i want to talk today about the ku klux klan the ku klux klan a freeze that my grandparents generation used in louisiana to refer, the militias the ku klux which are words that show the familiarity that only people who knew actual marauders in the white supremacist movement could use members of the ku klux klan from 150 years ago, when they first came together, did not see themselves as founders of a movement. they would not have thought that their great great grandchildren would be talking about them. and yet, not only are we talking about the ku klux, the angry and ignorant and officious gangs of reconstruction -- men who disguised themselves and hurt and sometimes kill people. not only are we talking about them, we are circulating ideas today that recall those of the ku klux. and we are perpetrating acts that resemble those carried out by the first klan. i hope you can see some pictures on the screen. let me take you to el paso, texas, in august 2019, were a marauder, a white terrorist killed 22 people. ruining the lives of hundreds. and this marauder writes a manifesto that talks a

the white league, the only difference between the white league and the ku klux klan is that the ku klux klan were secretive and the white league were not. thank god for the white league because they put the negro out of the seat of power. it was from aunt maude, the family historian that i first learned about our klansmen. 30 years later maude having died, my parents having died, i'm cleaning out the family house and find a batch of files. i began reading and i make a decision to tell the story of our klansmen. i go back and forth from connecticut to new orleans to look into the archives. i hire a researcher to help and the story takes shape. constant lecorn was born in 1832 to a french family in new orleans. he's the second of three sons. his parents gave his older brother the education and constant goes into a trade. he grows up a small, thin man, nervous and alert with sharp features, skinny nose and beautiful hands, an underbite and a furrowed brow. constant's parents were of the white class who start high and then lose their economic advantage. in new orleans, his parents were amon

in 1925, the ku klux klan could claim 5 million members, white and christian. it is likely for publicity reasons that this number was exaggerated. medicine the actual claim membership stood near 4 million. so 4 million klansman living in 1925, if you forward 100 years to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the year 2025, add up to 135 million white americans, 135 million form 50% of the white population of the united states. seen another way that means one of two whites have a family link to the ku klux klan every other white person if he or she knew the names of ancestors and wished to research their lives could produce clan family memoir. why retrieve from obscurity this bitter inability story about constant lacorn, a foot soldier in the first white militia? i have a personal motive, and that is that it bothers me. it feels like finding a corpse in the bedroom and i am disgusted and ashamed. i had an inkling that my great grand grandfather was a violent supremacist that i did not see until research just what this family member had gotten a lot of t

and so there's a law from 1871, it's called the ku klux klan act, and it makes it illegal to promote violence. and so -- and the defendants in the trial who are the heads of all the white nationalist groups that were marching there, the defendants in the trial say that what they were doing was protected speech. because we have the fest amendment. but the -- the first amendment. the first amendment does not protect speech that's meant to incite violence, so we'll see what happens over the course of the next month in the trial. but i bring this up because the violence that we saw in charlottesville on the university of virginia campus in august of 2017 has antecedents in our time period for today. so the first hinge that i want to say -- thing that i want to say is that in september 1928 the blood libel that -- had faced in russia made its way to the united states. it came to messina, new york, many a town where, by the way, the ku klux klan burned crosses on lawns and where a sneaky kind of anti-semitism -- not the open kind -- was seen as much more common. and a little girl had been

they convicted based on violations of virginia law but could not find for the plaintiffs on the ku klux klan act portion of the case. that's relevant to you because both yourself, right, and congressman bennie thompson of mississippi have lawsuits based on the ku klux klan act. are you concerned in a country where people don't want to know what it is and get uncomfortable and quite bluntly white juries are not going to be willing to find for you as a plaintiff or bennie thompson as based on the kkk act? >> well, joy, my case will be in the district court of washington d.c. now i believe that if it goes that far the jurors there will be able to follow the law. i have all the faith in the world that will believe the case. i also think it's pretty clear cut that donald trump over about a month period incited a mob, invited them to washington, warned the country it would be wild and spent 30 million dollar over a month promoing this stop the steal rally and at the rally told people if you don't fight like hell you won't have a country anymore after other people said it's time to take names

