RedHanded - ShortHand: The Klu Klux Klan

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

The KKK are the OG far-right trolls: one of the most evil groups in US history, and the best-known purveyors of white racism in the United States. They have been responsible for countless deaths and acts of discrimination – but where did it all begin? And what do wizards and dragons have to do with it? This is the ShortHand. --Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

I'm Forrest. Forrest Gump. That's not what I was expecting you to say. Because Forrest Gump is named after the founder of the KKK. Is he really? Wow. It's right at the beginning of the film, which I know you haven't watched. I haven't watched it. I feel like I know too much about it now. You always say that.

You're like, oh, like people talk about it, so I feel like I've seen it. And I'm like, that's not the point. I know, I know. Instead, I spent random moments of my bank holiday. watching The Ultimatum South Africa, which honestly, if we have any South African fans watching, listening.

We definitely do because I don't shut up about it. Please, please, please, tell me. DM me on Instagram because I don't always like read all of the comments everywhere and like it's hard to keep track of. DM me your thoughts on what the fuck has been going on

on the ultimatum South Africa. I have so many opinions. I'll talk about it on Under the Duvee next week, but I need to know what you think. I was actually in the pub the other day and these two girls came up to me and we're like, oh, like, love your podcast, blah, blah, blah, blah. And also, we weren't sure whether we should come up to you, but we're South African, so we knew that you would love us. I was like, yes, fair, fair, fair, fair.

I actually thinking about unfollowing my friends who have just moved there because the spam I am getting of beauty is making me depressed. Anybody. We're not going to talk about South Africa today. today we are confronting head-on the epitome of evil. And evil is not a word we use on this show. Well, we can use it on this one. Red-handed, maybe not. We're going to talk about a group that has since 1865

morphed from being a secret society to a pyramid scheme on steroids and then a paramilitary army brimming with shaved-headed bigots. But through every metamorphosis of the Klu-Clux Klan, one thing has remained the same, an unshakable commitment to racial terror and white supremacy. This is the story of America's first terrorist group, otherwise known as the KKK. Here is the shorthand.

First we have to rewind the clock to the birth of the original KKK. It was the 1860s and America's Civil War was in full swing. The northern and southern states were fighting. over a whole messy grab bag of political, social and economic issues. The North had become industrial and commercial, while the South was all about farming and agriculture. But the main point of conflict was slaves. The southern economy was fuelled by cotton,

America's most exported commodity, and cotton was picked and processed by slaves. At this time, owning slaves was like the ultimate status symbol and made plantation owners very, very wealthy. The North had a steady flow of European immigrants willing to work in their factories, so A, they didn't need slaves, and B, Europe was done with slave labour. So the northern states were like, oh, maybe this is pretty barbaric. So the South became a one-crop economy.

The seeds of both cotton and white supremacy were sown. And this is pretty central to the birth of the KKK. In recent studies, there's a clear link between cotton-growing areas and where the KKK was most rampant. I was actually listening to an interesting interview about this whole premise of like slavery back then, yes, obviously the transatlantic slave trade was a very specific type of evil that was done during that time.

But slavery for all of human history up until the point that, you know, we're going to talk about, it was normal. And there was obviously different levels of it. Obviously the idea now of any sort of slavery is abhorrent to our modern minds. But, you know, indentured servitude. even in this country, you know, like, peasants who were living off the land. So you had, like, your lord and you worked for them. And there's like, you know, the argument there of like, of course it was horrible.

But like if you didn't live under a lord, your life would be objectively even worse if you were just like outliving in the wilderness. It's not in any way like that was an okay way to be living. But lots of arguments, obviously, like I said, the transatlantic slave trade, very, very different to that. But I think it's important to note that like wherever they were black slave, they were Irish indentured. workers to the point where a lot of Caribbean and southern black American folklore is the same. And even, can you dig it, comes from the Irish and dig into, which means do you understand? And I think, you know, the point the podcast was making was this idea of like when Europe, which was the first like place that we were like, okay, maybe this is barbaric.

It was also coming alongside progress that was meaning that we didn't need it anymore. we weren't as a labour-intensive a part of the world. So it was easier for people to get to the point where they were like, maybe this is barbaric and we shouldn't be doing this. That's what you see here. When the country or that part of the world doesn't need slave labor anymore because it can run efficiently without it is when you see a move away from it. But in the South, that wasn't the case.

