From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cross burning or cross lighting is a practice widely associated with the Ku Klux Klan. In the early 20th century, the Klan burnt Christian crosses on hillsides or near the homes of those they wish to intimidate, usually non-caucasians.

In Scotland the "fiery cross", known as the Crann Tara, was used as a declaration of war. The sight of it commanded all clan members to rally to the defence of the area. On other occasions, a small burning cross would be carried from town to town. The practice is described in the novels and poetry of Sir Walter Scott. The most recent known use there was in 1745, during the Jacobite Rising,^[1] over a century before the foundation of the Klan.

Though some members of the Klan were descended from immigrants from Scotland, there is no evidence to suggest that their ancestors brought this tradition with them to America.

The Reconstruction-era Klan did not burn crosses, but Thomas Dixon's 1902–1907 trilogy of novels portrayed a romanticized version of the Reconstruction Klan that did burn crosses (see The Clansman). Dixon may have based the idea on Scott's writing, or on other literary or historical sources. The 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation was based on two of Dixon's novels. Birth of a Nation quotes Dixon's novel The Clansman as saying:

In olden times when the Chieftain of our people summoned the clan on an errand of life and death, the Fiery Cross, extinguished in sacrificial blood, was sent by swift courier from village to village… The ancient symbol of an unconquered race of men.

The burning cross is a symbol used by the Klan to create terror. Cross burning is said to have been introduced by William J. Simmons, the founder of the second Klan, in 1915.

The burning cross is, along with swastikas and hate-related graffiti such as the initials 'KKK', a symbol or sign associated with hate crimes as defined in the 1999 NCVS (National Crime Victim Survey), "A hate crime is a criminal offense committed against a person or property motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, ethnicity/national origin, gender, sexual preference, or disability. The offense is considered a hate crime whether or not the offender's perception of the victim as a member or supporter of a protected group is correct."^[2]

In 1915, the same year Birth of a Nation was released, Leo Frank was lynched. Two months after his lynching, the lynchers burnt a cross. William J. Simmons, who founded the new Klan later in the same year, burned a cross at the mountaintop founding ceremony. Many of the participants in Simmons's ceremony were the same men who had helped to lynch Frank.

Many Christians consider it sacrilege to burn or otherwise destroy a cross. The Klan, however, claims to not be destroying the cross, but "lighting" it, a symbol of their faith. [2]

In Virginia v. Black (2003), the United States Supreme Court ruled that burning a cross at a Klan rally is protected by the First Amendment, but also held that a statute could constitutionally proscribe cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate the target of the speech.

• Wade, Wyn Craig. The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America. New York: Simon and Schuster (1987).