Why would you think that bigotry requires (or is even encouraged by) those characteristics? I suspect that what you are (mis)interpreting as “southern” bigotry is actually the result of class struggles, where the working class at the low economic end of the scale perceives (correctly or not) that some other group is threatening their tenuous position in society. I grew up with people who lived in cities and suburbs and listened to rock and roll and did drugs who were every bit as bigoted as any stereotypical “redneck.” (And that bigotry is simply easier to display. Wealthier folks get to pass laws to keep out the “undesirables,” so they don’t have to demonstrate their bigotry in visible fashions.)
Wouldn’t. At the same time, the lyric was by a New York schoolteacher, who presumably cared more about expressing the outrage of it all than about putting a pin in a map, and not at all about splitting hairs re the culture(s) of ignorant White society.
Ok, can’t let this slide. Fresno, believe it or not is one of the most integrated communities I have seen in many, many ways. Gang problems, yes, but even those gangs are often pretty open minded about the ethnicity of their members. Interracial couples are everywhere only a handful of the women I have ever dated were white and I have never once had anyone comment. In fact the only time I have had someone comment was my stepmother who lives 200 miles from Fresno(who is from Indiana, go figure) and once in Paso Robles, CA at the mid state fair. Fresno is about as far from rural as you can get these days, sure 100+ miles of farmland in every direction but the metro area proper is around 600,000 people.
Even in Clovis which is alot more snooty than Fresno could ever be, they pretty much universally hate trashy anything, black, white, hispanic, asian. Good little citizens do very well regardless of ethnicity, bad attitude, defiance of authority, and poor behavior are however crushed mercilessly.
Thanks, Really Not All That Bright, I wasn’t sure of when his last big outburst was but I knew the beating was in 2006.
I remember passing his house in Newville on the way to visit my sister in Butler. We sort of gawked at the billboard, said ‘what an asshole’, and went on our way. Had no idea he was big news in the KKK until a few years later.
I quite agree with you. My post was addressing carnivorousplant’s apparent consternation that someone might have the temerity to think “Strange Fruit” was about the South. (He has since clarified his post.)
I certainly agree that bigotry can be found anywhere and that it is not necessary to point fingers at a specific region.
I’m having a summer special !! 
What I’ve read doesn’t suggest they were quite that harmless, even if much of their hate was directed at Catholics. You didn’t have to lynch people to cause harm - having people with this mindset affecting hiring and schools and entrenched in government is chilling enough.
There’s a story I remember about a crowd of Hoosiers in the ‘20s getting worked up by a Klan agitator about how the Pope was plotting to come to Indiana to take over the state, and how he might be on one of the trains heading into town right now. Supposedly the crowd descended on the train station and started grilling passengers, including one guy they were ready to lynch until he convinced them he was a corset salesman by showing the contents of his sample case. They figured the Pope wouldn’t be going around with a bunch of ladies’ underthings.
In another instance a bunch of Indiana Klan headed up to South Bend to protest against Catholics, and got beaten up and de-pantsed by Notre Dame students.
So while they had their farcical aspects, it’s still grim to think about people like this in power.
You’re welcome. For the record, technically there is no single entity called “the Klan” anymore, just a bunch of more of less distinct hate groups. They spend as much time fighting with each other as they do actually working toward their goal(s) - generally, a return to a white, Protestant America of the past that never actually existed.
The Anti-Defamation League (of B’nai Brith) maintains a pretty thorough listing of recent and current Klan-style groups.
Jeff Berry was more or less done as a Klan leader in 2004 when he was arrested (and subsequently convicted) of holding two news reporters at gunpoint for asking “the difficult questions”.
It was never called just “the Klan” except as a sort of shorthand name. Although they take officially longer names, they still refer to themselves as “the Klan.”
Your link is interesting in showing the dispersal of the hate groups.
Don’t be so uppity FGIE ! We’re all the same on the inside. 
I’m referring to the original 1865ish Ku Klux Klan- which was a single organization under one elected leader, even though local Klaverns were mostly autonomous.
As a young lad, my father came upon a Roman Catholic priest bending down to look at lilies in a pond on Mout Royal. My grandmother directed him to kick the priest into the pond, which he did. My grandmother was just plain nasty. Fortunately, my father outgrew her prejudices.
How did she know he was a priest, and not an old guy in a nightgown?
Yup.
Some of them are young and wear pants. 