White Supremacy
CROSS LIGHTING CEREMONIES THE KU KLUX KLAN 2ND GENERATION
The ancient tradition of cross lighting, goes back to ancient Scotland, when Christians there would light crosses usually up on a high hill or cliff. It was done sort of like a version of the "Bat signal" if you will, but instead was meant to summon the local militia in times of trouble. Was a way to "call all the clans together"
The Rebel Brigade Knights in a cross lighting ceremony on a fellow member's property in Henry County, Virginia encircle the ceremony as tradtidion has it.
Members of the Virgil Griffin White Knights in Carter County, Tennessee wrap a cross in the KKK's classic wrapping material of jeans and potato sacks.
Rebel Brigade Knights raise their torches while shouting "For God, for family, for country, for the Klan" during the ceremony in Henry County, Virginia.
Sign of the Ku Klux Klan
KKK Cross Burning Ceremony in North Carolina,1915
After a period of decline for white supremacy in the United States, in 1915, white Protestant nativists organized a revival of the Ku Klux Klan near Atlanta, Georgia, inspired by their romantic view of the Old South as well as Thomas Dixon’s 1905 book “The Klansman” and D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film “Birth of a Nation.” This second generation of the Klan was not only anti-black but also took a stand against Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners and organized labor. It was fueled by growing hostility to the surge in immigration that America experienced in the early 20th century along with fears of communist revolution inline to the Bolshevik triumph in Russia in 1917. The organization took as its symbol a burning cross and held rallies, parades and marches to keep white power unconquered around the country at its peak in the 1920s.
Griffith's sympathetic portrayal in the film left Klansmen exhilarated. The Klansman started burning crosses soon after veiwing the film to intimidate minorities, Catholics, and anyone else suspected of betraying 'the order's' ideals.
After the word spread, Klan members accross the nation began burning of crosses on hillsides near the homes of those they wished to intimidate to show white power.
The first reported burning took place in Georgia on Thanksgiving Eve, 1915. They have been associated with racist violence ever since.
These 'Christian Identity' cult rituals & ceremonies exist in all 50 States to this day
Most members already have a strong sense of white supremacist thoughts in their heads before they join the Klan, but once committed, rituals and ceremonies are held to help instill Klan values and beliefs in its newest members.
-
An elaborate initiation ritual is carried out for new members, and the custom of wearing white robes and hoods sets the members apart from other citizens and provides for them a special identity.
-
At these initiation rituals, ordained ministers in the Klan preach the Christian aspect of the Ku Klux Klan to members, creating an interpretation of the Bible that fits the creed of the Ku-Klux Klan.
-
Post ceremony the burning crosses that are driven into the ground, are left standing where the targeted group can see it.
-
The burning symbolizes the "burning away of evil."
Ceremonies continue to this day, but have lost almost all of its early associations with Scotland and family gatherings, and now it is just about racism and white power.
The cases of Klan-related violence has become more isolated over the decades
The American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan website also now emphasizes a distinction between Klan-sanctioned crosslighting and illegal cross burning.
Virginia v. Black in 2003, was a First Amendment case decided in the Supreme Court of the United States. Three defendants were convicted in two separate cases against cross burning. The Court held that the Virginia law which prohibits all cross burning was unconstitutional. Laws which banned cross burnings carried out with the intent to intimidate were ruled valid, however the Virginia statute banned all cross burnings regardless of intent. The Court ruled 8-1 in deciding in Black's favor. (Cross-burning can be a criminal offense if the intent to intimidate is proven.)
Modern Klan groups are very careful to refer to their ritual as "cross lighting" rather than cross-burning and insist that their fires symbolize faith in Christ.
Still, nearly 1,700 cross-burnings have been documented since the late 1980s, and many of them in the front yards of African-American families and many other citizens of the US.