chief campo thought putting the words ku klux klan sign on my rain jacket and then wearing the ku kluxat he did. it was offensive and humiliating, beyond anything i've ever experienced -- in my entire career, in my life. >> cnn's athena jones is here with more. this is awful. to think you go to your workplace and they place this on your jacket and parade around in a hat, that that would be funny in some way. >> it is. it's a shocking incidence of a racist workplace harassment, coming from this officer's own police chief, targeting this one officer who at the time was the only black officer in this police department. we saw some of his reaction there. we can now tell you his attorneys are bringing what's called a discrimination charge in ohio's office of civil rights, the office of civil rights commission. that's where you bring discrimination charges because of this incident with this police chief, anthony campo and this kkk sign. on this video, you can't hear the audio. there's no audio included. but officer pool in this press conference told reporters what he was feeling and how he r

that's how the ku klux klan got damaged in the 1980s, when the southern poverty law center filed a lawsuit and not only got a judgment but broke them financially. we have to make sure that we have the ability to go after them financially and prosecute financial crimes, but go after even in a civil context. finally, i think we have to recognize -- this is going to be perhaps one of the biggest challenges. our social media platforms and our technology companies bear some responsibility to their public and to their users as well. just last night, we were seeing the "60 minutes" show with regard to the facebook whistle-blower. i'm not going to make any allegations one way or the other on that, per se. but i will say that we have got to balance this. we've got to get technology companies and the social media platforms engaged in this. because it can be a blessing, but also a curse and dangerous. again, thanks for this. great discussion, congressman. again, i want to encourage everybody that's interested, take a look at the program on the website. it's an outstanding piece of work. >> i'm going

go back to the ku klux klan in the immediate aftermath of the civil war proud boys today. by extremism we are not limiting you to those motivated by racial hatred, religious or ethnic hatred and division. it also includes those who just want to disrupt and overturned governments, think january 6 there were many people within that insurrection that had no affiliation whatsoever with the more white supremacist white nationalist groups. they want to disrupt democracy think timothy mcveigh if you think about his experience he was associated with white supremacist groups his primary motive is he wants to disrupt government and toppled government. he saw government's overreach. at that component then you have extremists who are single issue minded whether they are acting out on their views about abortion, about environmental issues, about animal rights for you seem extremist behavior as well in this single issue oriented people. but yes white supremacy and nationalism is probably the primary driver we are seeing in the military and across the country that is by fbi director ray

they came to new york, anytown were by the way the ku klux klan burn crosses on the lawns and where is nikki kind of anti-semitism, not the open kind that you seen this much more common and a little girl be sent by her parents and an afternoon in a center into the woods to find a brother who had been playing with his friends. so not long after her brother comes walking out the little girl never returns. so through the night, townsmen combed the woods looking for the little girl and then when they have not found her, someone we don't know who, but someone says, you know the jews are having a holiday and maybe they need blood. and at sundown on sunday evening, the next day would begin the holiest day of the jewish calendar, the day of atonement. and sometime sunday afternoon, the little girl was spotted on the roadway not far from her house and she had looked for her brother, fallen asleep, slept through the night, woke up but she was so lost and it her a while to find her way out. so she was unharmed pretty but that sunday evening, the jews made their way to the synagogue and angry mobs

in 1925 the ku klux klan could claim 5 million members, white and christian.s likely for publicity reasons this number was exaggerated. let's assume actual klan membership stood near 4 million. the descendants of 4 million klansman living in 1925 if you count forward 400 years to their children and great grandchildren to the year 2025, add to up about 135 million living white americans. 135 million form 50% of the white population of the united states. seen another way that means that 1 of 2 whites have a family link to the ku klux. every other white person if he or she knew the name of ancestors and wished to research their lives could produce a klan family memoir. >> watch this program and thousands more online at c-span.org/history. >>> up next another class from our series, lectures in history. >> so throughout the seminar you've been thinking about images during this 19th century period. and specifically today we're going to think about the ways images really constructed gender roles particularly in the 19th century can the ways activists used images to s

