Tulsa Race Riots

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Tulsa R ace Riots By Carmela Swinton During the early 1920s, the United States of America went through many significant changes both social and political. The Ku Klux Klan was reformed for the second time, racial segregation was common, and lynching and assault was common through the USA particularly the Southern area. These changes would develop racial tensions between the traditional White Anglo Saxon Protestant and that of the African Americans and other minority groups. Such racial tensions would eventually lead to many race riots including the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a racist, anti-Semitic movement with a commitment to extreme violence to achieve its goal for racial segregation and white supremacy. The KKK still exist today, however not to the same extreme as the Klan in its golden era in the 1920s. (1) The KKK was formerly established in 1866 by seven confederate civil war veterans, which focused its anger and violence on African Americans and on governments who supported the rights of African Americans. The whole purpose of the Klan was to “protect” the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture which was an old traditional cultural group; church on Sundays etc. and also to protect old American Values. The 1920s became the golden age of the KKK, an era which consisted of many different marches, public speeches and open recruitment, all to promote the extension of membership because more membership meant better influence therefore more power over people. At the beginning of the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan had over One-Hundred-Thousand members and at its height in 1925, had over five million. As members of the Ku Klux Klan, members were made to swear an oath of loyalty to the United States of America, promising to oppose ‘any cause, government, people, sect or ruler that is foreign to the USA.” (2) This meant that members of the group

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