# Legacies of Hate: The Psychological Legacy of the Ku Klux Klan

## TL;DR

This study explores how the Ku Klux Klan's historical racial hatred has influenced modern-day racial bias and White Supremacist activity in the U.S.

## Contribution

The paper introduces new evidence that historical Klan activity correlates with modern White Supremacist activity but not with current racial bias.

## Key findings

- Regions with more 1920s Klan activity show higher modern White Supremacist activity.
- Unexpectedly, these regions show lower levels of modern implicit and explicit racial bias.
- Findings challenge assumptions about how historical events shape present-day attitudes.

## Abstract

The second coming of the Ku Klux Klan popularized the Klan and its ideas in the early 1920s, terrorizing Black American, their allies, and others deemed un-American. This article investigates the extent to which the cultural legacy of racial hatred of the Klan has persisted over the years. We use data from large online databases, multiverse analyses, and spatial models to evaluate whether regions with more historical Klan activity show higher levels of modern-day racial bias, and more modern-day White Supremacist activity. We find that regions with more Ku Klux Klan activity in the 1920s show higher levels of modern White Supremacist activity but, unexpectedly, lower levels of modern implicit and explicit racial bias. We discuss the implications of these findings for models linking historical events with present-day attitudes and behavior, and for situational models of bias more broadly.