0:00:04 > 0:00:12This programme contains some strong language and some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.
0:00:17 > 0:00:22On the 17th of June 2015, Charleston, in South Carolina,
0:00:22 > 0:00:24saw one of the worst racially motivated killings
0:00:24 > 0:00:26in recent American history.
0:00:30 > 0:00:34Nine black worshippers were shot dead during a prayer meeting
0:00:34 > 0:00:35at this downtown church.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43The killer was identified as 21-year-old
0:00:43 > 0:00:47white supremacist Dylann Roof.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49He confessed to committing the massacre in the hope
0:00:49 > 0:00:51of igniting a race war.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58All of America was shocked, but in the Southern states,
0:00:58 > 0:01:00where race has been an issue for centuries,
0:01:00 > 0:01:04the shooting also triggered a passionate argument about the past.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10Much of it focused on the Confederate battle flag,
0:01:10 > 0:01:13for many the very symbol of racism and hate.
0:01:14 > 0:01:19But what is it about the past that stokes the flames of racism here?
0:01:19 > 0:01:21That's the question that interests me,
0:01:21 > 0:01:24because it seems that the bedrock of the Southern states of America,
0:01:24 > 0:01:28the old Confederate Deep South, is, deep down,
0:01:28 > 0:01:31more than a little Scottish.
0:01:31 > 0:01:35He lifted the blazing emblem, the fiery cross of old Scotland's hill.
0:01:35 > 0:01:40It would become the most identifiable symbols of race hatred,
0:01:40 > 0:01:42of the Ku Klux Klan.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46I think white Southerners do think of themselves as Celts.
0:01:46 > 0:01:48It is absolutely a core idea
0:01:48 > 0:01:51for a lot of these white supremacist groups,
0:01:51 > 0:01:54including the original Klan which, of course, was thinking of
0:01:54 > 0:01:57Scottish clans with a C when they called themselves
0:01:57 > 0:01:58the Ku Klux Klan with a K.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10I've spent a lot of time celebrating the legacy of Scots who left home
0:02:10 > 0:02:14and helped lay the foundations of the United States of America.
0:02:14 > 0:02:20When they arrived here, they had the chance to create something new,
0:02:20 > 0:02:22something perfect -
0:02:22 > 0:02:24a new world.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27A third of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence
0:02:27 > 0:02:30were Scots. The pursuit of happiness, the most famous part
0:02:30 > 0:02:33of the Declaration, is arguably a Scottish idea.
0:02:35 > 0:02:38But the New World is not perfect,
0:02:38 > 0:02:40and I want to find out why.
0:02:40 > 0:02:45If the Scots had a significant hand in conjuring the American dream,
0:02:45 > 0:02:49to what extent were they also responsible for the nightmare?
0:02:49 > 0:02:51That ugliest of stains,
0:02:51 > 0:02:55the bloody, violent history of race hatred
0:02:55 > 0:02:58that blights America to this day.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18I'm travelling over 2,000 miles of the Southern states of America.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21It's somewhere I've never been before
0:03:21 > 0:03:25and I'm going to explore how early Scottish immigration evolved
0:03:25 > 0:03:29and see whether it's had an enduring impact on race relations here.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35This seems like a natural place to start as I'm told
0:03:35 > 0:03:40it's living evidence of the Scots that originally settled here.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42I'm in Greenville, in South Carolina,
0:03:42 > 0:03:44on the eve of their annual gathering
0:03:44 > 0:03:46for the Highland Games.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48I can hear the pipes.
0:03:48 > 0:03:50There must be Scottish people here.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07Come on, Greenville, let's hear you!
0:04:07 > 0:04:09- We're Scottish American.- OK.
0:04:09 > 0:04:11You put the Scottish first?
0:04:11 > 0:04:13We do tonight, yes, absolutely.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16- Do you claim Scottish descent?- Yes.
0:04:16 > 0:04:19If you were to score yourself out of ten as a Scot,
0:04:19 > 0:04:22what number would you give yourself?
0:04:22 > 0:04:25Today, a ten.
0:04:25 > 0:04:27I have a four-year-old, if I could get him out here...
0:04:27 > 0:04:29He's so scared of bagpipes -
0:04:29 > 0:04:32as soon as I can get him over that, it'd be fantastic.
0:04:32 > 0:04:34He's scared of bagpipes?
0:04:34 > 0:04:35- Yeah.- That's a worrying...
0:04:35 > 0:04:37Oh, here we go.
0:04:41 > 0:04:43The next day, at the Games proper,
0:04:43 > 0:04:46I asked yet more well turned-out Scots what they thought of
0:04:46 > 0:04:49the effect of Scottish migration to the States.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53They influenced everything. I mean, the first governor of South Carolina
0:04:53 > 0:04:54was a boy from Roxburghshire,
0:04:54 > 0:04:57and he very quickly wanted state laws that reflected the way
0:04:57 > 0:04:59things were back in Scotland.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05Some historians will tell you, if you look at the Confederate flag
0:05:05 > 0:05:09from the Civil War... Very similar to a St Andrew's in terms of design.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12They see a connection there because there was a lot of Scottish heritage
0:05:12 > 0:05:14in those early days.
0:05:14 > 0:05:16Coming from a place where you weren't allowed to have
0:05:16 > 0:05:18your own land and you felt you were kept down by the landlords,
0:05:18 > 0:05:21the first thing you do when you get here is buy slaves.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24There's a kind of disjuncture there, isn't there?
0:05:41 > 0:05:42Greenville's not unique.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46All over the South, I'm finding people keen to describe themselves
0:05:46 > 0:05:49or their ancestors as Scottish.
0:05:49 > 0:05:54How and why did the Scots arrive here, and what does that tell us
0:05:54 > 0:05:56about the nature of the South today?
0:06:00 > 0:06:03I've found one man who has written extensively
0:06:03 > 0:06:05on transatlantic immigration.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10Barry Vann has studied the subject in the United States and in the UK.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16He brought me to one of the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia
0:06:16 > 0:06:18to look down on the Great Appalachian Valley
0:06:18 > 0:06:22that most of the early Scottish settlers would have passed through
0:06:22 > 0:06:24during the 18th century.
0:06:24 > 0:06:26They were going to the frontier looking for cheap land,
0:06:26 > 0:06:27ran into those mountains -
0:06:27 > 0:06:30they couldn't go north because that land was already occupied.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33They couldn't go over the mountains because it was too difficult
0:06:33 > 0:06:35to get over them and there were probably hostile natives over there,
0:06:35 > 0:06:37so they came down the valley this way.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39It's such a massive undertaking for these people -
0:06:39 > 0:06:41what's driving it?
0:06:41 > 0:06:45One was economic, because they were coming from a place where the lands
0:06:45 > 0:06:47that they had farmed for generations
0:06:47 > 0:06:50were no longer available to them because they weren't able
0:06:50 > 0:06:53to afford the money rent that was required to stay on those lands.
0:06:53 > 0:06:58But here they could acquire lands and become their own lord.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01So, in a lot of respects, they were trying to recreate
0:07:01 > 0:07:04the imagined Scotland that they had back there.
0:07:04 > 0:07:06But they wanted it here
0:07:06 > 0:07:08because they had more resources.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10Look at those beautiful trees. Water was plentiful.
0:07:10 > 0:07:12Nice, longer growing seasons.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16You know, this was... This was a bountiful place.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18This was the Scotland that they'd imagined.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20Scotland 2.0.
0:07:20 > 0:07:21- That's right.- The upgrade.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23The upgrade. Absolutely.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28It wasn't just the prospect of a better future that drew Scots
0:07:28 > 0:07:31to what they called the backcountry.
0:07:31 > 0:07:36They were tempted here because of their reputation as fighting folk,
0:07:36 > 0:07:40recruited to help defend the coastal areas already settled by the English
0:07:40 > 0:07:44from Native Americans and the French.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47They wanted them to come to the backcountry, to this part
0:07:47 > 0:07:51of the state, or colony at that time, and to be a buffer zone
0:07:51 > 0:07:54against potential invasion.
