A&E Network announced it will air a documentary series focused on the Ku Klux Klan to expose how families and generations of the group deal with passing their racist and anti-Semitic beliefs to other family members.
The first episode of the series was announced Monday and will be aired on the cable network January 10. There will be eight episodes in total and each will last about an hour. The Klan documentary series follows four KKK families that are struggling to make one of their relatives to stay in the group. The episodes will feature an Iraq war veteran and Klan member that is raising his 4-year-old son in the racist group and an “Imperial Wizard” that wants his teenage daughter to take his place in the Klan.
The documentary will also show a fifth generation Klan family struggling to continue their legacy and a young man who sees his KKK leader as the father he never had.
“This series gives viewers an unprecedented look at what it is like to be born into hate,” said Rob Sharenow, general manager of A&E and Lifetime, in a statement. “Our producers gained access to Klan families, allowing for full immersion into this secret world and its impact on the next generation. Generation KKK brings viewers inside the places where hatred and prejudice are born and bred, and carried forward or not.”
The Ku Klux Klan is a racist, anti-Semitic movement that also targets other minorities. Its members are committed to extreme violence to achieve their goals of racial segregation and white supremacy.
The three Ks represent three distinct movements in the U.S: white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration ideas. The first Klan was founded in 1865. Although their members decreased after the 1920s, recent surveys show the group has grown from 17 to 190 during the last presidential campaign.
A&E worked on the series for 18 months to show the Klan’s alleged new recruitment efforts that target families, including children.
The documentary series will also include members of One Peoples’ Project, an anti-hate organization that works with reformed hate-group members to speak with Klan families about changing their segregational ideas.
Sharenow told USA Today that the series exposes the ugly truth about how the KKK attempts to indoctrinate children to their hate philosophy. It also features the efforts of activist groups that are actually trying to do something about it, working to prevent the next hate-generation.
‘Generation KKK’: Why now?
The presidential campaign and the race for the presidency between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump witnessed the birth and the revival of extremist groups, including neo-Nazis and the Klan. The last elections brought a wave of “alt-right” white nationalists that felt inspired by Trump allegations on Mexicans, Muslims, and immigrants in general.
Trump’s ideology even made David Duke support him. Duke, a former KKK leader and a well-known American racist, stated that Donald Trump’s victory is a win for “his people.”
The series will let the public explore crucial questions such as why people join this type of group in the first place and how difficult it is to get out of the Klan and become and anti-hate person.
Source: USA Today