicks the switch

and turns it into
something sinister?

We know that Frank
McCord was trying

to get up a mob during the time

that the Klan seemed to
have nothing to do with it,

he is also interested
in racial violence.

The Klan soon moved
on from theatricalities

and threats, it
became more violent

and better organized.

At the nearby state
museum in Nashville,

they have one of the
few remaining documents

from that time.

What is in effect the
Klan's constitution.

It's a tiny little
sliver of a thing.

So this is one of the
few remaining copies

of what was the constitution
of the Ku Klux Klan

and you'll see at the front
this is the constitution

which they called the prescript.

The prescript of
the star, star, star

which is what they used
to stand for Ku Klux Klan.

Then you have some
Shakespearean verse

and then down here we have Burns

so you can see the
Scottish influence here.

And then the Burns is
about a certain ghoul,

a certain ghost is
around and drinking.

We'll send him linking
to your black pit

but faith he'll turn
a corner jinking

and cheat you yet.

So both are about
things macabre.

Yes, but they're
also high culture.

They're saying we aren't
just a bunch of hayseeds.

It makes you wonder
what Robert Burns himself

would have thought had he known

that some of his verse
was gonna be included

in such a document.

You know the man that rights
a man's a man for all that

to then find one of his verses

publicizing the
aspirations of a society

like the Ku Klux Klan.

The Klan now had
rules and roles.

It had become a
serious organization,

an invisible army
dedicated to reestablishing

the status of the
southern whites

and this is what the
Klan looked like.

This is an exact replica of one

of the original outfits
they wore in Pulaski.

You can see how
frightening that would be

if somebody appeared
out of the dark

dressed like that.

Absolutely terrifying.

It's important to note
these were not uniforms.

These were costumes.

These are expressing
a cultural thing.

They're not expressing
that they're,

it's not an army-like uniform.

This is a very chaotic mask.

Maybe this colorful
thread up here,

this red thread used to
put this black eyebrow on,

that seems like it's
deliberate, right,

you're meant to see how
sloppily made this was.

Imagine if you
opened your front door

and that character
was standing there

brandishing a
weapon or whatever.

Yeah, no, it's
very terrifying.

In Pulaski, the Klan
became increasingly popular

with the white population.

News spread, especially
as Frank McCord's brother

ran the local newspaper,
The Pulaski Citizen.

The stories printed
in the Citizen

helped publicize the Klan

and reassured the
white population

that something was being done

to keep the former
slaves in their place.

Many potential black
voters received crude

and menacing messages
like this letter

from a Ku Klux ghost ordering
them which way to vote.

Other copycat Klans
were soon formed

by more bored and
better southerners

in nearby states only now,

the theatricalities had
turned very ugly indeed.

Groups of white
men would come out

in the evening to
a home, a cabin,

and find the man
of the house there,

take him from his home, and then

they would either
whip them to try

to tell them to
change their behavior,

to punish them for something
that they had apparently done,

or they would kill that person.

Kill them either
by shooting them

or by hanging them.

What happened when
the Klan spread

was that existing
white on black violence

which was pervasive
throughout the south already,

that that comes to be
called Klan violence

and when it comes to
be called Klan violence

it gets worse.

People have an
additional impetus,

they feel like they're part
of a collective project.

They're doing something
for the south.

They're not just some guy
attacking their black neighbor

who's competing with
them for property rights.

They are now a
Klans or a Ku Klux.

By the late 1860's,
a reign of terror

existed throughout much
of the former Confederacy.

By the time the
federal government

had brought in legislation
against the Klan,

much of the groups work
had already been done.

Violence had successfully kept
most blacks from the polls

and the few that had
taken up any civic office

had already been
brutally beaten or hung.

With the black population
now successfully terrorized,

white state government
brought in laws

that segregated the races.

They were mockingly
known as Jim Crow laws

after a black character
in a minstrel show.

Now, living separate
lives, the white population

of the southern states relaxed,

less fearful of those
who were not them

except the fear never
really went away.

This is Atlanta, now the
bustling modern business hub

of the deep south.

In the early 1900's,
it was also the place

where the Klan was reborn.

We might never have
heard from the Klan again

but for the efforts of
one man, Thomas Dixon.

He wrote this book.

It published in 1905 and in it,

he transformed the
members of the Klan

from villains into heroes.

Dixon was born in
North Carolina.

The son of a Scotch minister
and plantation owner.

