The Klan is Awake

The resurgence of the Klu Klux Klan began with the 2015 debate over whether the Rebel Flag should be allowed to continue flying over the South Carolina statehouse. The racially driven shooting of a church in Charleston, South Carolina is what sparked this debate and, with all of the anti-racist energy focused, allowed for the narrative to shift significantly. Suddenly, it was no longer a matter of the increasing violent activities of racist and reactionary people and groups, but about whether the Confederate Battle Flag was a racist symbol or not.

This shift in narrative is very important, as it allowed those who did not see the shooting as a horrific act of racial injustice to unite behind a cause would help swell the numbers of a bigoted group that had been long dormant in the United States to make a comeback: the Klu Klux Klan.