History Minute (083): KKK whiteness versus the demons of darkness

Per Gustaf Forsell in Blood, Cross and Flag: The Influence of Race on Ku Klux Klan Theology in the 1920s, two books expressed Klan self-perception as the saviors of Confederate widows and orphans, and all White men who lost wealth due to the freeing of enslaved people. Their authors, Thomas Dixon and William Joseph Simmons, depict the Reconstruction era as a period of darkness, where the White race is deprived to the point of near extinction -- pauperized, bleeding, prostrated, and defenseless -- while under 'Negro rule' the very demons of darkness, loosed from Hell's most dismal depths, brought blight and devastation to them. The books by Dixon and Simmons romanticize the Klan as heroes of holy whiteness on a Godly mission to overcome evil darkness.

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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21567689.2020.1809384