What are the Knights of Labor

I have seen them being touted as a labor group, but also being closely tied to freemasonry and the KKK.

Originally posted by jimbolux1
but also being closely tied to freemasonry and the KKK.

Ummm... I hope you're not trying to imply that Freemasonry is tied to the KKK...? An organisation which promotes universal brotherhood would find itself a truly strange bedfellow to one which promotes bigotry and hatred.

Originally posted by jimbolux1
I have seen them being touted as a labor group, but also being closely tied to freemasonry and the KKK.

You're going to have to give us a little more info than that... Do you have a link to something you read? Where did you hear about them?

I was particularly interested in it because of the symbology associated with the KOL... but I can't find any significant information about them.


The last sentence states: The organization has been associated with Freemasonry, the Ku Klux Klan and strongly racist views.

This was taken from:
www.wikisearch.net...

The Knights of Labor was a US labor organization, started in Philadelphia in December 1869 by a group of nine tailors, led by Uriah S. Stephens. Initially a secretive organization, it grew rapidly after 1872 and the collapse of the National Labor Union in 1873. The membership peaked in 1886, under Terence V. Powderly, with a total of over 700,000.



The Knights aided various strikes and boycotts, winning important actions against Union Pacific in 1884 and on the Wabash Railroad in 1885. However, failure in the Missouri Pacific strike in 1886 and violence by strikers, including the Haymarket Square riot, led to disputes between the craft unionists and the advocates of all-inclusive unionism. With the additional problems of an autocratic structure, mismanagement, further unsuccessful strikes, and the emergence of the American Federation of Labor in 1886 under Samuel Gompers the organization quickly shrank from its 1886 peak. By 1890 membership was only 100,000, and in 1900 it was practically non-existent.

With the motto "an injury to one is the concern of all", the Knights of Labor attempted to further its idealistic aims - an 8-hour day, the abolition of child labor, equal pay, the elimination of private banks. The Knights were organized both as all-inclusive "general assemblies" and as "trade assemblies" consisting of workers within particular crafts. Women, black workers (after 1883), and employers were welcomed, and bankers, lawyers, gamblers, and stockholders excluded.

The organization has been associated with Freemasonry, the Ku Klux Klan and strongly racist views.



[edit on 6-8-2004 by jimbolux1]

Originally posted by jimbolux1
I have seen them being touted as a labor group, but also being closely tied to freemasonry and the KKK.

I thought they were a union of sorts? Or at least union associated? Where'd you get the rest?

Originally posted by AlexKennedy
[Ummm... I hope you're not trying to imply that Freemasonry is tied to the KKK...? An organisation which promotes universal brotherhood would find itself a truly strange bedfellow to one which promotes bigotry and hatred.

I am not directly tying the 2 together as organizations that support each other, but it is fairly well known that back during the formation of the KKK in the south, the KKK was publicly recruiting masons in the newspapers.

I know that the 2 are seperate in values and are not linked directly. It was just stated in the article I read.

[edit on 6-8-2004 by jimbolux1]

www.srmason-sj.org...

"The Noble and Holy Order of Knights of Labor has been well described as "the most important and by far the largest secret society in the United States organized in the interest of industrial workers." Established in 1869 as an oath-bound secret society with a ritual which borrowed heavily from Masonry, the Knights removed most of their secret elements in 1882, only to restore them in 1895"