Image: Klan rally in front of the U.S. Capital, 1926.

Books

Shawn Alexander: Reconstruction Violence and the Ku Klux Klan Hearings: A Brief History with Documents.

Kelly J. Baker: Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930.

Kathleen M. Blee: Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s.

David M. Chalmers: Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan.       

Timothy Egan: A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them.

Linda Gordon: The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition.

Felix Harcourt: Ku Klux Kulture: America and the Klan in the 1920s.

Charles Lane: Freedom’s Detective: The Secret Service, the Ku Klux Klan and the Man Who Masterminded America’s First War on Terror.

Shawn Lay: War, Revolution, and the Ku Klux Klan: A Study of Intolerance in a Border City.

Laurence Leamer: The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan.

Nancy K. MacLean: Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan.

 Rory McVeigh: The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan: Right-Wing Movements and National Politics.

Stanley Nelson: Devils Walking: Klan Murders along the Mississippi in the 1960s.

Scott Reynolds Nelson: Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Klan Violence, and Reconstruction.

Elaine Frantz Parsons: Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction.

Articles

Shaun Assael and Peter Keating: The Massacre That Spawned the Alt-Right: Forty years ago, a gang of Klansmen and Nazis murdered five communists in broad daylight. America has never been the same.

Lewis Beale: The Secret Service Agent Who Jailed the KKK and Paved the Way to Guantanamo.

Knute Berger: Our dishonorable past: KKK’s Western roots date to 1868.

Emily Cataneo: A Brief History of the Women’s KKK: The Women’s KKK, an affiliated-but-separate racist organization for white Protestant women, courted members through an insincere “empowerment feminism.”

Scott Detrow: KKK Paper Endorses Trump; Campaign Calls Outlet ‘Repulsive’.

Camila Domonoske: Former KKK Leader David Duke Says ‘Of Course’ Trump Voters Are His Voters.

Camila Domonoske: Trump Fails To Condemn KKK On Television.

Linda Gordon:

• The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s.
• Ku Klux Klan, Then and Now.
• Meet the New Klan, Same as the Old Klan (Almost).
• When the Ku Klux Klan was a mass movement. 
• Interview with Linda Gordon: Why women have always been essential to white supremacist movements.
• Interview with Linda Gordon: The Last Time the KKK Surged in the United States.
• Review by Kevin Kruse: The Second Klan: Linda Gordon’s new book captures how white supremacy has long been part of our political mainstream.

FBI: Ex-Klansmen Charged in ’64 Slayings.

Matt Ford: America’s First ‘Fake News’ Crisis: When the Ku Klux Klan terrorized the South during Reconstruction, many people denied that the group even existed.

Felix Harcourt: White Supremacists Within: The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Atlanta.

Malcolm Harris: Lol Klans: A scholar of the Ku Klux Klan explains how the KKK used the same trolling tactics as the alt-right.

Eric Herschthal: The KKK’s Attempt to Define America.

Robin D.G. Kelley: Births of a Nation: Surveying Trumpland with Cedric Robinson.

Alison Kinney: How the Klan Got Its Hood: Members of the Ku Klux Klan did not wear their distinctive white uniform until Hollywood—and a mail-order catalog—intervened.

Nancy K. MacLean: America’s Brush With Fascism: The second KKK shared a disquieting kinship with European fascist movements. Why did it fail to take over American politics?

Raphael Magarik: The Ku Klux Klan Was A Lot More Mainstream Than You Think.       

Jennifer Mendelsohn and Peter A. Shulman: How social media spread a historical lie: A mix of journalistic mistakes and partisan hackery advanced a pernicious lie about Democrats and the Klan.

Stanley Nelson: The story behind Natchez Burning.

Many articles by Stanley Nelson at The Civil Rights Cold Case Project, including this series on the KKK terrorist cell “The Silver Dollar Group.”

Elaine Frantz Parsons: We Don’t Have Enough Contempt for Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Elaine Frantz Parsons:  Sympathy for the Ku-Klux.  (Article is a history of justifying or denying the Klan’s violence.)

Mark Potok: The Curious Case of Daryl Davis, the Black Man Befriending Members of the KKK.

Clay Risen: The Ku Klux Klan’s Surprising History.

Michael S. Rosenwald: The Ku Klux Klan was dead. The first Hollywood blockbuster revived it.

Joshua D. Rothman: When Bigotry Paraded Through the Streets:A century ago, millions of Americans banded together in defense of white, Christian America and traditional morality—and most of their compatriots turned a blind eye to the Ku Klux Klan.

Michael Schaub: In ‘Freedom’s Detective,’ A Flawed But Remarkable Hiram Whitley Infiltrates The KKK.

Kevin Waite: The Forgotten History of the Western Klan: Whereas southern Klansmen assaulted Black Americans and their white allies, California vigilantes targeted Chinese immigrants.

Documentary

Klansville U.S.A.

Videos & Podcasts

John Burnett: Decades After Clashing With The Klan, A Thriving Vietnamese Community In Texas.

Code Switch: The Racist [Klan] History Behind The Iconic Selma Bridge.

Code Switch: 100 Years Later, What’s The Legacy Of ‘Birth Of A Nation’?

Daryl Davis: How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes.  See also his Ted Talk and hour-long discussion on C-SPAN.

Fresh Air: ‘Klansville, U.S.A.’ Chronicles The Rise And Fall Of The KKK.

Linda Gordon:

• Influence of the 1920s KKK on Politics and Culture.
• The Second Coming of the KKK.
• KKK Feminism. 
• The KKK And White Supremacy Today.
• Fred Trump and the KKK of the 1920s: Linda Gordon, plus Nancy MacLean on the Roots of the Radical Right.

Interview with Felix Harcourt: The media and the Ku Klux Klan.

Lin Fredericksen, discussing how Kansas became the only state to legally oust the Klan.

Dale Laackman: Public Relations and the Ku Klux Klan.

James H. Madison: Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s Midwest.     

James H. Madison: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana.

Stanley Nelson offering a lecture on his book Devils Walking: Klan Murders along the Mississippi in the 1960s.

Jane Newell, talking about how the Ku Klux Klan gained control of Anaheim, California’s, city government in the 1920s.

Elaine Frantz Parsons offering a lecture: Ku Klux Klan Costumes and Terrorism.

Elaine Frantz Parsons: Horns, Masks, and Women’s Dress: How the First Klan Used Costume to Build Domestic Terrorism.

Scott Simon: How A Black Detective Infiltrated The KKK. 

Other Resources

Wikimedia: Ku Klux Klan anti-Catholic cartoons.

Image: Ku Klux Klan members ride a Ferris wheel at a fairground in Colorado in 1926. Credit: The Royal Gorge Regional Museum and History Center.