it is important to point out this was the strategy used to try to take down the ku klux klan in the jimcrow era and through the civil rights movement. there was some effectiveness there. but looking back in time and moving forward, we see one people group, one white supremacist group just morphs into new iterations of the same ideology. is bankrupting them enough to stamp out hate? i don't think so. i think of any people who study hate and extremism who know how extraordinary the threat is and financial damages simply won't be enough to do that. juan: in october, yuko wrote a piece with -- titled "the pretrials in america." what you find revealing and the connections of the three trials? >> every three years we get a series of cases that people look to to say, will the really, the outcome here finally be an indication we have made progress in terms of race and racial relations and racial justice? the case in kenosha and georgia, the charlottesville case, i really don't think you can get three bigger and more significant cases. charlottesville, about the rise of extremism, nazi-ism. our

in particular, the violence of the ku klux klan and their allies as they sought to sabotage reconstructionwe now have a constitution as interpreted by the supreme court that says that a state is under no constitutional obligations to stop a father from almost beating his son to death, and that is both a moral problem and it is a constitutional problem that we seek to address by marshaling the evidence that we do. host: staying with this thought of the utmost significance of the 14th amendment, let's listen to justice neil gorsuch talking about it in general and the equal protections clause in particular. this is from march of 2017. justice gorsuch: the port of originalism, textualism, what a good judge always strives to do, and what i think we all do, is try to understand what the words on the page mean, not import words that come from us, but apply what you come other people's representatives, the lawmakers have done. so when it comes to equal protection of the laws, it matters not a whit that the drafters of the constitution were racist, because they were, or sexist, because they were. t

the case was brought under a 140-year-old law known as the ku klux klan act that allows private lawsuits against people who conspire to violate civil rights several of the defendants told the jury, yes, they were violent. some even bragged about it but they say there was no conspiracy and that their exchange of racist social media posts amount to protected speech lawyers for those who filed the lawsuit say each of them should be awarded at least $3 to $10 million in damages. >> the damages that are sought here are sufficiently large to put the individuals and the groups that are accused into bankruptcy, to financially ruin those groups to prevent them from engaging in this kind of action in the future. >> reporter: the jury will likely deliberate several more days in a trial that could set a pattern for striking back at similar acts of violence in the future lester >> pete williams in washington, thank you. >>> after 46 years there may be a break in the disappearance of jimmy hoffa a tip reportedly from the son of a mafia associate led the fbi to a former landfill in new jersey where the

last week, a photo surfaced on social media of a student in a ku klux klan outfit at pittsburg high school. they didn't reveal the exact punishment, but they've learned that the boy was suspended for three days. today the students say that's simply not enough. here's robert handa. >> i feel like he should be expelled. >> reporter: the anger has not let up. today a large group of students at pittsburg high school put that frustration out in the open, upset that a fellow student, who was suspended for wearing a kkk costume last wednesday has not been expelled. >> he shouldn't have been allowed to wear it at lunch or anywhere around the school. i think more action should have been taken. >> reporter: today at lunch, students demonstrated both outside and inside the school. blasting the district for not taking the incident more seriously. in a letter to the community last week, the pittburg high principal said the student wore the kkk costume on a dare and didn't get caught for four periods because he only wore it briefly between classes. the suspended student and those who showed up with him

among these he included the ku klux klan. despite the inclinations of a missourian and veterans truman new that as president he could not sit idly by any longer and do nothing in the face of the glaring injustices occurring in the south. their response to defense at home icwas to make easy on civil rights truman responded the main difficulty with the south is that they are living 80 years behind the times and thesooner they come out of it the better it will be for the country and for themselves . as wwe will learn in a future with. , truman was allowed to desegregate from the military and federalworkforce . while history informed truman about our great republic he was also steep in knowledge of the challenge toour democracy . on june 16 he told reporters inquiring about the red scare read your history through jefferson's administration. the company didn't go to hell is going to now . truman was not ambivalent about communism and its threat to democracy. he assessed the situation and it was the same with thoseold birds in the

former president and rudy giuliani, along with some extremist groups, alleging they violated the ku kluxmacists to incite the violence at the capitol on january 6. as you watch what's happening in charlottesville, how do you think that that trial fit has any connection at all, will influence your case? >> understanding the act was created after the civil war had ended, and you had members of congress pursuing a course to carry out their sworn duty. and any time you have a disruption for members of congress from carrying out their sworn duty, that's a disruption and a violation of the act. and that's what we sued on. congressman thompson had to step downals the lead plaintiff. barb radio lee is now the lead plaintiff. but when you witness what took place on january 6, is falls squarely on what the framers of the act intended, that members of congress-- senate or house members -- should not be under anatfin violce, that woud ent duty.--wioheer >> banto quickly ask you about the current president. his approval rating among black voters has dipped. 65% approve, 35 purpose disapprove, accordi