He went on to become a
southern Baptist minister,

lawyer, and author.

His novel was called
The Clansman and it
was a big seller.

It was subtitled An Historical
Romance of the Ku Klux Klan

and it imagined a future where
the racial divide is reverse

and it is the white
man that is in chains.

Now I'm sure if you
were to take the time

to weave through this
tome, you would agree

that it's pretty dreadful.

I offer you part of one chapter

in which Dixon imagines
a future for America

in which the black
man is in charge.

As he passed inside
the doors of the house

of representatives, the rush
of foul air staggered him.

The hall was packed with negroes

smoking, chewing, jabbering,
pushing, perspiring.

The doctor surveyed
the hall in dismay.

At first, not a white
member was visible.

The galleries were
packed with negroes.

The speaker presiding
was a negro.

The clerk, a negro.

The doorkeepers, negroes.

The little pages all
coal black negroes.

The remains of
aryan civilization

were represented by 23 white men

from the Scotch
Irish hill counties.

When the book was published,

it caused a literary explosion

and when it transferred
to the stage as a play

it provoked riots,
not just in this city

but all across America.

When the play premiered
at the Grand Opera House

here in Atlanta in
October of 1905,

the segregated
audience went wild.

Tom Rice has studied
what happened.

The reports stressed
that the house lights

were kept on, that the
sell of soda bottles

was prohibited because
they were worried

they were gonna get
hurled around the theater.

Absolutely had tapped
into this culture

of fear, these anxieties
about racial integration

and race relations that
were really prevalent

in Atlanta and across
the south at this moment.

[Host] Dixon took
his Scottish heritage

and paraded it in his work.

Inside the front
cover of his novel,

the dedication
reads to the memory

of a Scotch Irish
leader of the south,

my uncle, Colonel Leroy McAfee,

grand titan of the invisible
empire, Ku Klux Klan

and it's not the only
reference to a Scottish past.

Clearly the title The Clansman

does make a connection with
the Scottish roots here.

We can see it even in the title

of the main family
here, the Cameron's.

It was settled by
the Scotch folk

who came from the
north of Ireland,

the great migrations which
gave America 300,000 people

of covenants and martyr blood,

the largest and most
important addition

to our population.

He's really thinking
about the makeup

of the American south
and of this area

but internal so of the Klan,

of what would create
the Ku Klux Klan here.

High above his head in
the darkness of the cave,

he lifted the blazing emblem.

The fiery cross of
old Scotland's hill.

I quench its flames
in the sweetest blood

that ever stained
the sands of time.

And here we've got
the fiery cross.

This is not a feature
of the original Klan.

It's created here by Dixon.

It would become one of the
most identifiable symbols

of race hatred, of
the Ku Klux Klan

and it's still today
widely identified

with the Klan and
here he's saying,

this is the fiery cross
of old Scotland's hills.

It's creating a history and
a heritage for this here.

The full impact
of Dixon's novel

was felt much more
widely when 10 years

after its publication it
was released as a film

touted then and still lauded now

as an epic of its time.

The Birth of a Nation directed

by Hollywood superstar
D.W. Griffith

let Dixon's work reach
a much bigger audience

and it was a massive hit.

The budget was huge
and the direction

was groundbreaking but the story

was as racist as Dixon's book.

Charlene Regester
is a film academic

and remembers her
first reaction.

I saw Birth of a Nation
when I was a graduate student.

Of course some of the
scenes that we saw

were very inflammatory.

They showed us
alleged rape scene.

The scene where Gus
is chasing the woman

who jumps off the
cliff onto the ground

and so it was very
offensive then

and it's probably still
equally offensive today.

It was a racially incisive story

and it was about
black male predators,

black male racists, it
was about miscegenation

and it was about
the Ku Klux Klan

rescuing the south
and white supremacy

and I think all of
the variables together

is what made it so volatile.

Did the film work as a
PR exercising for the Klan?

It certainly made
them almost appear

as though they're
heroic and also

at the end of the
film they have one

of the white characters who
unveils as a Klan member.

They're making them look
like they're the saviors

of the day, they
saved the south,

and certainly coincided with
the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.

I think it glamorized the Klan

and made it a desirable
organization to belong to

as a way of restoring
order and I guess

of instituting white
supremacy nationwide.

[Host] Just outside Atlanta,
soaring out of the landscape

is a curious monolith
called Stone Mountain.

Carved on its side
is a vast memorial

to the Confederate
leaders of the Civil War.