So they're really doubling down on it. And like we said, very, very central to the birth of the KKK. So when slavery was abolished in the US in 1865, the fragile men of the South did freak out. It was a pretty significant hit to their mojo, and they were very used to being able to delegate all of their grunt work. So all across southern states, people saw the freeing of slaves as a threat to their jobs

and to their place in society, and inevitably, to their masculinity. Around this time, a group of former Confederate soldiers decided to form a secret society to assert their white supremacy. This secret society was named Clue Clue. inspired by the Greek word, Cucloss, which means circle. Obviously, this was spelled with a K because even diehard racists

had a soft spot for alliteration. Founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, the Clu Klux started as a club, like a no homers. We're allowed wine. It's no gomers. And though that sounds trivial considering how dangerous they would become,

do what you're told and hear us out. The Clu Clu Clux would dress up in white bed sheets and ride around on horses. They had this rogue initiation ceremony where new members would be initiated with a royal crown that was actually two large donkey ears. The Clu Clux clan was like an after-hours prank squad, filled with what sounds like those kids from school who would find flipping their eyelids inside out to be the height of comedic genius. One of their so-

I was just about to do it, I'm not going to do it. Oh no, don't. I've just had a sty, no thanks. Now one of their so-called pranks was to go to black households and keep asking for a drink of water, which they secretly funneled into a bottle hidden under their ropes.

They'd then dramatically declared that they hadn't had a drink since they died on the battlefield at Shiloh and Gallup away. Okay. Still, naturally, these unhinged antics were pretty frightening to the newly freed black. people. By 1868, different clan groups had popped up and decided to unite under the leadership

of Nathan Bedford Forest. Forest Gump. Yeah. The KKK's first Grand Wizard. It's just so, so lame. So yeah, the Grand Wizard title was likely inspired by Forrest's wartime nickname, the Wizard of the Saddle, as he was known for skillfully using cavalry in battle. Which battle are we talking about? Is it him riding around with his friends? Because that is the impression I get. I mean, is it the civil war? Pass.

Yes. I assume it's the civil war when he's fighting for the South and riding around on his horse. Yes, on his horsey. And everybody's like, he's the wizard of the saddle. I don't know what accent that was. But, you know. And yeah, if you ever did wonder where that incredibly lame name, name the Grand Wizard came from. Now you know. Now you do know. And ridiculous it may be,

but it did stick. And the KKK became known for their ridiculous titles, which do sound more like dodgy, dungeons and dragons characters. That's incredibly hard to say than a domestic terrorist group, but let's not forget that is what they are. But also, it was pretty standard for secret societies at the time. And the buffoonery did not stop there. Early clans, Mansmen wore animal horns and polka-dotted hats and imitated barnyard animals, which shall we all just picture together? Fully grown men on horses, wearing bedsheets and mooing like a cow. Yeah.

And love, again, it's like it sounds incredibly comical and buffoonish, but very much like the pranks that made no sense when I read it out must have been terrifying to the newly freed black folk who would have. been watching these men doing this. Absolutely. Fucking hell. Like, and it, yes, it does sound funny, but it all got very ugly, very quickly. Mutilations, floggings, lynchings and shootings spread across the South until the mid-1870s.

And that's when the clan started to fade away. Congress was sick of the violence. And anyway, the Jim Crow laws had just codified racism in the law of the land. But then the clan had a second wind. as you'll learn very quickly the history of the KKK is really like a game of whack-a-mom. The roaring 20s was arguably peak KKK. That is, until a high-profile sex scandal brought it all undone.

That's what I find so interesting about, like, I think we have a common thing of this, like, nostalgic for the 20s and also for the 50s when you have all those, like, do-wop girl groups. And I'm like, oh, yeah, let's go back to when we didn't have the fucking vote. But the 20s has that, like, thing about it, that we sort of idolize it a bit. It's like very glamorous, isn't it?

But also, basically everyone who you're watching in the Great Gatsby was a fucking fascist. You can't leave that bit out. But before we get into this sex scandal that brought down the KKK at its peak, let's pack up a bit. There were essentially three things behind the KKK's 1920s resurgence. A movie, a lynching, and effective marketing.

