New groups bearing the name Ku Klux Klan sprang up again in the 1910s and 1920s, adding foreigners, Jews, Catholics, and organized labor to their lists of enemies. In this era, the great stronghold of the Klan was the Midwest, and the organization enjoyed a wider membership base and great political power. The Klan declined somewhat in the 1930s and came to an end in 1944.
The KKK was revived again, however, during the 1950s as the fear of communism gripped Americans. The organization continued to exist in opposition to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and was responsible for unleashing tremendous violence against African Americans and whites who supported them, again in the South, before being brought under some control by the federal government under President Lyndon B. Johnson.
The different KKK organizations that exist today have in common a belief in the inequality and separate interests of races and a desire to promote what they see as the interests of the white race. They are secretive, fraternal organizations promoting white rule and professing extreme patriotism. Klan groups still use methods of hatred and violence, and some are tied closely to the U.S. Nazi movement.
One of the more prominent KKK groups is the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. A group by this name was formed in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 1956 and included around 5,000 members in the mid-1960s. However, the current group was apparently organized in 1974 by David Duke, who left the organization in 1980 and later unsuccessfully ran for president of the United States. The literature of this group claims that the federal government is controlled by Jews and has abandoned the U.S. Constitution to bring about the destruction of the white race. Whites, according to the knights, have been victimized by racial hatred and discrimination.