KKK Photos: What Today's Klan Looks Like

Text from Life.com:

The Department of Homeland Security recently issued a chilling report: Americans, it said, can expect an upsurge in "rightwing extremism" from White nationalists, militias, and groups like the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan, of course, has had a hand in some of the nation's most infamous acts of racial terror and murder. But what does the KKK look like today? Photographer Anthony Karen has documented the modern-day Klan in their homes, at rallies, and at Klan gatherings, taking us deep inside a world we would otherwise never see -- a world most of us might not even want to know about. The unnerving photos featured here, exclusively on LIFE.com, are from his new book, "The Invisible Empire: Ku Klux Klan." "The majority of people I've come across," Karen told LIFE, "you'd only know they were in the Klan if they decided to share that."

See more photos at Life.com.

Comments

[PaulDHarvill]

I have taken meticulous notes from the auction lot and have conducted (and continuing to conduct) extensive research as names, addresses, secret numbers, etc. are provided.

Using the Polk City Directory and other resources, it was fairly easy to confirm the leaders of the Tallahassee Lucky 13 Club of the KKK.

To read my research results (thus far), please go to omy local newspaper's website: tallahassee.com. Then go to Opinion on the darker green bar below the masthead. Then to the lighter green bar to Forums. From there find National/I­nternation­al within the General News section. And within National/I­nternation­al is the thread " The Ku Klux Klan in Tallahassee area from 1949 to 1955".

If anyone can provide more information about the Tallahassee area KKK or the following, it would be most appreciated. My email address is paul_d_har­vill@yahoo­.com. If you want mail me the information, then email me and I'll email you my address. Yes, I do not fear the KKK.

And if anyone has any information regarding one of my maternal uncles, George Harbison of Clearwater, Florida, please send it to me. Uncle George was a member of the KKK in Clearwater. He was the treasurer or secretary for the American Party of Florida (George Wallace's political party vehicle to run for President) and he was a member of the John Birch Society. He died in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

[PoliticalRockChick]

I wrote this comment and it's never being displayed. WTF

[Winston Smith]

Posts have to get through the Ministry of Truth before they will be displayed. Seriously.

[AntiSheep13]

It is kind of odd though when so many ad hominem posts get through; But then comments that have actual logic end up getting censored.

[AntiSheep13]

Oops! I meant to say, "Actual logic that is relevant to the topic."

[thundermummy]

And they all chant "Drill Baby Drill!"

[mcmutter]

The GOP always has the best slogans. They're already working on the 2012 slogans.

[AntiSheep13]

Both political gangs engage in the consistent spewing of bumper sticker slogans.

[Krankil]

These guys agree with most of what is said in Faux News and talk radio. As a matter of fact, FN and talk radio are their main, if not the only, source of information.
Keith Olberman or Rachel can go ask them specific questions about their belief match their answers up with the rhetoric coming out of FN and tak radio and present a good segment to force Fzux News to respond or accept their status as a KKK mouthpiece.

[Vandy Vo]

it's getting more and more ridiculous

[Faxus]

It seems more like a Gay sexual fetish than racism. WEIRD.

[IDIOTA]

Are you saying that they're the KKGay? The Ku Klux Glans?

[texasrodeoqueen]

yeah, there is no tellin what goes on in the dark out there, in that crowd wearing all those sheets

[IDIOTA]

Seriously, though, the ceremony seems fetishistic, the white robes, the fire, the cross -- all symbols of purification. It hearkens back to something ancient. The imperial wizard is like a shaman, booze, the entheogen.

[Oldtt]

Mix equal parts of Reconstruction, fundamentalist Christianity, poverty, and ignorance and you have the KKK.

[IDIOTA]

That young guy looks real purty for a white supremacist. Is that his sugar daddy in the overalls?

[Winston Smith]

they met in the showers

[IDIOTA]

The golden showers?

[chaunpop]

sad...

