William Joseph Simmons
William Joseph Simmons was a significant figure in the early 20th century, known primarily for his role in reviving the Ku Klux Klan in 1915. Raised in central Alabama, Simmons initially served as a Methodist minister before becoming involved in fraternal organizations. He founded the modern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, expanding its structure and promoting its goals of white supremacy and secrecy. Under his leadership, the Klan grew rapidly, fueled in part by the controversial film "The Birth of a Nation," which glorified the original Klan.
Simmons's tenure saw the Klan's membership swell to over a million by the early 1920s, driven by campaigns emphasizing "100 percent Americanism" and targeting various minority groups, including Jews and immigrants. However, internal conflicts arose, leading to Simmons's ousting from leadership and a financial settlement that severed his ties to the organization. He subsequently lived in Luverne, Alabama, until his death in 1945. Simmons's actions had a lasting impact, as the revival he orchestrated contributed to the Klan becoming one of the most notorious and visible racist movements in American history.
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Subject Terms
William Joseph Simmons
Imperial Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (1915-1922)
- Born: 1880
- Birthplace: Harpersville, Alabama
- Died: May 18, 1945
- Place of death: Atlanta, Georgia
Cause of notoriety: Simmons, initially a promoter for the fraternal organization Woodmen of the World, led the revival of the white supremacist organization the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and declared himself the Grand Wizard of the new Klan.
Active: 1915-1922
Locale: Georgia
Early Life
William Joseph Simmons (SIHM-menz) was raised on a farm in central Alabama. His father owned a mill and worked as a doctor. When Simmons was eighteen, he enlisted in the Alabama Volunteers to fight in the Spanish-American War. Following his release from the army, he became a circuit Methodist minister serving small congregations in Alabama and Florida. In 1912, the Alabama Conference denied him a pulpit because of his inefficiency and moral impairment. Simmons eventually became a fraternal promoter for Woodmen of the World, where he rose to the rank of colonel. In 1914, he became a district commander of the organization in Atlanta, Georgia.
Klan Career
In 1915, Simmons worked out the details for a new fraternal organization called the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Working from a copy of the 1867 Reconstruction Klan Prescript, Simmons expanded the ritual and hierarchy of the group and copyrighted the document. On October 26, 1915, Simmons and thirty-four other men, including two former Reconstruction-era Klansmen, applied for a charter from the state of Georgia. The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was described as a purely benevolent and eleemosynary fraternal order. Its program emphasized fraternity, secrecy, and white supremacy.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1915, Simmons led fifteen followers up Stone Mountain, Georgia, torched a cross, and revived the Ku Klux Klan. The revival corresponded with the Atlanta opening of The Birth of a Nation—a controversial film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novels of Thomas Dixon, Jr.—which glorified the original Klan. Within a month, the Klan had approximately ninety members; by 1919, it had grown to several thousand members.
In June, 1920, Simmons entered into an agreement with Edward Young Clarke and Mrs. Elizabeth Tyler of the Southern Publicity Association to market the Klan. Under the arrangement, Clarke was to receive 80 percent of the ten-dollar fee paid by each recruit. Clarke expanded the program of the KKK to include an aggressive defense of “100 percent Americanism”; as a result, the group began to target Jews, Roman Catholics, Asians, and immigrants. In addition, the Klan emphasized morality and attacked scandalous behavior. Clarke’s marketing techniques were successful, and by 1921 Klan membership had increased to 100,000. Soon thereafter, the New York World published a series of articles exposing the Klan, and Congress held hearings on the organization. Simmons spent three days testifying before the House Rules Committee, during which time he defended the Klan as a Christian organization. The publicity resulted in even more growth of the Klan, and within a year Klan membership stood at more than one million.
The success of the Klan eventually resulted in Simmons’s demise. Some Klansmen, led by Dallas dentist Hiram Wesley Evans, expressed dissatisfaction with the operation of the national headquarters. In particular, he saw Clarke as using the Klan to get rich and Simmons as incompetent. At the 1922 national meeting of the Klan in Atlanta, the insurgents convinced Simmons to accept a new position—emperor of the Klan—while Evans became Imperial Wizard. Simmons agreed but soon discovered that he had lost his authority. A power struggle followed, and eventually Simmons agreed to an out-of-court settlement whereby he left the Klan and transferred his copyrights to the new leaders in return for a cash settlement of approximately $146,000. Eventually Simmons moved to Luverne, Alabama. He died in May, 1945, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Impact
William Joseph Simmons was responsible for the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915. This organization became a nationwide movement in the 1920’s with a membership reaching one million through its emphasis on total Americanism and its attacks on religious and ethnic minorities. Throughout its history, the Klan has been the most visible and infamous racist movement in America, and its revival by Simmons resulted in the largest Klan movement in the history of the United States.
Bibliography
Blee, Kathleen M. Women and the Klan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. This work looks at the role that women played in the 1920’s Klan.
MacLean, Nancy. Behind the Mask of Chivalry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. An examination of the 1920’s Klan utilizing internal Klan records from Georgia.
Wade, Wyn Craig. The Fiery Cross. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. An older work on the history of the Ku Klux Klan that has detailed information on Simmons.