it was under the aptly named, passed in 1871 ku klux klan act, for the reconstruction racial violence head in charlottesville. so certainly that was the main focus of the plaintiffs, and they'll have to think about whether they want to go back for it. on the other hand, this money effort to actually hit the white nationalists in their pocketbook is overall very effective because they are not well healed, the 3 percenters, the proud boys, the other folks here, what they might end up having to pay could be ruinous for them. it's more than a consolation prize, but without doubt, they wanted to show the racially motivated violence under the ku klux klan, the jury was deadlocked. it wasn't because of the first amendment. first amendment would not apply here. it was rather because they couldn't agree, was this really a conspiracy for racial violence as opposed to general mayhem. >> jason carroll, i know you're getting new information. tell us. >> reporter: just to add a little bit more, alisyn, when you talk about conspiracy because it was outlined during the jury instructions what exactly

among these including the ku klux klan. truman knew that as president he couldn't sit i'dly by and do nothing in the face of the glaring injustices occurring in the south. in response to a letter from home advising him to take it easy on kivrl rights. truman spoded the main difficulty with the south that is that they are living 80 years before behind the times and the sooner they come out it the better it will be for the country. as we looked to upcoming whistle stops truman would degrate the military and federal workforce. while history informed truman about our great republic he was also steeped in knowledge ever the challenges of our democracy. on june 16th 1949 he told reporters inquiring about the red scare, read your history through jefferson's administration hysteria died down and the country didn't go to hell and it isn't going to now. he was not ambivalent about communism and threat to democracy. he read plu tark's rise given by miss father to assess the situation. it was the same with the old birds in greece and r

we do want to warn you some viewers may find these images of the ku klux klan outfit disturbing pittsburgh high school's principal says the student admitted to wearing it on a dare during a costume contest at lunch he participate in a restorative justice process to learn how his actions have impacted and harmed others. at san jose state protesting faculty members greeted the chancellor of the california state university system today. they say they want to be compensated for the work. they've done throughout the pandemic but as abc 7 news reporter dustin dorsey explains, the staff says they're contract does not reflect that. a rare rainy day at san jose state university monday, but not even the weather could drown out the calls for fairness by sjsu faculty. it's just been a year of hell. it really has given. everything that we put into our students everything we've all been through we've all been working hard without a race and people are struggling the california faculty association is asking for a 4% raise for 2020 to 2022 after two years of negotiations have resulted in an impasse the sj

that's how the ku klux klan got damaged in the 1980s. that got a judgment and broke them financially. we have to go after them financially and prosecute financial crimes but go after in the civil context. our social media platforms bear some responsibility to their public and to their users as well. i'm not going to make any allegations one way or the other on that, per se. i will say we got to balance this and get the technology companies and social media platform engaged in this because it can be a blessing but also a curse. i want to encourage everybody that's interested to take a look at the program that's on the website. thank you. i'm going to interview another senior fellow to start addressing some of the audience questions. the kwirs question i'm going to direct to you, simon is a significant cricket contributor to blue print. give p your expertise in significant contributions, can you talk about whether the administration is taking the threat of domestic extremism, particularly white supremacy seriously and what actions you have

. >> at a time of extreme prejudice any the 1920's and 1930's, for instance, the ku klux klan was inansas city in 1922 for a convention should 10,000 klansmen did a parade down main street, grand avenue. while in the convention, one of their chance was goodbye tom, goodbye joe. your cooking gang has got to go. what they were referring to was tom pendergast and joe shannon who was sometimes his ally and sometimes his competitor. one of the reasons the ku klux klan targeted tom pendergast was he was later described as a man of equal opportunity craft. he treated african-americans as voters first and foremost. he helped any group that needed it as long as they were registered to vote. i think that is another side of the pendergast machine that maybe was not copied, was not replicated in other cities. he reached out and worked with all the different communities, black, white when it came to election day because everybody's vote was the same. >> eventually, the late 1930's, 1937, 1938, he got involved in an insurance kickback scheme should actually, the scheme is not clear whether he brok

