Was/is the Klan a domestic Christian terrorist group?

[jwirr]

18. My dad told us about how he attended a KKK picnic in NW Iowa in the 1920s. He was 4 years old.

In our area it was not about black people. I was about religion - Jews, Protestants and Catholics. He was from the Protestant side. One member of our family belonged to the KKK and invited the rest to the picnic.

Years later one of my school mates wrote a letter into the local paper because he had found the white sheet uniform. He wrote about what his father told him. He was in the Catholic side of the KKK and his story was much like mine.

The KKK played the churches off against each other like the suckers they were. The KKK was about hate and money - they did not care about what they were preaching. My mother told me that most members were coerced into belonging in some way - often owing money to someone who would threaten them if they did not join. So they bought the sheet and never went to meetings.

I am not sure how the influence of the KKK ended but dad also told me about a cousin from the one part of the family that belonged to the KKK forgot he had a kind of bumper sticker/symbol on his car. He and his Catholic friend headed out to SD in the 1930s to go fishing and as they were driving along the highway another car pulled up beside them yelling and waving. As they pulled in front the cousin saw the same sticker on their car. Here he is with his Catholic friend in the car and the KKK hot on their trail. He was scared and did not know what to do - he finally speeded up and out ran them. Needless to say the next stop was to remove the bumper sticker. Our side of the family never let him forget his idiocy.