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Second Ku Klux Klan and The Birth of a Nation
A photograph of Jewish businessman Leo Frank at his murder trial in a courtroom in Marietta, Georgia, 1913.

A photograph of Jewish businessman Leo Frank at his murder trial in a courtroom in Marietta, Georgia, 1913.

Leo Frank was a manager at a pencil factory in Marietta, Georgia. Frank was convicted on questionable evidence of the rape and murder of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan. Shortly after his death sentence was commuted to life in prison, Frank, who was Jewish, was kidnapped and lynched by a group of men. When William J. Simmons heard of Frank’s lynching, he was inspired to create the Second Ku Klux Klan in a ritual that reenacted a cross-burning scene from the film The Birth of a Nation at Stone Mountain, Georgia, in 1915.

Citation Information
“Frank, Leo, circa 1913,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/41033d13a61df7a3b49d000272be1854
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of Atlanta History Center via Digital Library of Georgia.

Tips for Students

For this source, consider:

  • the author's point of view
  • the author's purpose
  • historical context
  • audience

Item 4 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Second Ku Klux Klan and The Birth of a Nation

Previous ItemNext Item
A Ku Klux Klan flag, 1865.
A Ku Klux Klan whip, ca. 1875.
A flyer explaining the purpose of the Ku Klux Klan from the second half of the nineteenth century.
A photograph of Jewish businessman Leo Frank at his murder trial in a courtroom in Marietta, Georgia, 1913.
A photograph of William J. Simmons, the founder of the Second Ku Klux Klan, 1921.
A photograph of early twentieth-century filmmaker D. W. Griffith who produced The Birth of A Nation, ca. 1923.
An excerpt from a souvenir program for the silent film The Birth of a Nation, 1915.
A movie poster for D. W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation, 1921.
An essay discussing the reception of The Birth of a Nation, 1936.
An excerpt from a book entitled Ku Klux Klan Secrets Exposed, 1921.
A photograph of a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1925.
A photograph of a Ku Klux Klan rally in Indiana, 1920s-1930s.
A press release from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) about a Ku Klux Klan lynching, 1926.
A Ku Klux Klan uniform, ca. 1930.
A Ku Klux Klan mailer asking the reader to buy only American goods, 1940.

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