in 1925 the ku klux klan could claim 5 million members, white and christian. now, it's likely for publicity reasons that this number was exaggerated. let's assume that actual klan membership stood near 4 million. the sentence of 4 million klansman living in 1925, if you count forward 100 years to their grandchildren and great grandchildren to the year 2025, add up to about 135 million living white americans. 135 million form 50% of the white population of the united states. seen another way, that means 1 of 2 whites have a family link to the ku klux. every other person if he or she knew the names of ancestors and wished to research their lives, could produce a klan family memoir. >> watch this program and thousands more online at c-span.org/history. stay up-to-date on the latest in publishing with new podcasts about pooks. we look at industry news and trends through insider interviews as well as reporting on the latest nonfiction releases and best-seller list. you can find on all our podcasts on the c-span now app or wherever you get your podcasts. you can als

put an end to this terrible condition, white people joined together in a club which they named the ku klux klan. members dressed as ghosts and scared lawless men into acting decently. on moon lit nights, they could be seen riding to bring order back into the lives of their people. such sights frightened negros into living better lives. the names of the men who had done wrong were listed. the next moonlit night the klan would visit the men and punish them according to the wrongs they had done. lawless men were not so bold and crime became less and less. on that note, i will stop here and i will answer a few questions from carol. then i will take questions from all of you. thank you very much for listening. >> thank you, david. it is a wonderful introduction to what is a very powerful book. it's really gripping to see what is going on. one of the things that just amazed me so much about the book was some of your sources were these things the perpetrators of this coup had very proudly written for the rest of the world to see and give them accolades for what they were doing to bring what they

think they have great taste, i don't ask them about the resume, joe biden eulogized creed of the ku kluxhat he knew robert byrd was in the clan when he eulogized him. i think barack knew who farrakhan was, and buried by reverend wright, does that mean that barack obama is an anti-semite? does that mean joe biden is a klansman? of course it doesn't, but that's the analogy and it's bogus. i have never seen anybody look so different than what they are portrayed on in the media. i was impressed, he looked like a guy you could have over for thanksgiving dinner, who would you rather have babysit your children? him or roosevelt? i think he wants kyle rittenhouse there, moving from demonizing politicians to demonizing regular people, now they go after the nick sandmann, they go after -- they go after parents for speaking out in the american people have seen that, they are repulsed by it and i hope hunter really did hold ten for the big guy, because joe might have to pony up some dough. >> brian: i saw the jonathan turley came on this afternoon, and set as a public figure, whoopi goldberg and peo

capital and some of the participants carried assault rifles, with one of the protesters, a former ku klux klan leader, who leads american patriots usa, entered the capi l ol unarmed, looking for me, the state patrol decided it would be best if i left. are you still under threat from people because of your actions in the 2020 election? guest: i'm not getting too many texts or phone calls. you get a few from time to time. but nothing to the magnitude that we saw during the postelection. that's what my january 6 looked like. we were working on getting that letter done and we did not realize what was going on in d.c. until i got home later and turned on the tv. i saw the mayhem that was going on. host: do you feel like members of the georgia delegation, the house delegation, listened to what you had to say in the letter you sent to them? guest: it's very interesting. they said everything was fair and above board. in the presidential race, -- he did that. that shows he is a double minded person. that is a pastor. he should know better. this will help set the table and tell you the story on wha

the civil war to honor battlefield heroes, they were erected in 1924 as symbols of white power, the ku klux klan held a parade to celebrate statues and we got around to discussing the dining school. follow my premise and i will let you take away to explain the dining school. i alluded to it before his children and young adults, who have a certain set of values, beliefs, narratives and when introduced to new ideas it can be quite jarring to the senses, the dining school interpretation of the confederacy and reconstruction, from crazy guy and left field, a prestigious ivy league university, that narrative dominated scholarship for half a century so what was the dining school and why is it important? and why is that important for this discussion? >> dunning was historian at colombia university, he had a lot of influence on the ways in which historians wrote about reconstruction and their argument in a nutshell was reconstruction was a failure, it was corrupt and the heroes of the period were the redeemers, the people, white southerners who basically drove the black and white republicans out of