In 1915, America's first... ever blockbuster, the birth of a nation, was released. It was like the Avatar or Star Wars of the time. Only really, really racist. Have you seen it? No, I haven't seen it. I have. What it is, is a white man in blackface raping a woman, basically.

Lovely. And then he gets lynched. Got you. So yeah, the birth of a nation was three hours of racist propaganda that portrayed the original Pukukukes clan as this white feminist superhero squad, which saved America from the reconstruction period. It was a smash hit.

It was shown in the White House. President Woodrow Wilson was a fan. And the new CluClock's clan were essentially a bunch of idiots cosplaying this film. I would like to say that I didn't watch all three hours. I was going to say that's quite the commitment. You don't need to. You get the idea in the first ten.

Got it. Anyway, around this very same time, a Jewish man called Leo Frank was convicted of the rape and murder of his 13-year-old employee, Mary Fagan. The evidence against him was largely circumstantial, but while Frank was in prison, a group calling themselves the knights of Mary Fagan, abducted him from his cell and lynched him.

This act was celebrated across the state of Georgia, and shops even sold postcards and souvenirs of the lynching. In this climate of anti-Semitism and pro-KKK sentiment, along came a former minister called William Simmons. A man who, bedridden after a car accident, just had a bit too much time on his hands. Simmons decided to create a new club with a K, the Knights of the Klu-Kucks clan. To mark the start of a new era, he declared himself the Grand Wizard. He even burned a cross, a ritual straight out of the birth of a nation,

but not actually practiced by the original KKK. This clan had a beefed-up list of enemies, which now included, Asians, immigrants, bootleggers, dope, graft, nightclubs and roadhouses, violation of the Sabbath, sex, pre and extramarital escapades, and scandalous behaviour of any sort. What do they mean by graft? Like work? Surely not. Maybe it's like grift. Oh, maybe, maybe.

So yeah, what do they mean by scandalous behaviour? I mean, it was anything ranging from listening to jazz music or women just wearing shortish stuff. Smoking those jazz cigarette. This new KKK lived and breathed by a book which was called the Chloran. Oh my God. These guys, they're like, again, I don't want to dismiss how dangerous they were. Yeah, yeah. But they're just like trolls.

They're coming across like trolls. Very edgy. Yeah, edge lords all round. And the Chloran. I'm going to try. again and say it with a straight face. It's very difficult. I, as you say, don't want to dismiss how awful this is, but it's like, I mean, obviously

it's supposed to be a play on the Quran, which they hate that. They don't like the Asians. I don't. Anyway, so the Cloran outlined the rituals and duties at each member of their twisted hierarchy. In actuality, it's quite racist fan fiction. The Imperial Wizard is the big guy, the big boss, the big man on top, and then the Grand Dragons are regional managers, and then the exalted Cyclops runs the local factions.

However, things really kicked off when Simmons hired a paid recruiter to turn the KKK into a giant pyramid scheme. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Salesmen were called kegels. I don't know if any of them. them would even have known what a pelvic floor is. And they all received commissions by selling ridiculous robes and hoods, which are coincidentally pyramid-shaped.

And they also charged initiation fees called a collectigan. Oh my God. Fuck it. Oh, trolls. Trolls, trolls. And a collectican would cost you about $150 in today's money. Wow. And they even had clan-branded insurance policies, life insurance policies.

Great. And a side note on the KKK, members were not allowed to DIY their robes. So they had to buy the official KKK ropes, which is fair. Couldn't just go to Dunelm. We let you guys just have your counterfeit merch all over the place. We've seen it. We've seen other live tours. Everyone wearing counterfeit merch left, right and centre.

We allow it. KKK do not allow it. one of the few differences between red-handed and the KKK. And these robes and hoods that the Kegels were out there selling were made at very specific factories for around $2, which is like £25 in today's money. And then they had to be purchased directly from the Kegels for $6.50, which is about £85 in today's money. Oh my God, that is just outrageous. Now look, I'm not going to cry any tears for racists getting ripped off.

But it really does stand to show that we could learn a thing or two because our merch prophets are dog shit. Anyway, another side note on the robes. Supposedly, they were meant to mimic the ghosts of the Confederate soldiers. But then others said it was a nod to white Protestant Christianity. But strictly, Protestants, Catholics and co, were not allowed in the KKK. So, like, what they're actually referring to, don't know. Either way, the KKK leaders made absolute bank.

