The Ku Klux Klan of the 1990s are cultivating a new image.

They are “soft-pedaling violence while still spewing racial hatred,” said Betty Dobratz, associate professor and researcher in the Department of Sociology at Iowa State.

Dobratz, who studies the white supremacists’ movement, spoke to about 30 people on Wednesday for the YWCA sponsored “Week Without Violence” program, “The White Supremacists’ and the Separists’ Movement.”

Dobratz, who has spoken with nationally recognized Klan members such as Thomas Robb, said the stereotypes of Klan members has changed.

Robb is “extremely well read. He would argue that he is neither left or right winged, and he is very critical of the capitalist system. He can be very articulate,” Dobratz said. “There is an element (of the Klan movement) that is educated and can speak well, but there is also an element that is uneducated (considered the old Klan).”

Dobratz said this “New Racism” looks at the biological origins of people.

The New Racists do not necessarily consider themselves superior, but different. Therefore, they believe in having separate nations and prefer the title “White Separist Movement” over supremacists, she added.

Dobratz said the Klan tries to promote the love of whites instead of the hatred of other races. “They want to promote a positive movement for the ‘welfare of the white children,’ ” Dobratz said.

The leaders, she said, in the movement, such as Robb, have become “more careful” in their speeches to the press.

“When [Robb] is talking to the press, he gives a kind of image, and when he is at a rally it is different,” Dobratz said.

Since he has become more low key in the media, Robb “has become more isolated and his organization has been declining,” Dobratz said. “He would argue his Klan is most professional and also the largest,” though.

Supremacists “groups trying to get attention may embellish the movement,” Dobratz said. “Right now, the movement is probably small, but [has] the potential to grow.”

The number of “hardcore” members is in the 25,000 range. Skinheads number 3,500, but may be declining, and a movement called, the Christian Identity Movement is in the area of 14,000-15,000, Dobratz said. The Christian Identity Movement believes that the lost tribe of Israel is not Jewish, but northwest European.

“The Klan was particularly strong in the 1920s … with 4-5 million people, then it declined in the later 1920s,” Dobratz said, “In 1954 there was a revival with the school desegregations.” According to the Klan Watch, there were 346 Klan groups in 1992.

The great numbers of the groups denotes a common characteristic of individualism within the the Klan.

“They tend to start their own groups because they have their own ideals … some groups are establishing a ‘new strategy’ to become more diverse” for example some are now admitting women, Dobratz said.

When asked what she thinks about there being connections in Iowa, Dobratz said she knows that Robb still remains in contact with a group in Dubuque and that there is supposedly an organization in Coralville.

“They are present here in some ways,” Dobratz added.