Cross burning
Encyclopedia
Cross burning or cross lighting is a practice widely associated with the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

, although the historical practice long predates the Klan's inception. In the early twentieth century, the Klan burnt cross
Cross
A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run obliquely, the design is technically termed a saltire, although the arms of a saltire need not meet...

es on hillsides or near the homes of those they wished to intimidate
Intimidation
Intimidation is intentional behavior "which would cause a person of ordinary sensibilities" fear of injury or harm. It's not necessary to prove that the behavior was so violent as to cause terror or that the victim was actually frightened.Criminal threatening is the crime of intentionally or...

.

Sign of the Ku Klux Klan

The Reconstruction-era Klan did not burn crosses, but Thomas Dixon
Thomas Dixon, Jr.
Thomas F. Dixon, Jr. was an American Baptist minister, playwright, lecturer, North Carolina state legislator, lawyer, and author, perhaps best known for writing The Clansman — which was to become the inspiration for D. W...

's 1902–1907 trilogy of novels
The Clansman
The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan is the title of a novel published in 1905. It was the second work in the Ku Klux Klan trilogy by Thomas F. Dixon, Jr. that included The Leopard's Spots and The Traitor. It was influential in providing the ideology that helped support the...

 portrayed a romanticized version of the Ku Klux Klan in which its members did burn crosses. Dixon may have based the idea on descriptions of the fiery cross
Fiery cross
The Fiery cross is the English language term for a piece of wood, such as a baton, that North Europeans, e.g. Scotsmen and Scandinavians, used to send to rally people for things for defence or rebellion ....

 in the writing of Sir Walter Scott, or on other literary or historical sources. The 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...

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
Fiery cross
The Fiery cross is the English language term for a piece of wood, such as a baton, that North Europeans, e.g. Scotsmen and Scandinavians, used to send to rally people for things for defence or rebellion ....

, extinguished in sacrificial blood, was sent by swift courier from village to village… The ancient symbol of an unconquered race of men.


In 1915, the same year Birth of a Nation was released, Jewish-American Leo Frank
Leo Frank
Leo Max Frank was a Jewish-American factory superintendent whose hanging in 1915 by a lynch mob of prominent citizens in Marietta, Georgia drew attention to antisemitism in the United States....

 was lynched
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...

. Two months after his lynching, the lynchers burnt a cross. William J. Simmons
William J. Simmons
William Joseph Simmons was the founder of the second Ku Klux Klan on Thanksgiving Night of 1915.-Early life:Simmons was born in Harpersville, Alabama, to Calvin Henry Simmons, a physician; and Lavonia David. He served in the Spanish-American War and later claimed to have studied medicine at Johns...

, who founded the new Ku Klux 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 Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

s consider it sacrilege
Sacrilege
Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object. In a less proper sense, any transgression against the virtue of religion would be a sacrilege. It can come in the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things...

 to burn or otherwise destroy a cross. Klan Christians, however, states that it is not destroying the cross, but "lighting" it, as a symbol of the members' faith.

Scottish origins

In Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, the fiery cross
Fiery cross
The Fiery cross is the English language term for a piece of wood, such as a baton, that North Europeans, e.g. Scotsmen and Scandinavians, used to send to rally people for things for defence or rebellion ....

, known as the Crann Tara, was used as a declaration of war. The sight of it commanded all clan
Scottish clan
Scottish clans , give a sense of identity and shared descent to people in Scotland and to their relations throughout the world, with a formal structure of Clan Chiefs recognised by the court of the Lord Lyon, King of Arms which acts as an authority concerning matters of heraldry and Coat of Arms...

 members to rally to the defense of the area. On other occasions, a small burning cross would be carried from town to town. The most recent known use was in 1745, during the Jacobite Rising
Jacobite rising
The Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by...

 and was subsequently described in the novels and poetry of Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

.

Recent cases

In 2007, Neal Chapman Coombs, of Hastings
Hastings, Florida
Hastings is a town and agricultural center in St. Johns County, Florida, United States, southwest of St. Augustine. The population was 521 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 607.-History:...

, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, was charged with knowingly and willfully intimidating and interfering with right to fair housing by threat of force and the use of fire and pleaded guilty to a racially-motivated civil rights crime involving a cross burning to prevent the purchase of a house by an African-American family. Coombs was sentenced to 14 months in prison in January, 2007.

On November 6, 2008, a Hardwick Township, New Jersey
Hardwick Township, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 1,464 people, 502 households, and 410 families residing in the township. The population density was 40.1 people per square mile . There were 530 housing units at an average density of 14.5 per square mile...

 family who supported U.S. President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

's campaign found a charred wooden cross on their lawn, near burnt remnants of a "President Obama - Victory '08" banner which had been stolen from their yard.

In February 2010, an interracial Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

 couple living in Hants County
Hants County, Nova Scotia
Hants County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia which was the home of Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Alden Nowlan and Noel Doiron. The county of Hants was created June 17, 1781, and consisted of the townships of Windsor, Falmouth and Newport...

 discovered a cross burning on their lawn, along with a noose. Two brothers were later convicted of inciting racial hatred.

Legal position in the United States

In Virginia v. Black
Virginia v. Black
Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 , was a First Amendment case decided in the Supreme Court of the United States. Three defendants were convicted in two separate cases of violating a Virginia statute against cross burning. In this case, the Court struck down that statute to the extent that it...

(2003), the United States Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

ruled that a statute outlawing the public burning of a cross with intent to intimidate is Constitutional, but if the statute does not require an additional showing of the intent to intimidate outside the burning itself, then the statute cannot pass Constitutional muster.
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