The Indiana clan leader pulled in around $200,000 annually, which in today's money is more than $3 million or more than $2.3 million a year. And that's just one state. Hmm. Now, as we mentioned before, this iteration of the clan was obviously blatantly racist, but also with a fun puritanical political twist. People literally thought of the KKK. as good, noble and law-abiding citizens who are protecting other citizens from their worst nightmares,

immigration, communism, hedonism, and corruption. KKK members from the 1960s onwards are thought of as weird people who probably couldn't pass a primary school literacy test, which is exactly what happened on Jerry Springer. But back in the 20s, members of the KKK were highly educated, well above the national average even, and they were rich. That's why Forrest Gunt was named after one. Obviously, this secret society trend was quite eerie-specific, but white American men never seemed to tire of their love of exclusive social clubs,

which if you have several days to kill, you can take yourself over to Spotify and listen to sinister societies, where we covered quite a few of them. We did. Also the Asian men, because they were scamming you lot with yoga. taking your bitches, taking your money. Hide your kids, hide your wife. Yoga's coming. The Indians are invading.

And to be honest, it is still present today. All you have to look at is the US fraternity culture where one swipe of an amex can buy yourself a network far away from the common people. I am constantly amazed by the frat system. I don't understand it at all, but when I was in Rome there was a lot of American tourists around and we would sit near them in restaurants.

And look, I love Americans, I've said it before, love America, love Americans. But yeah, loads of talk of frats. And I think it was a lot of people who, like, college students who were like on holiday. Sure. And I was like, I'm so fascinated. By the mid-1920s, the KKK had burglians of members, but actually just millions. And they would rape and murder and lynch hundreds, if not thousands of people who were obviously primarily African Americans. We don't know exactly how many people nor how many.

many KKK members there were, as records from that time are pretty incomplete and totally unreliable. And quite a lot of the time they get away with it because many of the KKK held positions of authority. And as we all know, people in power in the south of the United States can get away with murder. Please see our episode on the Murdox. Plus, politicians didn't want to piss off white Protestant voters. That's a huge demographic that you're going to be turning away from the ballot box. So they did nothing. There was very little accountability for politicians then.

You could argue what's changed and I would agree with you. And as they said at the time, you were safe in politics unless you were found in bed with a live man or a dead woman. That's a horribly fun phrase, isn't it? I literally, as you said that, I was like, I love that. I know. But shouldn't.

So yes, this little sentence that Hannah and I shouldn't like, but we do, is exactly what. what happened. Yes, we are coming back to the sex scandal that brought them down in the 20s, because it was then that one of the most charismatic, powerful and visible clan members was accused of rape and murder. Now it's important to note that this poor excuse of a man, David Curtis Stevenson, would often pose as a fearless defender of white Protestant womanhood. So when he kidnapped and brutally tortured a woman named Madge Oberholzer, a 28-year-old schoolteacher whom he had the hots for, the clan went through a real,

identity crisis. Yes, it's very hard to be running around arguing that you're there saving white women from being raped by black men when you are also doing the raping. So the Klansman did actually abandon Stevenson. And Stevenson, in a fit of vengeance, retaliated by releasing dirt on his fellow high-profile KKK members. The clan was suddenly seen as completely unethical. Plus, thanks to the Great Depression, the membership fee lost its appeal. And the clan fizzled. Until its third reboot. during the civil rights era. And because you're very intelligent, you have probably already noticed

the pattern that is emerging here. Each clan resurrection coincides with a period in history in which white American power and status were threatened. Just like cults, these things happen at the right time. Wrong time, same time. Time time, shut up. Now, we're in 1954, and the Supreme Court had just thrown out the separate but equal doctrine

that had legalised racial segregation. And that was met with backlash from racists like car salesman, Robert Shelton. Shelton was not willing to treat black people as human beings, let alone citizens. You must have seen that picture of a hotel owner pouring acid into his own pool because black people were swimming in it. Oh, wow, no.