[FrTown]

@nd picture: Racists are not born, they are made. Sadly in this photo by the mother.

[CreekCM]

That picture just breaks my heart. He's so innocent looking, and yet his life is already set out for him unless he finds a way and a reason to think differently.

[madisonhack]

Criminal child abuse.

[texasrodeoqueen]

I saw some high-heeled red sandals and red painted toenails sticking out underneath those sheets

[Oldtt]

So are wife-beaters and child abusers - they just don't wear costumes. I don't care how people dress. All societal groups wear some kind of self-identifying "uniform." I just care how they act toward others. If they all wore sheets and worked at food kitchens feeding the hungry, no one would care what they looked like. A lot of people - including some nuns - think that nuns' outfits look weird. So be it. We can't legislate attitudes, we can only enforce laws to protect the rest of us.

[MoeB]

Well said.

[Winston Smith]

So the gist I'm getting is that HPosters think we should try to create some kind of thought police?

[Ohsnap]

Isn't that basically what the KKK does?

[Winston Smith]

they're too dumb to even consider it.

[MisterHands]

And you want l.ynchings.

[Winston Smith]

huh? I'm just saying that people will believe what they want to. We have laws to limit acting on those beliefs when those actions are out of line with the ideals of the country.

Of course it is our right to condemn these people verbally as well. Just trying to keep people from getting too sucked into it.

[IDIOTA]

The HP moderators are already doing that.

[MalloMel]

Some people seem to think that these type of people are only a small minority. I don't think so. I think that you will find that about 20 something percent, maybe even close to 30 percent, in this country think the way that they do. Not all of them wear white sheets.

[Winston Smith]

What exactly do you think they think? and how do you come to your conclusion?

[MalloMel]

You have some idea as to the way that they think. Don't try to act d*umb.

[Ohsnap]

Am I to believe that the KKK is a harmless organization that just has bake sales? There isn't many other meanings--OK NO other meanings of a swastika than to incite fear in those who aren't part of the "Aryan race."

Quit trying to pass the KKK off as harmless, free speech. It is not.

[texasrodeoqueen]

no, a lot of them wear Brooks Brothers suits and hang around capitol hill
and some hunt moose and quail

[bccmeteorites]

While many see the traditional symbols of racism, hate, and discrimination which are easy to decipher. The real threat and those holding minorities back wear suits and ties with college degrees, and have woven themselves into the fabric of societal "mainstream". In banking, finance, insurance, In civil service organizations (fire and police departments). Your local prosecutor, Judges, attorneys, educators and college professors. They're everywhere. The link below show what they look like in colleges and universities.

http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html

[Cybersquirt]

Yeah. Makes me almost appreciate the dude with the "racist" tattoo across his forehead.

[CreekCM]

Hmmm, like Sessions, for example?

[arpaul]

The little kid is saying, "When I grow up I plan to run for City Council in Atwater, California."

[mcmutter]

...or some Christian town in Colorado

[nycwerewolf]

Scary.

[southernpoet]

I am a native Alabamian and I've never met more than a couple of hardcore KKK members. I'm sure they are out there, but fortunately so, even in the rural South, they are considered a fringe group by most. What is much more disturbing is how rare it is to shoot the bull with a white preacher or policeman who can refrain from making a racist joke for more than fifteen minutes. As scary as he looks, the guy with the word "racist" tattooed on his forehead has no power. He probably couldn't walk down the road without being picked up by the cops. The invisible racism which exists among the middle class rotary club, chamber of commerce, first baptist church crowd (many of them "McCain democrats" who are still sore about the election) is much more worrisome.

[dutchman]

Excellent post. Thank you.

[wayicit]

Thanks for your post!

[FanofPaine]

faved. I always say the racists that hold power are the ones that are scary and most of them do not broadcast their racism.

[madisonhack]

Fanned.

[YouDisgustMe]

VERY WELL SAID.