0:07:54 > 0:07:57MUSIC: Ba Mo Leanabh by William Jackson & Mackenzie
0:08:05 > 0:08:09This is probably the oldest part of the cemetery right here.
0:08:09 > 0:08:11These are some of the founding families -
0:08:11 > 0:08:13second generation.
0:08:13 > 0:08:14'Down in the valley
0:08:14 > 0:08:18'lies the resting place of many of those early frontiers people.'
0:08:18 > 0:08:20Look at that - Scot, Kirkpatrick, Bell.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24- Yes.- They came from Scotland and from Ulster,
0:08:24 > 0:08:27and they quickly exceeded the number of English settlers in the South.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33Next to the graveyard, we can see what united these newcomers.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37This church is built on the site of one of the earliest
0:08:37 > 0:08:40Presbyterian places of worship in the area.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Were they a happy lot, do you think?
0:08:43 > 0:08:47Or were they coming in with lots of emotional
0:08:47 > 0:08:49and religious baggage
0:08:49 > 0:08:53on account of the old country they had left behind?
0:08:53 > 0:08:56Well, when they got here, they were interested in acquiring land and
0:08:56 > 0:08:59they also knew that they were going to be facing potential hostiles.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03And so they were not necessarily coming here with an open hand,
0:09:03 > 0:09:05saying, "We want to be friends," you know.
0:09:05 > 0:09:07They came here, for the most part,
0:09:07 > 0:09:09interested in farming, if they could,
0:09:09 > 0:09:12and they wanted to live at strategically important places.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15That's why we call them today hillbillies and hilltoppers,
0:09:15 > 0:09:17because they wanted to live up in the hills
0:09:17 > 0:09:18where they could see the enemy coming.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21For those Presbyterians, who were the enemy?
0:09:21 > 0:09:25Who was it they thought was going to come and attack them on their hills?
0:09:25 > 0:09:27Anybody who wasn't them.
0:09:27 > 0:09:29It could be the English,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32because they had a history of conflict with the English,
0:09:32 > 0:09:34they had a history of conflict with the Catholics,
0:09:34 > 0:09:36they had a history of conflict
0:09:36 > 0:09:39with almost anybody who was not dissenting, if you will.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44Some of those settlers, confident about who they were
0:09:44 > 0:09:47and, just as importantly, who they weren't,
0:09:47 > 0:09:50strode out into the untamed backcountry,
0:09:50 > 0:09:53moving further south and west with each generation.
0:10:05 > 0:10:08But at the end of the 18th century, the settlers' simple way of life
0:10:08 > 0:10:12was transformed by something that changed the course
0:10:12 > 0:10:14of this part of America forever.
0:10:20 > 0:10:21It was the arrival of cotton.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27To the frontier farmers, the economics were simple -
0:10:27 > 0:10:31cotton was a cash crop that brought relatively easy money.
0:10:32 > 0:10:34It also offered an easy life,
0:10:34 > 0:10:38as long as those picking the cotton were slaves.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45As the cotton industry grew, so did slavery.
0:10:45 > 0:10:50By 1810, the number of slaves in the US rose to 1.2 million,
0:10:50 > 0:10:53almost double what it was 20 years earlier.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01Now the descendants of many oppressed and downtrodden
0:11:01 > 0:11:04refugee Scots took the path of racism
0:11:04 > 0:11:07to become oppressors themselves.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10And their simple farmhouses became
0:11:10 > 0:11:14increasingly grand plantation houses,
0:11:14 > 0:11:18like this one, built in 1851 just outside Charleston
0:11:18 > 0:11:20by William Wallace McLeod.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26He owned one of the largest plantations in South Carolina,
0:11:26 > 0:11:29but, like many, he never forgot his roots -
0:11:29 > 0:11:32he called the grand house Inverness.
0:11:34 > 0:11:38The impression planters wanted to give was one of affluence,
0:11:38 > 0:11:41and the most striking display of wealth at that time was measured
0:11:41 > 0:11:45by the number of slave cabins that lined the drive to the house.
0:11:48 > 0:11:50Here, there were 23.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54I asked Heather Williams to show me around.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57Not only is she an expert in slavery in the South,
0:11:57 > 0:12:00but she's known this place for some time.
0:12:00 > 0:12:02When I first came to this place,
0:12:02 > 0:12:08for me it was a really powerful sense of the past.
0:12:08 > 0:12:09You know, the cabins...
0:12:09 > 0:12:13It seemed as though slavery just ended one day and everybody
0:12:13 > 0:12:17had packed up and left, and that I had been, in a sense,
0:12:17 > 0:12:22transported back to that time period, the late 1860s.
0:12:22 > 0:12:27In order for a society to survive, you need the top people who think
0:12:27 > 0:12:29and then the people who do the work.
0:12:29 > 0:12:32This is what James Henry Hammond said - he was a senator
0:12:32 > 0:12:36from South Carolina, a governor and so on.
0:12:36 > 0:12:39"You need a mudsill," he said, "in society,
0:12:39 > 0:12:42"and we have found them in these Africans who are so well-suited
0:12:42 > 0:12:44"to do the work that we don't want to do."
0:12:56 > 0:12:59They were legally owned.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02They could be sold, they could be traded, they could be given away,
0:13:02 > 0:13:04they could be mortgaged.
0:13:04 > 0:13:06People could transfer them.
0:13:06 > 0:13:10There was this perpetual sense that they would be punished
0:13:10 > 0:13:13if they didn't adhere to the rules of the place.
0:13:15 > 0:13:21So would this be about as good as it gets for enslaved people?
0:13:21 > 0:13:26This is... Yeah, I think I've seen cabins made of brick which might
0:13:26 > 0:13:29have kept people a little bit warmer in the winter.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33I would think that there would be at least six, seven people in here.
0:13:35 > 0:13:40William Wallace McLeod enslaved up to 100 people on his plantation
0:13:40 > 0:13:43while he lived the life of undoubted privilege.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00Being here, in a place where slavery actually happened,
0:14:00 > 0:14:03I have to admit I'm filled, for the first time,
0:14:03 > 0:14:06with feelings of disbelief
0:14:06 > 0:14:12at the surreal nature of the life that those elite whites
0:14:12 > 0:14:14chose for themselves.
0:14:14 > 0:14:19How you get to the point where you can enjoy a life
0:14:19 > 0:14:23that is composed of people who are your captives,
0:14:23 > 0:14:27who are around you in great numbers, every minute of the day,
0:14:27 > 0:14:31doing things against their will for no pay... They cook your food,
0:14:31 > 0:14:35they work in the fields, they fix up the house.
0:14:35 > 0:14:36If it's a cold night,
0:14:36 > 0:14:40you would order one of them to lie across your feet
0:14:40 > 0:14:43on your bed so that you are warm.
0:14:49 > 0:14:51At what point
0:14:51 > 0:14:56does living like that feel in any sense normal?
0:15:00 > 0:15:03And it was another Scot who provided the balm
0:15:03 > 0:15:05that made all this seem legitimate.
0:15:07 > 0:15:11By the mid-1800s, almost every house like this would have contained
0:15:11 > 0:15:15some of the many romantic novels of Sir Walter Scott.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19Scott's stories of gallant knights and brave highlanders,
0:15:19 > 0:15:23set in a golden, mythical past, were wildly popular.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31But according to the American writer Mark Twain
0:15:31 > 0:15:33they merely fed this fantasy lifestyle.
0:15:35 > 0:15:38Twain thought the planters were modelling their lives
0:15:38 > 0:15:41on Scott's romantic vision of the old country,
0:15:41 > 0:15:44imagining themselves as lairds of their own clan.