[Tour Host] Alright everybody.

Now the mountaintop would be
about 350 million years old.

Only a very small portion

of the mountain's
actually visible.

But long before the
carving was completed,

people came here to pay homage

to something that
happened directly

as a result of Griffith's film.

It turns out that that
film was a revelation

for at least one cinema goer.

It was a Methodist
preacher and his name

was William Joseph
Simmons and he took all

he'd seen and heard
and he brought it here

to this mountaintop.

He was accompanied that day,

the eve of Thanksgiving in 1915

with 15 like minded
souls and they had come

for a bizarre ceremony.

What they wanted
to do first of all

was to build an altar.

Once it was built, Simmons
placed three things

on that altar.

An American flag, a bible,
and a sword unsheathed.

Then, he set fire to a
crudely made wooden cross.

At that moment, he
declared himself to be,

get this, the imperial wizard
of the invisible empire

of the Knights of
the Ku Klux Klan.

The KKK was back but this time
the Klan would be different.

It would be political, it
would be obsessed with power,

and most significantly
of all, it would be big.

Very, very big.

And with changing immigration,

the Klan now had a whole
new range of targets

they thought threatened the
lives of southern people.

The new Klan's focus wasn't
just on black people.

Jews, Catholics,
and Mexicans also

became targets of
the organization.

To get an insight
into this second Klan,

I've come to the small estate
of author William Rawlings

just outside the town of
Sandersville in Georgia.

The Klan's mantra
at this time,

its recruiting mantra
can be summed up

as being 100% Americanism.

Support of the
constitution, just laws,

anti-immigration.

People that joined the Klan
during the early 1920's

joined not because
they had some agenda

but because the message
of the Klan was one

we want to do the good
thing for America.

We want to perhaps keep
this immigrants out,

these Chinese in
California, these Mexicans

on the border states.

[Host] But the new Klan was
as oppressive as the first.

Say you live in a town
and the Klan is in the town

and you don't know
who the members are

but they may be your best
friends and they may not be.

You don't know if the
policeman on the corner's

a member of the Klan or perhaps

your minister's a
member of the Klan

and they liked it that way.

They could go to a merchant
for example and say

you know, we're the
Klan, we can tell people

not to trade with
you and the merchant

would say gee, I better
support the Klan.

You never knew how many people
were members of the Klan

and once they developed
the reputation

for not only
intimidation but action

then frequently
all they had to do

was simply say
we're watching you

and that was all
that was needed.

[Host] Clan violence directly

effected William
Rawling's family.

Although they had owned
a slave plantation

everyone was a potential target.

My family had an unfortunate
experience with the Klan.

Uncle Charlie was a
bit of a philanderer.

I guess that's the
best way to say it.

Not only did he have
his girlfriends,

his interest also
crossed racial lines

and he sired a number
of mixed race children

which was not exactly the
socially acceptable thing

of the day to do.

He was allegedly, according
to family history,

warned by the Klan and
when he ignored them

because he was a very
wealthy and powerful man,

when he ignored them
they simply waylaid him

on a country road.

He had his own chauffeur.

Guy named Hal
Hooks, a black man.

They put a tree across the road.

When Hal Hooks went
out to move the tree

all of a sudden Klansmen
emerged from the forest,

they told Hooks to
stand to one side

and they castrated
Uncle Charlie.

Castrated him?

They castrated him

and he lived the
remainder of his life

without part of his anatomy.

* Well nothing is going
right this morning

* Oh I guess it's the
chains that bind me

* I can't shake them loose

How big did it get,
what was the high point?

For a very brief period
of time, 1924 and 1925,

they were one of the
most powerful social

and political organizations
in the United States.

Around five million members
at its peak in 1925.

You know it's a tremendous
number of people

that joined the Klan.

Perhaps the high
point of the Klan

was the march in August of 1925

where an estimated as many
as 150,000 robed Klansmen

marched down
Pennsylvania Avenue.

It's a terribly
frightening image

to see Pennsylvania Avenue
with the capitol dome

in the background
and an endless stream

of white robed Klansmen
marching down the street.

Is this what America has become?

The Klan of the 1920's
failed eventually

because people figured them out.

People began to say
you know, these people

are not really what
I want America to be.

These people are
beating and flogging,

these people are judge,
jury, and executioner

rolled into one.

This is not the American way.

We should reject the Klan.

The Klan may
have been rejected

but racial hatred and
discrimination remained.

