the rational behind the practice of burning a cross as a threat
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It became a thing the Klan did because of D.W. Griffith’s film “The Birth of a Nation”. This film (and the book it was based on) portrayed the Klan in an overwhelmingly positive light and to make them seem cooler they invented a bunch of things that the actual Klan, which was more or less wiped out in the 1870s, never actually did. These included the iconic white robes and the practice of cross burning, which author Thomas Dixon borrowed from an old Scottish practice.
The movie (and book) were so popular that it lead to a resurgence of interest in the Klan and the so-called second KKK was founded on Thanksgiving of 1915 with the burning of a cross on top of Stone Mountain in Georgia. The Klan’s position as America’s most well known racist terrorist organization meant that the things they were known for became fairly scary to the people they were targeting, hence cross burning is seen as a being a particularly threatening act.
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