0:15:46 > 0:15:49He wrote that the civilisation of the South in the 19th century
0:15:49 > 0:15:52is curiously confused and commingled
0:15:52 > 0:15:56with the Walter Scott middle-age sham civilisation.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00The inflated speech and the jejune romanticism of an absurd past
0:16:00 > 0:16:04that is dead and, out of charity, ought to be buried.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09I think that for many people it felt as though it was something
0:16:09 > 0:16:14they were entitled to, and I think that sense of entitlement
0:16:14 > 0:16:17then passed from generation to generation.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20You know, this sense that you are supposed to have
0:16:20 > 0:16:22more than other people,
0:16:22 > 0:16:27and that some people are supposed to serve and you are to be served.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31Twain also thought that Scott's heroic romanticism
0:16:31 > 0:16:34was partly responsible for the terrible war that followed.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42The Northern states had wanted to limit the expansion of slavery
0:16:42 > 0:16:46just as the worldwide demand for cotton was booming.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49Southern state planters like William MacLeod
0:16:49 > 0:16:53saw their whole lifestyle threatened and were willing to fight for it.
0:16:53 > 0:16:58In 1861, the 11 slave states with cotton-based economies
0:16:58 > 0:17:02left the Union, and a horrific four-year war began.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09Now, 150 years later,
0:17:09 > 0:17:13people flock to see the Civil War as entertainment,
0:17:13 > 0:17:17and Living History groups meet regularly to replay the battles
0:17:17 > 0:17:18again and again.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21This one is at Fort Hollingsworth, in Georgia,
0:17:21 > 0:17:26where re-enactors from all over the Southern states take part.
0:17:26 > 0:17:31What is it important to remember by taking part in and watching
0:17:31 > 0:17:32a re-enactment like this?
0:17:32 > 0:17:35It's important to make sure that the people understand
0:17:35 > 0:17:37what the history is all about.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40It's important they remember that this is something that
0:17:40 > 0:17:43their ancestors fought for, and something that's actually
0:17:43 > 0:17:45a part of them.
0:17:45 > 0:17:48This is something that they were born ingrained with,
0:17:48 > 0:17:49and they should remember that.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52What does define the ancestors?
0:17:52 > 0:17:55They didn't leave any of their culture behind,
0:17:55 > 0:17:58they just brought it here and used that culture
0:17:58 > 0:18:01and created something completely new.
0:18:01 > 0:18:03You know, even from the way we talk,
0:18:03 > 0:18:06even down to the patterns in their clothes...
0:18:06 > 0:18:10I mean, when the Scots came here, they brought with them the tartans.
0:18:10 > 0:18:15Our way of life is probably closer to those in Scotland that are now
0:18:15 > 0:18:18in this part of the country - we held on to a lot of their ways.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22I think we do, yeah. I think we do.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24What was lost when the war was lost?
0:18:24 > 0:18:27The way we lived, actually.
0:18:27 > 0:18:34They had plantations, a lot of folks had plantations and a lot of wealth,
0:18:34 > 0:18:37and a lot of that was lost in the South.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40They had to go back and start life over.
0:18:43 > 0:18:45America's Civil War was immensely destructive.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50Well over 500,000 soldiers died
0:18:50 > 0:18:53and much of the South's infrastructure was ruined.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02But, for many whites, the greatest fear of all had just come true -
0:19:02 > 0:19:04the enslaved were now free.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10Not only that, but black men could also vote,
0:19:10 > 0:19:14just as the vengeful North took away the right to vote for those
0:19:14 > 0:19:16that supported the Confederacy.
0:19:20 > 0:19:24Like the Jacobites in Scotland 100 years earlier,
0:19:24 > 0:19:27the Southern whites had lost everything.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31But now they too had a lost cause to believe in.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41That lost cause found its footing here,
0:19:41 > 0:19:45in the neat streets of Pulaski, in Tennessee.
0:19:45 > 0:19:49This is where things first started to turn ugly.
0:19:51 > 0:19:54I've come to meet local historian Bob Wamble to find out
0:19:54 > 0:19:59what happened in the town after the end of the Civil War.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02Bob, when the war was over and the soldiers came back,
0:20:02 > 0:20:04what did they find here in Pulaski?
0:20:04 > 0:20:07Right here in town, where we are,
0:20:07 > 0:20:10they found a courthouse, and that was pretty much it.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13This entire side of the square was burnt to the ground.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16- Really?- It was done by Union soldiers that were stationed here.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21All these Confederate soldiers that came home and had nothing...
0:20:21 > 0:20:25If they had owned a business before the war, it was gone,
0:20:25 > 0:20:26it was burnt to the ground.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29They had no government, they had no law, really.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32Anybody that had supported the Confederacy couldn't vote,
0:20:32 > 0:20:35so any law that was here, they didn't have a part of.
0:20:35 > 0:20:38So they were effectively aliens in their own town?
0:20:38 > 0:20:40Yes. This was their home,
0:20:40 > 0:20:42but it wasn't their government.
0:20:51 > 0:20:54The destruction here was typical of many towns in the South,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57but this town has a claim to fame that it would rather forget.
0:20:59 > 0:21:01One group of former Confederate officers,
0:21:01 > 0:21:05bored and fearful of the future now that black men had the vote,
0:21:05 > 0:21:08set up a secret fraternal society.
0:21:08 > 0:21:13They drew on ancient Greek and their Scottish heritage for their name -
0:21:13 > 0:21:16they called it the Ku Klux Klan.
0:21:19 > 0:21:22This is the spot where the Klan was formed.
0:21:22 > 0:21:28- Really?- The Ku Klux Klan... The six young men met here in this office
0:21:28 > 0:21:31and decided they wanted to form an organisation.
0:21:31 > 0:21:34This is a plaque showing that the people of Pulaski
0:21:34 > 0:21:36were proud of the Ku Klux Klan.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39The plaque is turned backwards.
0:21:39 > 0:21:41About probably 20, 25 years ago...
0:21:41 > 0:21:45- Oh, it's got its face to the wall now?- Its face is to the wall.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47The man that owned this building turned it around like that.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50So what's on the other side of the plaque?
0:21:50 > 0:21:52Well, it lists the names of the young men
0:21:52 > 0:21:54that formed the Ku Klux Klan.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58I have a copy of it right here.
0:21:58 > 0:21:59These are the key players.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02Calvin Jones, John B Kennedy...
0:22:02 > 0:22:05Frank O McCord, John C Lester,
0:22:05 > 0:22:08Richard R Reed, James R Crowe.
0:22:08 > 0:22:12They were all Confederate soldiers that had just come home
0:22:12 > 0:22:15and just really didn't have anything better to do
0:22:15 > 0:22:18than to form an organisation just for amusement.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21They played their musical instruments,
0:22:21 > 0:22:24sang songs and went out and serenaded the girls.
0:22:24 > 0:22:26They were out hunting all the pretty girls of Pulaski.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29Is that really all it was? In its first...?
0:22:29 > 0:22:32In its first stages, that's all it was.
0:22:37 > 0:22:42This photograph discovered by Bob is thought to show Frank McCord
0:22:42 > 0:22:44and the rest of the original Klan.
0:22:46 > 0:22:49It was John B Kennedy who apparently suggested that they should
0:22:49 > 0:22:53call themselves a clan as they were all of Scotch-Irish descent.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57Some of them were educated, obviously,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00because they're drawing on Greek - kuklos is a circle,
0:23:00 > 0:23:05and a clan is a family group that shares some kind of blood or a name,
0:23:05 > 0:23:07a surname.
0:23:07 > 0:23:12I think there's an intention there to declare yourself as a group
0:23:12 > 0:23:16that will stand shoulder to shoulder against outsiders.
0:23:22 > 0:23:24Pulaski has another revelation.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30Tucked behind this storefront is a small-scale opera house,
0:23:30 > 0:23:33a good place, it seems, to understand how the Klan moved
0:23:33 > 0:23:38from make-believe to reality, according to author and academic
0:23:38 > 0:23:40Elaine Frantz Parsons.