Here is one of the many
places in the south

where the law itself was
used to discriminate.

This is the former
railway terminal building

in Macon, Georgia.

Fantastically
impressive building.

Big stone frontage.

Now that's the main
entrance down there

with the eagles above
it and the pillars.

Off to one side though
is a separate entrance

and if you look above the
door look what it says.

Colored waiting room.

This is a relic, an artifact
of the Jim Crow laws

which were touted as
keeping the white people

and the black people of
America separate but equal.

The Jim Crow laws
reflected the mindset

of those that wanted the
races to be separate forever.

They not only mandated
the segregation

of colored transport
but public schools,

public places, and the
segregation of restrooms,

restaurants, and even
drinking fountains.

Black and white lived separate
but rarely equal lives.

It took until the 1950's
for the federal court

to declare that segregation
in state schools

was unconstitutional.

The black population celebrated

but the southern states
were having none of it.

I'm finishing my journey
in America's deep south

here in Alabama, the
heart of the fight

against civil rights.

Montgomery, the state
capital, became the epicenter

and these steps the backdrop
to much of the rhetoric.

Before the seed of tyranny,
and I say segregation now,

segregation tomorrow,
and segregation forever.

(cheering)

[Host] Governor
George Wallace spoke

with the mindset of
those that elected him.

The Klan, too, raised
its costumed head again

and when around 3,000 people
attended another rally

at Stone Mountain, it was clear

that the Klan was back in force

for the third time and
the tactics, again,

would be violent.

The fight for the
soul of the south

came to its ugliest
point in the 1960's

in the battle between
the civil rights movement

and the Klansmen.

The Klans brazen
violence and murders

eventually pushed President
Johnson's federal government

to make a full scale
assault on the Ku Klux Klan.

Their loyalty is not to
the United States of America

but instead to a hooded
society of bigots

so if Klansmen
hear my voice today

let it be both an
appeal and a warning

to get out of the
Ku Klux Klan now.

Leading members of the Klan
were prosecuted by the FBI

and once again, America's
most feared hate group

appeared to be defeated.

But despite the success of
the civil rights movement,

that southern mindset
didn't go away.

It's still with us today.

In the last 50 years,
there's been an explosion

of hate groups in America.

In 2015, it was estimated that
there were 892 hate groups

in the US including
anti-government militias,

neo-nazis, neo-confederates,

and 190 separate Ku
Klux Klan groups.

The League of the South is one

that's often described
as a hate group.

It advocates rolling back time,

creating a separate
southern society

run by Anglo-Celts.

So I've got an email
from Dr. Michael Hill,

leader of the
League of the South

and he's suggesting meeting
at the post office parking lot

in Killen at nine a.m.

I think we have our man.

Dr. Hill, hello, I'm Neal.

Nice to meet you, sir.

Nice to meet you too, sir.

Good to be here.

Is it okay if we put
a microphone on you?

Sure.

I think that's one
thing about southerners.

We're known for our hospitality

but we're also very
suspicious of outsiders.

Now I'm not suspicious
of you folks

because I know
where you come from

and I know that
basically you and I

come from the same
people so it's different

but people come around
here from other places

and southerners are
not so hospitable

until they get to know you.

If you're a nationalist,
what's your nation?

My nation is my people.

[Host] It's not America?

No, America is not my nation.

If your nation is family,
what is your family?

You mean literally
people who are blood.

Yes, exactly,
blood, blood kin.

That is what a nation is.

But you know as well
as I do that the Scots

have always been big
on fictive kinship.

You're sort of in the
clan, in the family.

My family is southern people

and people who are
related to us by genetics

back in the old country.

America is not a nation.

America is a
multi-cultural empire.

I want nothing to do with it.

It has nothing for me.

[Host] Is the church
shooting at Charleston

an inevitable consequence
of that kind of grievance?

[Michael] I think you just
had a disturbed young man.

He doesn't come
from nowhere, though.

He's from a context.

Sure he's from a context.

The minute I saw that he
had a Confederate flag,

I said oh they will
take this and use it.

If the left wants
to use Dylann Roof

as the archetype of everybody
that thinks like I do

then we're gonna have to have
fair play on the other side.

Every time a black person
kills a white person

we're gonna have to
just examine that

inside and out, why it happened,

the circumstances,
the hatred behind it,

but it doesn't get done.

How likely is
it that you're way

of thinking will come to pass?

I'm a realist about this.

