With the growing momentum of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement came a concomitant rise in white-supremacist domestic terrorism, specifically (if not exclusively) in the form of a revived Ku Klux Klan, whose first incarnation dated to 1866 Tennessee. Centering his analysis on North Carolina—a "progressive" state that nevertheless accounted for over half the membership of the United Klans of America (UKA) in 1965-66—Brandeis University sociologist Cunningham (There's Something Happening Here) offers a fascinating case study of the complexities of U.S. reactionary movement culture. Scrupulously examining the membership, leadership, highly placed allies, organizational and recruitment strategies, internecine feuds, and popular appeal of the Klan, as well as official responses to it, Cunningham demonstrates that the UKA's phenomenal growth in North Carolina occurred amid a relative absence of grassroots and establishment resistance to desegregation.Protestantism, nativism, and white supremacy had fertilized the growth of the KKK since 1915, and once again these served as basic elements of reactionary ideology. Moreover, Southern segregationism complemented the era's feverish anticommunism. Cunningham's study is a solid addition to the field and a worthy contribution to current debates about domestic terrorism. (Nov.)