to this terrible condition, white people joined together in the sort of club which they named the ku klux klan and at night the men can be seen on horseback riding bring order to the lives of the people and such sights frightened negro people. negro or white who had done wrong were listed. the klan would visit the men and punish them according to wrongs they had done after the lawless men was no so bold and crime became less and less, end quote. on that note, i will stop here and answer a few questions from carole and i will take questions from all of you. thank you very much for listening. >> thank you, dared. it really is a wonderful introduction to what is a very powerful book and it is really gripping to see what is going on and -- and one to have things that just amazed me so much about the book was some of your sources were these -- these things that the perpetrators of this coup had proudly written for the rest of the world to see and -- and give them accolades for what they were doing to bring what they believed in their heads was good government. >> exactly, i thought that was on

1971, long into student distinguished career, perhaps to overcome the stigma of being having been a ku kluxn member, and then he was nominated to the court, he charted and a gala terry and pat. by the late 1940s, really was becoming the leading civil libertarian liberal liberties justice. i think he's very important. i have two children, i don't pick favored children, i look at these justices and look at it's an all-star team. it's quite a talented roster with almost no exceptions. >> i would say black also. it's interesting that roosevelt claim -- he was blindsided he, didn't really do his homework on black in regards to the klan membership. but it was also interesting that there was this deal two point joke robinson to the bench after they retired all through the court packing literally work insulin and died before he could be both pointed to the court. roosevelt turned on him and he was afraid as a southern he wouldn't carry through this liberal agenda. he left robinson hanging, and a very sad episode in history. robinson, i found it his best friend was bernard baroque. i did know that.

to speak on it on page 220 it says in 1922 when facing off against the ku klux klan, there are two versionsf the story, both begin with the mayoral election. the candidates were at odds with her to establish a local high school for black students, and openly organize blackwater turnouts. clan members aimed to stop her, directly to destroy her school. one version of the story goes that on election eve, this is the where i part i get chills i'm so overwhelmed with emotion reading this, marched on the campus, while bassoon stood out in the open, arms folded in defiance, asked the students well fire carefully stood like sentries across the ground, the mob went past but then departed without leaving a mark on the campus or its leadership. the following morning the sun rose, she remained a watchful presence throughout the day and it goes on and i to toss it over to you, talk about the legacy of these women standing in the gap for black liberation and being the vanguard, paving the way, if you could speak to that legacy and what that informs us and tells us about the long legacy of black women pla

prosecutors, instead, this case is brought by private litigants under a 150-year-old law called the ku klux law was enacted after the civil war to allow private citizens to sue other citizens for civil rights violations in federal court. but like a prosecutor, they must still prove their case. the defendants claim they were simply exercising their first amendment right to protest because law enforcement failed to maintain order and they only reacted to violence they did not initiate it. well, the jury will be back tomorrow morning for now a third day of deliberations and those 12 jurors they have been asked to decide whether there were very fine people on both sides or just right and wrong. next, getting kyle rittenhouse's first interview as two come -- commentators quit the network quoting his quote unquote reporting. stay with us. s' vapostick. it goes on clear and dries quickly. no mess. just the soothing vicks' vapor for the whole family. introducing new vicks vapostick. wow... that's so nice! is that a photo of tepechitlan? yeah! the gift of ancestry®, is a walk through your history. d

the jury was deadlocked, because those -- i understood those to be the ones that emerged from the ku kluxng. the federal charges related to whether the defendants had engaged in a race-based violent conspiracy, which is illegal under an 1871 federal law known as the kkk act. that was designed to prevent vigilantes from denying newly-freed slaves their civil rights. the plaintiffs said they would seek a retrial on the federal charges. explain that and tell us what that looks like. >> the federal civil rights charges are powerful charges that can be used in situations like this. we don't have any indication yet why the jury hung. we do know that the judge encouraged them to try to deliberate through the problems that they were having and ultimately they said they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict so whether that means one or two jurors were having trouble or whether overall there was a concern, we just don't know. but now, the lawyers who brought this case can turn around and can ask if they choose to have those charges retried. i don't know, frankly, nicole, whether they will. they'