Women of the Ku Klux Klan

While most women focused on the moral, civic, and educational agendas of the Klan, they also had considerable involvement in issues of race, class, ethnicity, gender, and religion.

Women of the Klan differed from Klansmen primarily in their political agenda to incorporate racism, nationalism, traditional morality, and religious intolerance into everyday life through mostly non-violent tactics.

One of the stated purposes of the Klan in the first wave was that "females, friends, widows, and their households shall ever be special objects of our regard and protection", which only referred to white women.

[6] Within four months, the WKKK claimed membership had doubled to 250,000 and by November 1923 thirty-six states had chapters of Women of the Ku Klux Klan.

[7] By the end of the decade, the Klan collapsed rapidly as a result of economic depression, internal battles, and financial scandals.

Mary Elizabeth Tyler was an Atlanta public-relations professional who, along with Edward Young Clarke, founded the Southern Publicity Association.

It will be a separate organization...bound to the parent organization.”[10] Women played a minor role during the third wave, which occurred during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Some women joined the WKKK against the wishes of their husbands who felt it out of their partners' "wifely duty" and a rebellious attempt to increase her political power.

Women also joined in an effort to preserve their white Protestant rights as they felt violated by the intrusion of immigrant and African-American voters.

Currently these pamphlets are used as research tools to see into the minds of the Klan's women since there is very little information about those involved due to security concerns within the group.

They organized rallies, festivals, and day-long ritual carnivals that involved parading through town, crossburning, and a series of lectures and speeches.

[vague] Women began to drop out of the WKKK and form other organizations of their own due to problems within the Klan, competing leadership, and financial corruption.

[9] Conflict arose during the modern wave regarding gender equity, because the Klan adheres to rules of "moral conservatism", such as its disbelief in divorce and its insistence that male authority should exist in politics as well as in the home.