0:23:42 > 0:23:43How amazing. Look at that.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48For a town this size, it is impressive.
0:23:48 > 0:23:53Created in 1867, almost exactly the same time as the Klan,
0:23:53 > 0:23:56this theatre gives us a fascinating insight
0:23:56 > 0:23:58into what might have influenced them.
0:23:58 > 0:24:00They're trying to figure out who they are,
0:24:00 > 0:24:03and they're really interested, particularly in culture.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06They don't have power any more, they don't have politics,
0:24:06 > 0:24:09but maybe they can keep culture,
0:24:09 > 0:24:11they can create a culture that means something.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14Particularly pretending they were in a different time and place,
0:24:14 > 0:24:18pretending they were, you know, in the world of Sir Walter Scott or...
0:24:18 > 0:24:20I think was very attractive.
0:24:20 > 0:24:22Just a couple of years after the war, they start...
0:24:22 > 0:24:23they embark on this,
0:24:23 > 0:24:26and it's all about theatrical and make-believe.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29Was that informing the Klan as well?
0:24:29 > 0:24:31Was it about the costumes and pretence?
0:24:31 > 0:24:34Yeah, I think that's a really good way to think about it, actually -
0:24:34 > 0:24:38that the world, the real world, wasn't something that
0:24:38 > 0:24:40they necessarily wanted to spend a lot of time in.
0:24:40 > 0:24:45I think that part of what happened is that they realised that this play
0:24:45 > 0:24:50that they were doing could be brought to bear on this competition,
0:24:50 > 0:24:55this problem that they were having with black claims to rights.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58If you were in the 19th century, and you're going to the theatre,
0:24:58 > 0:25:01a lot of the time you were going to a minstrel show.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04And the minstrel show wasn't all about making fun of black people,
0:25:04 > 0:25:07but that was an important part of the minstrel show.
0:25:07 > 0:25:12So part of what the Klan wanted to do was to force black people
0:25:12 > 0:25:15into situations where they looked ludicrous or ridiculous.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19What better way to do that than pretend like you're a monster
0:25:19 > 0:25:23and attack them, and then tell everybody how scared they were
0:25:23 > 0:25:24by this monster?
0:25:24 > 0:25:28What flicks the switch from it being make-believe,
0:25:28 > 0:25:31harmless costumes, music...?
0:25:31 > 0:25:34What flicks the switch and turns it into something sinister?
0:25:34 > 0:25:40We know that Frank McCord was trying to get up a mob.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43During the time that the Klan seemed to have nothing to do with it,
0:25:43 > 0:25:47he is also interested in racial violence.
0:25:49 > 0:25:52The Klan soon moved on from theatricalities and threats -
0:25:52 > 0:25:56it became more violent and better organised.
0:25:56 > 0:25:58At the nearby State Museum in Nashville,
0:25:58 > 0:26:01they have one of the few remaining documents from that time,
0:26:01 > 0:26:04what is, in effect, the Klan's Constitution.
0:26:05 > 0:26:07Oh, it's a tiny little sliver of a thing.
0:26:07 > 0:26:09Yes.
0:26:09 > 0:26:13So this is one of the few remaining copies of what was
0:26:13 > 0:26:18the Constitution of the Ku Klux Klan.
0:26:18 > 0:26:21You'll see at the front, this is the Constitution,
0:26:21 > 0:26:25which they called the prescript, the prescript of the star, star, star,
0:26:25 > 0:26:27which is what they used to stand for Ku Klux Klan.
0:26:27 > 0:26:28I see, right.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33And you have some Shakespearean verse and then down here...
0:26:33 > 0:26:34- Burns.- We have Burns.
0:26:34 > 0:26:39- So you can see you the Scottish influence here.- Absolutely, yes.
0:26:39 > 0:26:41The Burns is about,
0:26:41 > 0:26:45"A certain ghoul is rantin'..." A certain ghost is rantin',
0:26:45 > 0:26:49"drinkin', we'll send him linkin' to your black pit.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52"But faith he'll turn a corner jinkin', and cheat you yet."
0:26:52 > 0:26:55So both are about things macabre.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57Yes, but they're also high culture.
0:26:57 > 0:27:01They're saying, "We aren't just a bunch of, you know, hayseeds."
0:27:01 > 0:27:03It makes you wonder what Robert Burns himself would have thought
0:27:03 > 0:27:06had he known that some of his verse was going to be included in such a document.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09- Right.- You know, the man that writes, "A man's a man for a' that,"
0:27:09 > 0:27:16to then find one of his verses publicising the aspirations of
0:27:16 > 0:27:18a society like the Ku Klux Klan.
0:27:20 > 0:27:23The Klan now had rules and roles.
0:27:23 > 0:27:26It had become a serious organisation,
0:27:26 > 0:27:30an invisible army dedicated to re-establishing the status
0:27:30 > 0:27:31of the Southern whites.
0:27:35 > 0:27:37And this is what the Klan looked like.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40This is an exact replica of one of the original outfits
0:27:40 > 0:27:43they wore in Pulaski.
0:27:43 > 0:27:47You can see how frightening that would be if somebody appeared
0:27:47 > 0:27:49out of the dark dressed like that.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52Absolutely terrifying.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55It's important... These were not uniforms, these were costumes.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58Right, these are expressing a cultural thing.
0:27:58 > 0:28:00They're not expressing that they're...
0:28:00 > 0:28:02It's not an army-like uniform.
0:28:02 > 0:28:05This is a very chaotic mask.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08Maybe this colourful thread up here,
0:28:08 > 0:28:12this red thread, used to put this black eyebrow on -
0:28:12 > 0:28:13that seems like it's deliberate.
0:28:13 > 0:28:16You're meant to see how sloppily made this was.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19Imagine if you opened your front door and that character
0:28:19 > 0:28:22was standing there brandishing a weapon or whatever.
0:28:22 > 0:28:24Yeah, it's very terrifying.
0:28:37 > 0:28:41In Pulaski, the Klan became increasingly popular
0:28:41 > 0:28:43with the white population,
0:28:43 > 0:28:46News spread, especially as Frank McCord's brother
0:28:46 > 0:28:49ran the local newspaper, the Pulaski Citizen.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54The stories printed in the Citizen helped publicise the Klan
0:28:54 > 0:28:58and reassured the white population that something was being done
0:28:58 > 0:29:01to keep the former slaves in their place.
0:29:02 > 0:29:07Many potential black voters received crude and menacing messages,
0:29:07 > 0:29:09like this letter from a Ku Klux ghost,
0:29:09 > 0:29:12ordering them which way to vote.
0:29:14 > 0:29:19Other copycat Klans were soon formed by more bored and bitter Southerners
0:29:19 > 0:29:20in nearby states,
0:29:20 > 0:29:24only now the theatricalities had turned very ugly indeed.
0:29:26 > 0:29:30Groups of white men would come out in the evening
0:29:30 > 0:29:35to a home, a cabin, and find the man of the house there,
0:29:35 > 0:29:39take him from his home and then they would either whip them
0:29:39 > 0:29:42to try to tell them to change their behaviour,
0:29:42 > 0:29:45to punish them for something that they'd apparently done,
0:29:45 > 0:29:47or they would kill that person,
0:29:47 > 0:29:50kill them either by shooting them or by hanging them.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56What happened when the Klan spread was that existing
0:29:56 > 0:30:00white-on-black violence, which was pervasive,
0:30:00 > 0:30:02right, throughout the South already,
0:30:02 > 0:30:06that comes to be called "Klan violence".
0:30:06 > 0:30:10And when it comes to be called Klan violence, it gets worse,
0:30:10 > 0:30:13you know, people have an additional impetus,
0:30:13 > 0:30:15they feel like they're part of a collective project,
0:30:15 > 0:30:18they're doing something for the South.
0:30:18 > 0:30:21They're not just some guy attacking their black neighbour
0:30:21 > 0:30:25who is competing with them for property rights -
0:30:25 > 0:30:27they are now a Klan or a Ku Klux.
