12 Horrible Crimes Committed by the Ku Klux Klan [site:name]

The existence of the Ku Klux Klan alone is reason enough to be concerned and query our federal government as to why an overtly racist, hate-filled organization was allowed to exist for therefore long. Apparently, conservative media personality Tomi Lahren didn’t get the memo.

Lahren appeared in Daily program with Trevor Noah on Wednesday night, and when Noah modified the subject of the conversation to her baseless criticism of the Black Lives Matter Movement, she foolishly tried to defend her tactic of describing the modern civil rights organization as “the new Ku Klux Klan.”

“When the Black Lives Matter movement comes out with signs saying ‘fry them like bacon’ and ‘down with the police’ and when they come out and say ‘if you see a white person, target them’ … that’s what happens, Trevor,” she said.

The most embarrassing moment in Lahren’s speech got here when she tried to reduce the Ku Klux Klan’s brutal history of racist attacks, inhumane murders and torture.

“So when that becomes the narrative and you start looting and burning and rioting… what did the KKK do?” Lahren asked. Naturally, her bogus query was met with a barrage of “boohoos” from the audience and a surprised look from Noah himself.

In an effort to remind Tomi Lahren and anyone else who seems to suffer from a little bit of amnesia about the history of brutal crimes committed by the Ku Klux Klan in America, let’s take a have a look at a number of of them.

1. Tulsa Race Riots – Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1921

Between 21 and 200 blacks were murdered when residents rioted after a black man was accused of raping a white woman. Tulsa KKK founder W. Tate Brady participated in the riots.

2. Murder of Emmett Till – Money, Mississippi 1955

Emmett Till was a 14-year-old black boy who was severely beaten to the point that his face was disfigured and one eye was ejected from its socket. He was then fatally shot, tied to a fan, and thrown into the Tallahatchie River by two white men for allegedly flirting with a white woman while visiting a neighborhood store.

3. Murder of Judge Edward Aaron – Birmingham, Alabama 1957

Edward Aaron was a black foreman who was kidnapped by the Ku Klux Klan, severely beaten, castrated with a straight razor, and left for dead in a close-by stream.

4. Murder of Willie Edwards – Alabama River, Alabama, 1957

Willie Edwards was kidnapped by a member of the Ku Klux Klan, severely beaten in his automobile, after which forced at gunpoint to leap 125 feet off a bridge over the Alabama River to his death.

5. sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing wherein 4 black schoolgirls were killed – Birmingham, Alabama 1963

The Ku Klux Klan took responsibility for strategically placing bombs outside a black church just before Sunday school ended. The bombs later exploded and killed 4 black schoolgirls, ages 11 to 14.

6. Murder of Medgar Evers – Jackson, Mississippi, 1963

Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist, husband, and father who was murdered by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith in his driveway as he returned from a gathering with NAACP lawyers.

7. Murder of Viola Liuzzo – Selma, Alabama 1965

Viola Liuzzo was a white civil rights activist, mother, and wife who was shot twice in the head by 4 Ku Klux Klan members who became enraged once they saw her riding in a automobile with a black man who was also an activist.

8. Murder of Michael Donald – Mobile, Alabama, 1981

Michael Donald was killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan after he was accused of murdering a white police officer. The Ku Klux Klan beat him with a tree branch, strangled him with a rope, and slit his throat before hanging him from a tree in his neighborhood backyard.

9. Mount Zion AME Church in Flames – Greelyville, South Carolina 1995

The Mount Zion AME Church was burned to the ground by members of the Ku Klux Klan but was later rebuilt.

10. Murder of Jason Smith – Eros, Louisiana, 2011

Jason Smith was a 14-year-old black student from Louisiana who was found dead in a neighborhood lake with none organs. Although his death was ruled an “accidental drowning,” his father and family maintain that the killing was the work of local Ku Klux Klan members.

11. Jewish Community Center Murders – Overland Park, Kansas 2014

Former Ku Klux Klan leader Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. murdered three people by opening fire at a neighborhood Jewish community center.

12. Stabbing of Ku Klux Klan protesters at rally – Anaheim, California 2016

Three people were stabbed by members and supporters of the Ku Klux Klan during a protest against their rally in California.