Book excerpt: The use of the swastika in this context subsequently influenced Adolf Hitler to adopt the swastika as the primary symbol for the Nazi Party in 1920. [...] The swastika, along with the letters "KKK" and the numbers "666," is one of the most common forms of "shock" graffiti in the United States, typically spray-painted by juveniles who are not actually white supremacists but simply want to use the image to shock and alarm people. [...] © 2020 Anti-Defamation League, www.adl.org/education Page 12 of 18 adl.org/lesson-plans Background Reading on Hate Symbol: Burning Cross The image of the burning cross is one of the most potent hate symbols in the United States, popularized as a terror image by the Ku Klux Klan since the early 1900s. [...] During the war, the Confederacy and its military forces used a variety of flags, but the flag that became most associated with the Confederacy was the so- called "battle flag." Organizations such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans adopted the flag as a symbol of Southern heritage but the flag also served as a potent symbol of slavery and white supremacy, which has caused it to be very popular amo. [...] In the early twentieth century, when the rise of the Second Ku Klux Klan coincided with the height of lynching incidents (most of the victims of which were African-American), the noose became cemented as a key hate symbol targeting African-American people.