0:30:33 > 0:30:36By the late 1860s, a reign of terror existed
0:30:36 > 0:30:39throughout much of the former Confederacy.
0:30:50 > 0:30:53By the time the federal government had brought in legislation
0:30:53 > 0:30:57against the Klan, much of the group's work had already been done.
0:30:57 > 0:31:01Violence had successfully kept most blacks from the polls,
0:31:01 > 0:31:04and the few that had taken up any civic office
0:31:04 > 0:31:07had already been brutally beaten or hung.
0:31:14 > 0:31:17With the black population now successfully terrorised,
0:31:17 > 0:31:21white state governments brought in laws that segregated the races.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27They were mockingly known as Jim Crow laws,
0:31:27 > 0:31:30after a black character in a minstrel show.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36Now, living separate lives,
0:31:36 > 0:31:39the white population of the Southern states relaxed,
0:31:39 > 0:31:42less fearful of those who were "not them".
0:31:43 > 0:31:46Except the fear never really went away.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59This is Atlanta, now the bustling modern business hub
0:31:59 > 0:32:00of the Deep South.
0:32:01 > 0:32:07In the early 1900s, it was also the place where the Klan was reborn.
0:32:07 > 0:32:09We might never have heard from the Klan again
0:32:09 > 0:32:13but for the efforts of one man, Thomas Dixon.
0:32:13 > 0:32:14He wrote this book -
0:32:14 > 0:32:20it published in 1905 and in it he transformed the members of the Klan
0:32:20 > 0:32:22from villains into heroes.
0:32:23 > 0:32:26Dixon was born in North Carolina,
0:32:26 > 0:32:28the son of a Scots minister and plantation owner.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33He went on to become a Southern Baptist minister,
0:32:33 > 0:32:34lawyer and author.
0:32:37 > 0:32:40His novel was called The Clansman, and it was a big seller.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48It was subtitled A Historical Romance Of The Ku Klux Klan,
0:32:48 > 0:32:53and it imagined a future where the racial divide is reversed,
0:32:53 > 0:32:56and it is the white man that is in chains.
0:32:59 > 0:33:02Now, I'm sure if you were to take the time to wade through this tome,
0:33:02 > 0:33:05you would agree that it's pretty dreadful.
0:33:05 > 0:33:10I offer you part of one chapter in which Dixon imagines
0:33:10 > 0:33:15a future for America in which the black man is in charge.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18"As he passed inside the doors of the House of Representatives,
0:33:18 > 0:33:20"the rush of foul air staggered him.
0:33:20 > 0:33:24"The hall was packed with Negroes smoking, chewing, jabbering,
0:33:24 > 0:33:28"pushing, perspiring. The doctor surveyed the hall in dismay.
0:33:28 > 0:33:31"At first, not a white member was visible.
0:33:31 > 0:33:33"The galleries were packed with Negroes,
0:33:33 > 0:33:35"the Speaker presiding was a Negro.
0:33:35 > 0:33:38"The clerk, a Negro. The doorkeepers, Negroes.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41"The little pages, all coal-black Negroes.
0:33:41 > 0:33:46"The remains of Aryan civilisation were represented by 23 white men
0:33:46 > 0:33:49"from the Scotch-Irish hill counties."
0:33:53 > 0:33:57When the book was published, it caused a literary explosion,
0:33:57 > 0:34:01and when it transferred to the stage as a play, it provoked riots,
0:34:01 > 0:34:04not just in this city, but all across America.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11When the play premiered at the Grand Opera House
0:34:11 > 0:34:13here in Atlanta, in October 1905,
0:34:13 > 0:34:17the segregated audience went wild.
0:34:17 > 0:34:19Tom Rice has studied what happened.
0:34:19 > 0:34:23The report stressed that the house lights were kept on,
0:34:23 > 0:34:26the sale of soda bottles was prohibited because they were worried
0:34:26 > 0:34:29they were going to get hurled around the theatre.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33Absolutely, it tapped into this culture of fear,
0:34:33 > 0:34:38these anxieties about racial integration and race relations
0:34:38 > 0:34:41that were really prevalent in Atlanta and across the South
0:34:41 > 0:34:43at this moment.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47Dixon took his Scottish heritage and paraded it in his work.
0:34:47 > 0:34:51Inside the front cover of his novel, the dedication reads...
0:35:01 > 0:35:04And it's not the only reference to a Scottish past.
0:35:04 > 0:35:06Clearly, the title, The Clansman,
0:35:06 > 0:35:09does make a connection with the Scottish roots here.
0:35:09 > 0:35:13We can see it even in the title of the main family here, the Camerons.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16"It was settled by the Scotch folk who came from the north of Ireland
0:35:16 > 0:35:19"in the great migrations which gave America 300,000 people
0:35:19 > 0:35:21"of Covenanter martyr blood,
0:35:21 > 0:35:23"the largest and most important addition to our population."
0:35:23 > 0:35:28So he's really thinking about the make-up of the American South
0:35:28 > 0:35:31and this area, but in turn, also, of the Klan,
0:35:31 > 0:35:34what would create the Ku Klux Klan here.
0:35:34 > 0:35:36"High above his head in the darkness of the cave,
0:35:36 > 0:35:40"he lifted the blazing emblem, the fiery cross of old Scotland's Hill.
0:35:40 > 0:35:42"I quench its flames in the sweetest blood
0:35:42 > 0:35:45"that ever stained the sands of time."
0:35:45 > 0:35:47And here we've got the fiery cross -
0:35:47 > 0:35:49this is not a feature of the original Klan,
0:35:49 > 0:35:51it's created here by Dixon.
0:35:51 > 0:35:57It would become one of the most identifiable symbols of race hatred,
0:35:57 > 0:35:59of the Ku Klux Klan,
0:35:59 > 0:36:03and is still, today, widely identified with the Klan.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06Here he is saying, this is the fiery cross of old Scotland's Hills.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09He is creating a history and a heritage for this here.
0:36:13 > 0:36:17The full impact of Dixon's novel was felt much more widely when,
0:36:17 > 0:36:23ten years after its publication, it was released as a film, touted then,
0:36:23 > 0:36:26and still lauded now, as an epic of its time.
0:36:29 > 0:36:34The Birth Of A Nation, directed by Hollywood superstar DW Griffith,
0:36:34 > 0:36:38let Dixon's work reach a much bigger audience, and it was a massive hit.
0:36:41 > 0:36:44The budget was huge and the direction was ground-breaking,
0:36:44 > 0:36:48but the story was as racist as Dixon's book.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01Charlene Regester is a film academic
0:37:01 > 0:37:03and remembers her first reaction.
0:37:03 > 0:37:06I saw Birth Of A Nation when I was a graduate student.
0:37:06 > 0:37:10Of course, some of the scenes that we saw were very inflammatory.
0:37:10 > 0:37:15They showed us the alleged rape scene,
0:37:15 > 0:37:19the scene where Gus is chasing the woman
0:37:19 > 0:37:23who jumps off the cliff onto the ground and so,
0:37:23 > 0:37:26you know, it was very offensive then,
0:37:26 > 0:37:29and it's probably still equally offensive today.
0:37:29 > 0:37:31It was a racially incisive story,
0:37:31 > 0:37:34and it was about black male predators,
0:37:34 > 0:37:37black male racists, it was about miscegenation,
0:37:37 > 0:37:41and it was about the Ku Klux Klan rescuing the South,
0:37:41 > 0:37:42and white supremacy.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45I think all of the variables together
0:37:45 > 0:37:47is what made it so volatile.
0:37:47 > 0:37:53Did the film work as a PR exercise for the Klan?
0:37:53 > 0:37:57They certainly made them almost appear as though they were heroic.
0:37:57 > 0:37:59And also, at the end of the film,
0:37:59 > 0:38:01they have one of the white characters
0:38:01 > 0:38:03who unveils as a Klan member...
