I first published this here on DKos on June 26, 2011. Little did I know … the sad and profound significance that this topic would have so many years later. In the age of Trump, this is an even more vital discussion.
Boys, let us get up a club. With those seemingly innocuous words, six restless young men raided the linens at a friend’s mansion, pulled pillowcases over their heads, hopped on horses, and cavorted through the streets of Pulaski, Tennessee. They named their club the Ku Klux Klan and began patterning their initiations after fraternity rites, with secret passwords and mysterious handshakes. All too soon, this self-proclaimed Invisible Empire with across the South.
My years in middle and secondary classrooms have been filled with discussions in teacher's circles, about how to find non-fiction materials that address important, hot-button topics. I've often been asked to help facilitate discussions about racism. Effective literature is crucial to producing outcomes that educators can measure and in developing teaching strategies to utilize and improve upon. A theoretical framework is key, as well as academic "meat" for young learners to sink themselves into.
Controversial social issues need to be addressed in a manner that is thorough and engaging for young learners, while remaining accessible. Thus, I was delighted when I received a review copy of They Called Themselves the K. K. K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group. As the only book for young adults written about this important historical topic, it will be especially useful for workshops, specific instructional units, and as a resource for ongoing activities across the curriculum. Author Susan Campbell Bartoletti makes extensive use of congressional testimony, interviews, journals, diaries and slave narratives to allow the players to speak in their own voices as much as possible.
Bartoletti chronicles the growth of this home-grown terrorist organization, which managed to spread and grow in spite of, and sometimes abetted by, America’s democratic government.
To research the book, Bartoletti attended a Klan Congress held in the Ozark mountains. There, she went to rallies, listened to speeches, and perhaps most chilling of all, met people that, from casual conversation, might have been her neighbors, colleagues, or even possibly friends. It was only when the discussion turned to the “silent majority” of the Klan that she saw the basis of hate and racism that bound these people together.
Bartoletti also used first-hand accounts and original images to chart the clandestine group’s growth from that first meeting in 1866; she pored over 8,027 pages of congressional testimony, 2,300 slave narratives, and countless contemporaneous newspapers and diaries. Readers will see interviews with the first Grand Wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest; death threats toward white opponents of the Klan printed in newspapers; photographs of and journal entries from persecuted black Americans; and editorial illustrations published in Harper’s Weekly.
Even the chapter titles are quotes taken from Klan members, their victims, or opponents. Bartoletti’s clear outline of historical events, complemented by these personal stories and images, create an unforgettable picture of how this group of hatred grew and spread. The book includes a Civil Rights Time Line and an extensive Bibliography and Source Notes section, which is compelling reading in its own right.
And in 2011, I continued:
I have often been asked to perform my author visits and workshops in schools that have recently experienced racial hostility and violence. Thus, in addition to being there as a role model from the Black literary community, it will be exciting to have children and teachers offer written responses to this latest work by Bartoletti.
This diary is an extension of an ongoing dialogue with Bartoletti. The author will be responding to reader thoughts here on Kos, through future Book Bear diaries, as well as in other forums and academic journals. With students in schools around the country, some very interesting discussions and teachable moments should arise as we interact with this book ... from and within the inevitable tension.
With this August 13, 2017 Chicago Tribune headline in my mind: 3 dead, dozens injured, amid violent white nationalist rally in Virginia, I will reach out to the author, yet again.