Ku Klux in Maine(1920).. target franco americans.. - New England Patriots Forums

***DarrylS*** · 06-27-2010, 09:40 AM

Interesting perspective, when we lived in Maine, it would often be pointed out to us that on a hill outside of Livermore Falls was where crosses were burned by the KKK chapter in Maine.. the KKK was 150 k strong and were protesting those damned catholics and Canucks..

Those who are not aware of their history are doomed to repeat it..

Fast forward to today, ever year there is a huge franco american festival in Lewiston-Auburn...

The Ku Klux Klan in Maine

Quote:

With 150,000 members in 1920, Maine possessed the largest, most active Ku Klux Klan outside of the south. This group targeted the Franco-Americans rather than the African Americans, because they were Catholic, different than the people that were already in Maine. They were scared that the number of these people would become so large that they would take over Maine. Klan members would include 1 out of every 10 English-speaking Mainers. Businessmen, bankers, ministers, politicians, and newspaper editors were the main starters of this Klan. Milo, Maine was where the first Ku Klux Klan march was held in the broad daylight. In 1925, a similar event occurred in Portland, including a picnic that drew 10-20,000 people. Also in this city and also in Rockland, the Klan had a place where it could hold its own meetings, and owned it own buildings. They used these buildings more for social events, which included things such as bands and dancing.

Another source, complete with newspaper clippings..

Franco-American and Qubcois History and Genealogy: Ku Klux Klan in Brunswick

Quote:

Most Americans think of the Ku Klux Klan as a Southern institution, mainly targeting African-Americans. However, in the years following the First World War, the Ku Klux Klan enjoyed a nationwide revival wielding considerable influence in the North and Midwest, as well as the South. This so-called "Second Klan" aimed its propaganda not only at African-Americans, but also at Catholics, Jews and "foreigners." In 1920s Maine, the African-American and Jewish populations were quite small, where they existed at all. There can be little doubt that the Klan's main focus in Maine was Catholic "foreigners," the vast majority of whom were the relative newcomers from Québec.

The Second Klan was part of a wider Nativist movement representing a backlash against the wave of immigration, much of it from southern and eastern Europe, which was perceived as a threat to the Anglo-Saxon Protestant character of the United States. The Second Klan was also largely an opportunistic money-making scheme perpetuated by shrewed businesspeople exploiting the mood of a country seeking a return to "normalcy" following an unprecedented World War.

***Wolfpack*** · 06-27-2010, 09:42 AM

Anyone but me notice how you never hear the phrase "Proud to be French"..?

***Harry Boy*** · 06-27-2010, 10:03 AM

The KLAN was everywhere at one time or another, the US Senate has had a very prominent one time Klansman among it's members for years, the Democrats Love Him (KKK Byrd) they still name roads and bridges after him, when he finally kicks the bucket I wouldn't be surprised to see the Democrats change the name of their party from "Democrats" to "Byrds"

THE WHITE SHEETS STILL HANG IN THE CLOSET (you can bet on it)

***DarrylS*** · 06-27-2010, 10:05 AM

Proud to be partially french canadian..

***Wolfpack*** · 06-27-2010, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harry Boy

The KLAN was everywhere at one time or another, the US Senate has had a very prominent one time Klansman among it's members for years, the Democrats Love Him (KKK Byrd) they still name roads and bridges after him, when he finally kicks the bucket I wouldn't be surprised to see the Democrats change the name of their party from "Democrats" to "Byrds"

THE WHITE SHEETS STILL HANG IN THE CLOSET (you can bet on it)

Amen, brother. We should never forget the hatred and intolerance we see from the left.

"I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

- Sen. Robert Byrd, (D) W. Virginia

***Wolfpack*** · 06-27-2010, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarrylS

Proud to be partially french canadian..

OK, but you're also proud to be a tattletale, so what does that say?

***Harry Boy*** · 06-27-2010, 10:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

Amen, brother. We should never forget the hatred and intolerance we see from the left.

"I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

- Sen. Robert Byrd, (D) W. Virginia

They brush that one under the rug.....

TBradyOwnsYou · 06-27-2010, 11:33 AM

Wait, the KKK is against catholics and Canadians... if they get rid of their whole racist agenda they might be pretty good guys!

PatsFanInVa · 06-27-2010, 12:08 PM

Deflect, deflect, deflect.

The Klan and their allies - all on the right, but it's unimportant - are racist, and they are xenophobic.

In present-day America, simply decide:

- Do you work, speak, and post on behalf of or against the stranger, the immigrant, the disenfranchised?

- Or do you look for ways to say the majority is actually at the disadvantage; to say it is not fair for the historically less well off to be better off; or to say that the immigrant is a horrible danger?

- Do you respect or disparage those different from you, whether by language or nation of birth, by race, or by religion?

- Or do you say - as has been said in the long history of bigotry - "it's different now"?

Irish Americans who were considered the lowest of the low in the mid and late nineteenth centuries were certainly not at the height of the "pyramid" in America by the turn of the 20th century; yet they wholeheartedly embraced discrimination against southern europeans via the know nothing movement.

The poor rural white has been, since the dawn of the civil rights movement, the most reliable ally of their manipulative "opinion leaders" in swells of opinion and action against similarly poor blacks.

This is not to single out any given group. It is to say that it is a reliable phenomenon that those close to the worst-off in such a hierarchy, are prone to enlist against the one group they can look down on.

Goering excepted, it was not the German aristocracy that turned that nation into an island of the worst barbarism even in conjunction with the world's most advanced technology. It was the rednecks sprouting from street fights and the beer-hall putsch. And it was the appeal to blaming "the other," "the alien," the stranger, for a whole nation's problems, that galvanized that populist appeal.

Only idiots call every individual they don't like Hitler - I'll leave that strategem to the tea baggers.

It is, however, a repeating historical pattern that we reach for hate to explain complex changes in a nation's fortunes.

The search for a scapegoat is as old as history and as predictable as the change of seasons.

There is no difference between the Klan's attitudes in Maine nearly a hundred years ago and the simple-minded hatred of other immigrants today.

PFnV

***Wolfpack*** · 06-27-2010, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatsFanInVa

Goering excepted, it was not the German aristocracy that turned that nation into an island of the worst barbarism even in conjunction with the world's most advanced technology. It was the rednecks sprouting from street fights and the beer-hall putsch. And it was the appeal to blaming "the other," "the alien," the stranger, for a whole nation's problems, that galvanized that populist appeal.

Only idiots call every individual they don't like Hitler - I'll leave that strategem to the tea baggers.

You mean, the strategem used in your first paragraph (as quoted above) is a strategem use only by "idiots and teabaggers"? Oh, the irony.

By the way, is usage of a term like "teabaggers" an example of the adult discussions you try to claim to be interested in? What happened to "we're trying to discuss like grownups"..?