0:38:05 > 0:38:08They're making them look like they are the saviours of the day,
0:38:08 > 0:38:10they saved the South,
0:38:10 > 0:38:15and certainly coincided with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
0:38:17 > 0:38:22I think it glamorised the Klan and made it a desirable organisation
0:38:22 > 0:38:26to belong to as a way of restoring order and, I guess,
0:38:26 > 0:38:29of instituting white supremacy nationwide.
0:38:33 > 0:38:37Just outside Atlanta, soaring out of the landscape,
0:38:37 > 0:38:40is a curious monolith called Stone Mountain.
0:38:40 > 0:38:43Carved on its side is a vast memorial
0:38:43 > 0:38:45to the Confederate leaders of the Civil War.
0:38:48 > 0:38:50- TOUR GUIDE:- All right, everybody,
0:38:50 > 0:38:53the mountain is thought to be about 350 million years old.
0:38:53 > 0:38:57Only a small portion of the mountain's actually this old...
0:38:57 > 0:39:01But long before the carving was completed, people came here
0:39:01 > 0:39:04to pay homage to something that happened directly as a result
0:39:04 > 0:39:06of Griffith's film.
0:39:08 > 0:39:11It turns out that that film was a revelation
0:39:11 > 0:39:13for at least one cinemagoer.
0:39:14 > 0:39:17He was a Methodist preacher and his name was William Joseph Simmons,
0:39:17 > 0:39:19and he took all he'd seen and heard
0:39:19 > 0:39:22and he brought it here to this mountaintop.
0:39:22 > 0:39:26He was accompanied that day, the eve of Thanksgiving in 1915,
0:39:26 > 0:39:29with 15 like-minded souls, and they had come for a bizarre ceremony.
0:39:31 > 0:39:35What they wanted to do first of all was to build an altar.
0:39:35 > 0:39:39Once it was built, Simmons placed three things on that altar -
0:39:39 > 0:39:42an American flag, a Bible, and a sword unsheathed.
0:39:45 > 0:39:48Then he set fire to a crudely made wooden cross.
0:39:48 > 0:39:53At that moment, he declared himself to be, get this,
0:39:53 > 0:39:56The Imperial Wizard of the Invisible Empire
0:39:56 > 0:39:59of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02The KKK was back.
0:40:02 > 0:40:05But this time, the Klan would be different.
0:40:05 > 0:40:06It would be political,
0:40:06 > 0:40:08it would be obsessed with power,
0:40:08 > 0:40:12and, most significantly of all, it would be big,
0:40:12 > 0:40:13very, very big.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20And with changing immigration, the Klan now had a whole new range
0:40:20 > 0:40:24of targets they thought threatened the lives of Southern people.
0:40:24 > 0:40:28The new Klan's focus wasn't just on black people -
0:40:28 > 0:40:32Jews, Catholics and Mexicans also became targets of the organisation.
0:40:38 > 0:40:40To get an insight into this second Klan,
0:40:40 > 0:40:44I've come to the small estate of author William Rawlings,
0:40:44 > 0:40:47just outside the town of Sandersville, in Georgia.
0:40:50 > 0:40:55The Klan's mantra at this time, it's recruiting mantra was...
0:40:55 > 0:40:58Can be summed up as being 100% Americanism.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02Support of the Constitution, just laws, anti-immigration.
0:41:02 > 0:41:06People that joined the Klan during the early 1920s joined not because
0:41:06 > 0:41:09they had some agenda but because the message of the Klan was,
0:41:09 > 0:41:13"We want to do a good thing for America. We want to, perhaps,
0:41:13 > 0:41:15"keep these immigrants out, these Chinese in California,
0:41:15 > 0:41:18"these Mexicans on the border sites."
0:41:18 > 0:41:21But the new Klan was as oppressive as the first.
0:41:21 > 0:41:24Say you live in a town, and the Klan is in the town, and you don't know
0:41:24 > 0:41:26who the members are, but maybe
0:41:26 > 0:41:28your best friend's in there, they may not be.
0:41:28 > 0:41:31You don't know if the policeman on the corner is a member of the Klan.
0:41:31 > 0:41:33Perhaps your minister's a member of the Klan.
0:41:33 > 0:41:35And they liked it that way.
0:41:35 > 0:41:37They could go to a merchant, for example, and say,
0:41:37 > 0:41:40"You know, we're the Klan - we can tell people not to trade with you."
0:41:40 > 0:41:42The merchant would say, "Gee, I better support the Klan."
0:41:42 > 0:41:45You never knew how many people were members of the Klan.
0:41:45 > 0:41:49Once they developed the reputation for not only intimidation
0:41:49 > 0:41:52but action, then frequently all they had to do was simply say,
0:41:52 > 0:41:54"We're watching you."
0:41:54 > 0:41:56And that was all that was needed.
0:41:57 > 0:42:01Klan violence directly affected William Rawlings's family.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04Although they had owned a slave plantation,
0:42:04 > 0:42:07everyone was a potential target.
0:42:07 > 0:42:10My family had an unfortunate experience with the Klan.
0:42:10 > 0:42:13Uncle Charlie was a bit of a philanderer,
0:42:13 > 0:42:14I guess that's the best way to say it.
0:42:14 > 0:42:16Not only did he have his girlfriends,
0:42:16 > 0:42:19his interests also crossed racial lines.
0:42:19 > 0:42:25He sired a number of mixed-race children, which was not exactly
0:42:25 > 0:42:28the socially acceptable thing of the day to do.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31He was, allegedly, according to family history, warned by the Klan,
0:42:31 > 0:42:34and when he ignored them, because he was a very wealthy and powerful man,
0:42:34 > 0:42:37when he ignored them, they simply waylaid him on a country road.
0:42:37 > 0:42:40He had his own chauffeur, a guy named Hal Hooks, a black man.
0:42:40 > 0:42:44They put a tree across the road. When Hal Hooks went to move
0:42:44 > 0:42:48the tree, all of a sudden Klansmen emerged from the forest.
0:42:48 > 0:42:52They told Hooks to stand to one side and they castrated Uncle Charlie.
0:42:54 > 0:42:56- Castrated him?- They castrated him,
0:42:56 > 0:43:00and he lived the remainder of his life without part of his anatomy.
0:43:02 > 0:43:04MUSIC: Chains And Things by BB King
0:43:25 > 0:43:26How big did it get?
0:43:26 > 0:43:27What was the high point?
0:43:27 > 0:43:31For a very brief period of time, 1924, 1925,
0:43:31 > 0:43:34they were one of the most powerful social and political organisations
0:43:34 > 0:43:36in the United States -
0:43:36 > 0:43:40around 5 million members at its peak in 1925.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43You know, it was a tremendous number of people that joined the Klan.
0:43:45 > 0:43:50Perhaps the high point of the Klan was the march in August 1925
0:43:50 > 0:43:55where an estimated... As many as 150,000 robed Klansmen
0:43:55 > 0:43:58marched down Pennsylvania Avenue.
0:44:00 > 0:44:02It's a terribly frightening image,
0:44:02 > 0:44:06to see Pennsylvania Avenue with the Capitol dome in the background,
0:44:06 > 0:44:08and an endless stream of white-robed Klansmen
0:44:08 > 0:44:10marching down the street.
0:44:10 > 0:44:12You know, is this what America has become?
0:44:19 > 0:44:22The Klan of the 1920s failed eventually
0:44:22 > 0:44:25because people figured them out.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27People began to say, you know,
0:44:27 > 0:44:30these people are not really what I want America to be.
0:44:30 > 0:44:33These people are beating, flogging, these people are judge,
0:44:33 > 0:44:35jury and executioner rolled into one.
0:44:35 > 0:44:38This is not the American way. We should reject the Klan.
0:44:41 > 0:44:43The Klan may have been rejected,
0:44:43 > 0:44:46but racial hatred and discrimination remained.
