Kansas, the KKK and Hate Without End

Though the recent shootings outside Jewish community centers in Kansas, which killed three people, may seem “at first glance like a disparaged past flaring briefly into the present,” they are in fact part of an American legacy of religious intolerance as old as the nation itself, writes Professor of Religion Peter Gottschalk in The Los Angeles Times. In fact, he writes, the KKK–and religiously motivated violence, in general–remains alive and well in this country, and Jews are the group most likely to report being the victim of hate crimes. Gottschalk walks readers through a brief history of religious intolerance in America, including the various forms the KKK has taken.