So, you know, he wasn't the only one. In 1961, Robert Shelton, taking inspiration from previous bed sheet chic enthusiasts and Grand Wizards of Prejudice decided to unite the crumbling KKK factions. He declared a new modern era of the clan with the same old bigotry that would target what he called

the scallywags of today which now added communists to the burn book and he also dressed up like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice and the new Klansmen were putty in his hands. The new Klansmen

of the 60s and 70s attacked freedom riders. They murdered civil rights activists, they burned the houses of civil rights leaders, and they bombed churches so often that Birmingham, in the US, not in the UK, was nicknamed Bombingham. And then on a crisp Sunday morning in September, 1963, a white man was seen placing a box under the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church, a place where civil rights activists meetings were often held. Within moments, the explosives detonated, claiming the lives of four young girls as they were getting ready for Sunday. day school. Denise McNair, Adi Mae Collins, Carol Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. Addy's sister Sarah

lost her eyesight in the bombings and the last thing she remembered before the explosion was asking her big sister to tie the bow of her church dress. This time around the public weren't having it in the way they had before. The hate was losing its grip, one member at a time. In 71 the KKK membership had dropped to around 4,300, where it had been 17,000 almost in 1967. Plus, the FBI were going all in on a counterintelligence program that they called Coin Tell Pro White Hate. They need to learn anything or two about naming things. This is terrible.

Go on a marketing course. My God. It's better than wrap it up. In 1964, there were some 2,000 FBI informants that had infiltrated. the clan. However, in the mid-1970s, David Duke, a former neo-Nazi and unfortunate heartthrob for bald, closeted, racist housewives, put another new face on the KKK. And while other grand wizards took on a more militant persona, David Duke was articulate, it was charming, and he schmoosed his way right to the top. But we do have to tell you, with some joy,

that David Duke was quite the loser in school and was actually called Puk-Juke, by all the other kids. They were clearly quite ahead of their time. In 1979, KKK members and Nazis joined forces, which resulted in the Greensboro Massacre, which was like the debut of the white nationalist movement. But in 1981, Robert Shelton's United Clans of America, UKA, was still the most violent clan at the time. But one final act of terrible violence led to the decline of the UKA, and subsequently, this iteration of the KKK. One night, two members, of UKA, Henry Hayes and James Tiger Noles, decided to kill a black man at random. They abducted 19-year-old Michael Donald at gunpoint, brutally beating him and hanging him from a tree.

That same night, other members of United Clans of America celebrated the lynching by burning across on the lawn of the Mobile County Courthouse. Henry Hayes was caught and received the death penalty. He was the first ever KKK member sentenced to death for killing an African-American in the 20th century. The victim's mother successfully sued the group and was awarded $7 million in damages, which totally bankrupted United Clans of America. In the 1980s, white supremacists and racists alike began to form an underground paramilitary army in preparation for what they believed to be an imminent race war. Survival scores started to appear, teaching members how to blow up roadways and bridges. In one FBI raid, enough cyanide was found to poison the water supply

of an entire city. And these extremist groups are providing paramilitary style training to this day. In fact, the biggest risk today is to think that the Ku Klux Klan doesn't exist. Clans are still gathering under southern skies, burning crosses and distributing KKK leaflets.

There, um, wasn't there a podcast? I think we listened to it on a road trip. White Hot Hate. Do you remember that one? Oh yeah. Yes. So, you know, it's not dead and gone. Anyway, what's quite terrifying, about this new iteration of the KKK is how hell-bent these wise supremacists are

on enlisting the next generation. They intentionally recruit high schoolers preying on the awkwardness of adolescence and Andrew Tate-esque insistence that white men are under attack. And while they're mainly disorganized, disconnected groups, the rhetoric is still breeding lone wolves

like Charleston church shooter Dylan Roof. And this hatred isn't just manifesting in a person wearing a KKK hood. can be the viral TikTok influencer or the friendly guy in the video game forum, or even the Christian YouTube blogger. And astonishingly, all of this is still debated in the highest levels of US government. In 2021, the Texas State Senate voted to remove the requirement that schools teach the KKK as morally wrong. That's astonishing.

You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes. Where they been? Where they've gone? I thought there was going to be more. I can't remember the next thing. But you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes. I mean, they're not cute enough, Hannah. That's what they can fucking tell. So yeah, that is it, guys.

That is our red-handed shorthand rundown on the KKK. Obviously, it is a massive topic, but that is what we have time for today. Hopefully you learn something new. And we will see you next time and wear cute shoes. Bye.