0:44:53 > 0:44:58Here is one of the many places in the South where the law itself
0:44:58 > 0:45:00was used to discriminate.
0:45:00 > 0:45:03This is the former railway terminal building in Macon, Georgia.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06It's a fantastically impressive building, big stone frontage.
0:45:06 > 0:45:09Now, that's the main entrance down there
0:45:09 > 0:45:11with the eagles above it and the pillars.
0:45:11 > 0:45:14Off to one side, though, is a separate entrance,
0:45:14 > 0:45:16and if you look above the door, look what it says...
0:45:16 > 0:45:17"Colored Waiting Room."
0:45:17 > 0:45:21This is a relic, an artefact of the Jim Crow laws,
0:45:21 > 0:45:25which were touted as keeping the white people and the black people
0:45:25 > 0:45:27of America separate but equal.
0:45:34 > 0:45:38The Jim Crow laws reflected the mind-set of those that wanted
0:45:38 > 0:45:40the races to be separate forever.
0:45:40 > 0:45:44They not only mandated the segregation of public transport,
0:45:44 > 0:45:49but public schools, public places and the segregation of restrooms,
0:45:49 > 0:45:51restaurants and even drinking fountains.
0:45:53 > 0:45:57Black and white lived separate but rarely equal lives.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03It took until the 1950s for the Federal Court to declare
0:46:03 > 0:46:07that segregation in state schools was unconstitutional.
0:46:08 > 0:46:11The black population celebrated,
0:46:11 > 0:46:14but the Southern states were having none of it.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17I'm finishing my journey in America's Deep South
0:46:17 > 0:46:22here in Alabama, the heart of the fight against civil rights.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28Montgomery, the state capital, became the epicentre,
0:46:28 > 0:46:31and these steps, the backdrop to much of the rhetoric.
0:46:31 > 0:46:35I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before
0:46:35 > 0:46:39the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now,
0:46:39 > 0:46:41segregation tomorrow,
0:46:41 > 0:46:43and segregation forever.
0:46:46 > 0:46:49Governor George Wallace spoke with the mind-set of those
0:46:49 > 0:46:50that elected him.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58The Klan, too, raised its costumed head again.
0:46:59 > 0:47:01And when around 3,000 people
0:47:01 > 0:47:04attended another rally at Stone Mountain,
0:47:04 > 0:47:09it was clear that the Klan was back in force for the third time,
0:47:09 > 0:47:12and their tactics, again, would be violent.
0:47:14 > 0:47:18The fight for the soul of the South came to its ugliest point
0:47:18 > 0:47:21in the 1960s in the battle between the Civil Rights Movement
0:47:21 > 0:47:23and the Klansmen.
0:47:23 > 0:47:27The Klan's brazen violence and murders eventually pushed
0:47:27 > 0:47:29President Johnson's federal government
0:47:29 > 0:47:33to make a full-scale assault on the Ku Klux Klan.
0:47:33 > 0:47:37Their loyalty is not to the United States of America,
0:47:37 > 0:47:41but instead to a hooded society of bigots.
0:47:41 > 0:47:44So if Klansmen hear my voice today,
0:47:44 > 0:47:47let it be both an appeal
0:47:47 > 0:47:50and a warning
0:47:50 > 0:47:53to get out of the Ku Klux Klan now.
0:47:55 > 0:47:58Leading members of the Klan were prosecuted by the FBI,
0:47:58 > 0:48:02and once again America's most feared hate group appeared to be defeated.
0:48:05 > 0:48:08But, despite the success of the Civil Rights Movement,
0:48:08 > 0:48:11that Southern mind-set didn't go away.
0:48:11 > 0:48:13It's still with us today.
0:48:16 > 0:48:18In the last 50 years, there's been an explosion
0:48:18 > 0:48:21of hate groups in America.
0:48:21 > 0:48:26In 2015, it was estimated that there were 892 hate groups in the US,
0:48:26 > 0:48:31including anti-government militias, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates
0:48:31 > 0:48:35and 190 separate Ku Klux Klan groups.
0:48:36 > 0:48:40The League of the South is one that is often described as a hate group.
0:48:41 > 0:48:43It advocates rolling back time,
0:48:43 > 0:48:48creating a separate Southern society run by Anglo-Celts.
0:48:48 > 0:48:51I've got an e-mail from Dr Michael Hill,
0:48:51 > 0:48:53leader of The League of the South,
0:48:53 > 0:48:56and he's suggesting meeting at the post office parking lot
0:48:56 > 0:48:58in Killen at 9am.
0:49:01 > 0:49:03I think we have our man.
0:49:07 > 0:49:09Dr Hill? Hello, I'm Neil.
0:49:09 > 0:49:12- It's nice to meet you, sir.- Nice to meet you too, sir.- Good to be here.
0:49:12 > 0:49:17- Good. Is it OK if we put a microphone on you?- Sure.
0:49:17 > 0:49:19I think that's one thing about Southerners, you know,
0:49:19 > 0:49:22we're known for our hospitality.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25But we're also very suspicious of outsiders.
0:49:25 > 0:49:29Now, I'm not suspicious of you folks because I know where you come from,
0:49:29 > 0:49:31and I know that, basically, you're...
0:49:31 > 0:49:34You and I come from the same people.
0:49:34 > 0:49:35You know, so it's different.
0:49:35 > 0:49:39But people come around here from other places, and Southerners
0:49:39 > 0:49:42are not so hospitable until they get to know you.
0:49:42 > 0:49:45If you're a nationalist, what's your nation?
0:49:45 > 0:49:47My nation is my people.
0:49:47 > 0:49:48- Not America?- No.
0:49:48 > 0:49:50America's not my nation.
0:49:50 > 0:49:52If your nation is family, what is your family?
0:49:52 > 0:49:54You mean literally people who are blood?
0:49:54 > 0:49:56Yes, exactly. Blood. Blood kin.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59I mean, that is what a nation is.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02But you know as well as I do that the Scots have always been big
0:50:02 > 0:50:07on fictive kinship. You're sort of in the clan, in the family.
0:50:07 > 0:50:09My family is...
0:50:09 > 0:50:12Southern people
0:50:12 > 0:50:17and people who are related to us by genetics, back in the old country.
0:50:17 > 0:50:19America's not a nation,
0:50:19 > 0:50:22America is a multicultural empire.
0:50:22 > 0:50:23I want nothing to do with it.
0:50:23 > 0:50:25It has nothing for me.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35Is the church shooting in Charleston
0:50:35 > 0:50:39an inevitable consequence of that kind of grievance?
0:50:39 > 0:50:41I think you just had a disturbed young man.
0:50:41 > 0:50:43He doesn't come from nowhere, though?
0:50:43 > 0:50:45- He doesn't pop-out...- No, no.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47He's from a context.
0:50:47 > 0:50:49He is from a context.
0:50:49 > 0:50:54The minute I saw that he had a Confederate flag, I said,
0:50:54 > 0:50:56"Oh, they will take this and use it."
0:50:56 > 0:51:02If the Left wants to use Dylann Roof as the archetype
0:51:02 > 0:51:04of everybody that thinks like I do,
0:51:04 > 0:51:07then we're going to have to have fair play on the other side.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10Every time a black person kills a white person,
0:51:10 > 0:51:14we're going to have to just examine that for, you know...
0:51:14 > 0:51:15inside and out.
0:51:15 > 0:51:21Why it happened, the circumstances, the hatred behind it,
0:51:21 > 0:51:22but it doesn't get done.
0:51:22 > 0:51:26How likely is it that your way of thinking will...
0:51:26 > 0:51:28come to pass?
0:51:28 > 0:51:30I'm a realist about this.
0:51:30 > 0:51:31If you look out in the world
0:51:31 > 0:51:34right now, you see that the other side looks like they're winning.
0:51:34 > 0:51:36It won't win. My side will win,
0:51:36 > 0:51:42mainly because it is the natural way that human beings have always lived.
