When
it became evident that American Negroes as well as many of these
new immigrants were not able to be absorbed into white, Anglo-
Saxon, Protestant America as easily as had been expected, many
ardent patriots became panic-stricken over the future of the
American way of life. This sense of terror drove them to take
extreme action in its defense.
The invisible empire of the Ku Klux Klan was the most militant
and best organized of several defenders of this kind of American
patriotism. It built its power on a series of appeals which had
deep roots throughout American life. During the 1920s, anti-
Semitism was widespread, and many respectable hotels and clubs
were closed to Jews. Discrimination against foreign-born
Americans was prevalent. Many patriotic and artistic societies
were exclusively for native-born Americans. Discrimination
against Afro-Americans was a national phenomenon, but in the
South it was an orthodox social and political creed.
The revival of the Klan in 1915 was closely associated with the
release of the famous motion picture, The Birth of a Nation.
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