If you look out in
the world right now

you see that the other side
looks like they're winning.

My side will win mainly because

it is the natural
way that human beings

have always lived.

This is an anomaly period
that we're living in

and I can see the end of it

and the pendulum will swing back

to a more normal
type human existence.

So yeah, I think I'm
on the right side

of not only history
but human nature.

It seems so pessimistic
and depressing

to me to think that people,
given the opportunity

to create a new world, and
that was the expression

that was in use at the time.

They came out full of
ideas like the pursuit

of happiness and equality
and religious freedom

and all of that.

They were part of a world
that became a misery

for millions, I
find that just sad.

I know, but what
does it tell you.

It tells you that
there can be no utopias

because man is a fallen creature

and he's always gonna behave
like a fallen creature.

He's always going to fuck it up.

I said was there
someone who has

perhaps a naive hope in
the brotherhood of mankind,

if he's right then I just feel

we're never gonna get anywhere.

If there was ever an
indication that history's alive

then it's here, a set of events

unfolded here 200
and odd years ago

and the consequences
of them, the reality

of the world which created then

are still 100% here.

He feels as if we're
not going anywhere.

It's so dispiriting
to hear someone

using my Scottish
ancestry in support

of views that could
give rise to hatred.

I'm heading back to
the state capital

to get a second opinion on
Michael Hill's thinking.

Mark Potok keeps
tabs on hate groups

at the Southern
Poverty Law Center

and he has monitored
the development

of the League of the
South for some time.

I've heard mention
of the potential

for a race war, is that
just meaningless hyperbole?

Well look, I mean, a
race war is the wet dream

of all of these groups.

They all expect a
race war and many

of them fervently hope for it.

That's absolutely
common in the Klan

and in neo-nazi
groups and so on.

What's been surprising
is to see the evolution

of a group like the
League of the South.

Mike Hill wrote a few months ago

an incredible essay in
which he said essentially

if black people think
they wanna have a race war

let me just warn them right now,

they're not gonna win that war.

Hill has also
talked to his people

not merely about how the south
is an Anglo-Celtic wonderland

and all this kind of
things and we need

to protect our culture
but about the need

to buy AK-47's and
tools to derail trains.

Will this ever really
come to a race war?

No, I very much doubt it.

Are there people out
there who desperately

would like to see it happen?

Absolutely.

In the aftermath of the June
2015 Charleston massacre

by Dylann Roof, there
was an enormous backlash

against the
Confederate battle flag

because Roof, of course,
before carrying out

this mass murder, had
taken many pictures

of himself displaying the
Confederate battle flag

and as a result of that,
the flag came under attack.

The governor of South Carolina

ordered the
Confederate battle flag

off the grounds of
the state capital

and then there was
this incredible,

very widespread reaction.

We counted actually,
in the six months

immediately following
the Charleston massacre,

364 pro-Confederate
battle flag rallies.

Does that rhetoric inform
people like Dylann Roof?

I don't think Dylann
Roof probably even knew

what the League of the South was

but did he connect
with the kinds of ideas

that are at the center of
the League of the South?

Absolutely.

One of the greatest
writers of the south,

William Faulkner,
wrote something

that seems very apt.

The past isn't dead and buried.

It's not even past
and that's the point.

All the people of the south
are living with history,

coping with the
consequences of immigration,

greed, fear, and a
sequence of events

that have turned this place
upside down more than once.

I come to the end of my journey

at the church where
this story began.

How on Earth do the people
who suffered the attacks here

cope with the
horror of the racism

that has stopped the
south since the settlers

first arrived here.

Just with the thought
of this interview itself,

I'm teary eyed to
think that this

is what brought us together

but yet I'm grateful
because it gives me

an opportunity to
say to my brothers

and sisters around the
world, thank you for caring.

Thank you for praying
for us, remembering us,

and not forgetting about it.

Is there anything that
ought to be forgotten?

Are there any ideas that
need to be put in the past

and not taken into the future?

I think that each of
us, we are sum total

of our past, our present,
and our hope for the future

and so no, I wouldn't want
to disregard the past.

I'd wanna learn from it.

I'd wanna grow as a result of it

and we must embrace
our individuality

and celebrate it
and not be negative

as a result of it.

I believe that from
this can lead a path

of race relations
that's positive.

A path that will lead us to
a place of reconciliation,

of healing, and a place
of a healthier society.

Oh hey, come on.

(downbeat music)

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