0:51:42 > 0:51:45This is an anomaly period that we're living in,
0:51:45 > 0:51:47and I can see the end of it.
0:51:47 > 0:51:50The pendulum will swing back to a more normal-type human existence.
0:51:50 > 0:51:55So I think I'm on the right side of not only history
0:51:55 > 0:51:56but human nature.
0:51:56 > 0:51:58It's just so pessimistic and depressing to me
0:51:58 > 0:51:59to think that a people,
0:51:59 > 0:52:01given the opportunity to create a new world,
0:52:01 > 0:52:04- and that was the expression that was in use at the time...- Sure, I know.
0:52:04 > 0:52:08They came out so full of ideas like the pursuit of happiness
0:52:08 > 0:52:11and equality and religious freedom,
0:52:11 > 0:52:15and all of that, and yet they created...
0:52:15 > 0:52:18They were part of a world that became a misery for millions.
0:52:18 > 0:52:20I find that, just, sad.
0:52:20 > 0:52:21I know, but what does it tell you?
0:52:21 > 0:52:24It tells you that there can be no utopias,
0:52:24 > 0:52:27because man is a fallen creature and he's always going to behave
0:52:27 > 0:52:29like a fallen creature.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33He's always going to fuck it up.
0:52:36 > 0:52:37I suppose as someone who has, perhaps,
0:52:37 > 0:52:42a naive hope in the brotherhood of mankind...
0:52:44 > 0:52:46If he's right, then,
0:52:46 > 0:52:48I just feel...
0:52:49 > 0:52:51..we're never going to get anywhere.
0:52:51 > 0:52:56If there was ever an indication that history is alive, then it's here.
0:52:56 > 0:53:03You know, a set of events unfolded here 200-and-odd years ago and the
0:53:03 > 0:53:07consequences of them, the reality of the world that was created then,
0:53:07 > 0:53:11are still 100% here.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14You feel as if we're not going anywhere.
0:53:18 > 0:53:23It's so dispiriting to hear someone using my Scottish ancestry
0:53:23 > 0:53:26in support of views that could give rise to hatred.
0:53:29 > 0:53:32I'm heading back to the state capital to get a second opinion
0:53:32 > 0:53:34on Michael Hill's thinking.
0:53:34 > 0:53:40Mark Potok keeps tabs on hate groups at the Southern Poverty Law Center,
0:53:40 > 0:53:42and he has monitored the development of The League Of The South
0:53:42 > 0:53:44for some time.
0:53:44 > 0:53:48I've heard mention of the potential for a race war.
0:53:48 > 0:53:52Is that just meaningless hyperbole?
0:53:52 > 0:53:58Well, look, I mean a race war is the wet dream of all of these groups.
0:53:58 > 0:54:03They all expect a race war, and many of them fervently hope for it.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06You know, that's absolutely common
0:54:06 > 0:54:08in the Klan and in neo-Nazi groups and so on.
0:54:08 > 0:54:11What's been surprising is to see the evolution of a group
0:54:11 > 0:54:13like The League of the South.
0:54:13 > 0:54:14Mike Hill wrote, a few months ago,
0:54:14 > 0:54:18an incredible essay in which he said, essentially,
0:54:18 > 0:54:21"If black people think they want to have a race war,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25"let me just warn them right now, they're not going to win that war."
0:54:25 > 0:54:28Hill has also talked to his people,
0:54:28 > 0:54:31not merely about how the South is an Anglo-Celtic wonderland,
0:54:31 > 0:54:35and all this kind of thing, and we need to protect our culture,
0:54:35 > 0:54:42but about the need to buy AK-47s and tools to derail trains.
0:54:42 > 0:54:44You know, will this ever really come to a race war?
0:54:44 > 0:54:46No, I very much doubt it.
0:54:46 > 0:54:48Are there people out there who desperately
0:54:48 > 0:54:50would like to see it happen?
0:54:50 > 0:54:52Absolutely. I don't think
0:54:52 > 0:54:54The League of the South is going to become
0:54:54 > 0:54:58a huge mainstream movement, but there are really poisonous strands
0:54:58 > 0:55:00in Southern culture.
0:55:00 > 0:55:02I have lived in many different parts of the country,
0:55:02 > 0:55:04and while many Americans will say,
0:55:04 > 0:55:07"Oh, racism is just as bad in the North, it's sort of more covert,"
0:55:07 > 0:55:10I'm here to say that's not true.
0:55:10 > 0:55:16In the aftermath of the June 2015 Charleston massacre by Dylann Roof,
0:55:16 > 0:55:20there was an enormous backlash against the Confederate battle flag
0:55:20 > 0:55:24because Roof, of course, before carrying out this mass murder,
0:55:24 > 0:55:26had taken many pictures of himself
0:55:26 > 0:55:28displaying the Confederate battle flag.
0:55:28 > 0:55:31And, as a result of that, the flag came under attack,
0:55:31 > 0:55:35the governor of South Carolina ordered the Confederate battle flag
0:55:35 > 0:55:38off the grounds of the state capital.
0:55:38 > 0:55:42And then there was this incredible, very widespread reaction.
0:55:42 > 0:55:44We counted, actually,
0:55:44 > 0:55:47in the six months immediately following the Charleston massacre,
0:55:47 > 0:55:52364 pro-Confederate battle flag rallies.
0:55:53 > 0:55:57Does that rhetoric inform people like Dylann Roof?
0:55:57 > 0:55:59I don't think Dylann Roof probably even knew what
0:55:59 > 0:56:03The League of the South was. But did he connect with the kinds of ideas
0:56:03 > 0:56:06that are at the centre of League of the South? Absolutely.
0:56:08 > 0:56:12One of the greatest writers of the South, William Faulkner,
0:56:12 > 0:56:14wrote something that seems very apt.
0:56:15 > 0:56:17"The past isn't dead and buried -
0:56:17 > 0:56:19"it's not even past."
0:56:20 > 0:56:21And that's the point.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25All the people of the South are living with history,
0:56:25 > 0:56:29coping with the consequences of immigration, greed,
0:56:29 > 0:56:34fear and a sequence of events that have turned this place upside down
0:56:34 > 0:56:35more than once.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41I come to the end of my journey at the church where this story began.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48How on earth do the people who suffer the attacks here
0:56:48 > 0:56:52cope with the horror of the racism that has stalked the South
0:56:52 > 0:56:54since the settlers first arrived here?
0:56:55 > 0:56:58Just with the thought of this interview itself...
0:57:00 > 0:57:02I'm teary eyed,
0:57:02 > 0:57:05to think that this is what brought us together.
0:57:05 > 0:57:07But, yet,
0:57:07 > 0:57:13I'm grateful because it gives me an opportunity to say to my brothers
0:57:13 > 0:57:15and sisters around the world,
0:57:15 > 0:57:17thank you for caring.
0:57:17 > 0:57:20Thank you for praying for us,
0:57:20 > 0:57:22remembering us,
0:57:22 > 0:57:24and not forgetting about us.
0:57:24 > 0:57:27Is there anything that ought to be forgotten,
0:57:27 > 0:57:32are there any ideas that need to be put in the past
0:57:32 > 0:57:34and not taken into the future?
0:57:34 > 0:57:38I think that each of us, we are a sum total of our past,
0:57:38 > 0:57:41our present, and our hope for the future.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44And so, no, I wouldn't want to disregard the past,
0:57:44 > 0:57:46I'd want to learn from it,
0:57:46 > 0:57:48I'd want to grow as a result of it.
0:57:48 > 0:57:53And we must embrace our individuality and celebrate it,
0:57:53 > 0:57:56and not be negative as a result of it.
0:57:56 > 0:57:59I believe that from this...
0:58:00 > 0:58:05..can lead a path of race relations that is positive,
0:58:05 > 0:58:09a path that will lead us to a place of reconciliation,
0:58:09 > 0:58:13of healing, and a place of a healthier society.
0:58:16 > 0:58:17Oh, hey, come on.