The Kkk And The Klux Klan

After the civil war most of the former confederate states were laid in ruins. It was in this moment that six confederate veterans got together at a local law office of Pulaski Tennessee on June 9th 1866 and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was born. The original purpose of the Klan had little to do with the menacing behavior for which it will be known as today. The KKK was founded as a social fraternity much like a college fraternity without the college, purely as a source of amusement. To further the mystery all public appearance would be done in disguise. Outlandish costumes consisting of sheets, hats, and masks were created. Obscured sounding titles such as grand cyclops and grand magi were created for office holders, new members would be given the

The first era Ku Klux Klan was formed in Tennessee on December 1865 at the end of the civil war. The Ku Klux Klan was formed as a movement for white supremacy. It was formed as a violent group that relied on fear tactics to stay in power. As Jonathan M. Bryant said in an article “The Klan 's organized terrorism began most notably on March 31, 1868, when Republican organizer George Ashburn was murdered in Columbus, Georgia.” George W. Ashburn (1814 - March 30, 1868) was a Georgia politician assassinated by the Ku Klux Klan in Columbus, Georgia for his pro-African-American sentiments. He was the first murder victim of the Klan in Georgia. This the first of the Klan’s organized terrorism it was soon followed by more.

The Ku Klux Klan flourished in the South at the beginning of the Reconstruction succeeding the Civil War. There remained numerous ex-Confederates that were still strongly opposed to the Reconstruction and sought to preserve white supremacy in the South. Directly after the Civil War the government in the South was weak and vulnerable. The Ku Klux Klan leveraged this and used violence and threats to try to reestablish white supremacy. They were most successful in playing upon fears and superstitions. They not only brought terror to the black communities but they also targeted carpetbaggers and scalawags. They used these threats and fears in effectively keeping the blacks away from the polls so that the ex-Confederates could gain back political control in the

During the Reconstruction Era, Congress passed many laws to provide equal rights to people of color. But at the local level, specifically in the South, many Democrats took the law into their own hands. They supported the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) hoping to restore the pre-Civil War social hierarchy. The texts in Going to the Source illustrate two groups of individuals who opposed the KKK. In testimonies given by white witnesses, Republicans from the North felt the KKK posed a political and social danger in the South, but did not feel intimidated. The testimonies given by black witnesses were people who had experience of the Klan’s violence, and felt their lives were threatened. The Klan’s attacks on whites were more inclined towards social harassment, while their attacks on blacks, which consisted of voting intimidation and night rides, were violent and abusive because the KKK’s main goal was white supremacy.

Supreme Justice Thurgood Marshall once stated that “the Ku Klux Klan never dies. They just stop wearing sheets because sheets cost too much” (Biography Staff, 2017). With the birth of America in 1776 and the Klan emerging in 1866, the not-so-invisible empire has claimed a place in America’s history. During the centuries, three summits have risen and declined, each wave becoming more open about their appearance than the last, proving to a point, that Thurgood Marshall’s quote is correct. The Ku Klux Klan, also known as the ‘KKK’ or the ‘Klan’, is a native-born hate group and according to the FBI’s definition of domestic terrorism, stating “the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence…within the United

The Ku Klux Klan was a secret terrorist organization that was created by six well educated Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee in the December of 1865. Their main objective was to restore white supremacy through acts of violence such as murder, against both Black and White Republicans. The KKK had eventually spread to every southern state, and Klansmen would often terrorize republicans regardless of their race. Members of the KKK believed that African Americans were inferior to Whites and did not believe that Blacks deserved equal rights. Although the rebel groups were outlawed and made illegal, many of them remained in existence and appeared after the reconstruction had ended. This proved the Reconstruction to be ineffective as many Southerners were still fighting against the government and opposed them. In addition, African Americans were still deprived of their rights by these

This turn to violence was how the first Ku Klux Klan rose. The Klan was formed by six ex-Confederate Veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, this organization started off small but began absorbing most of the other anti-Reconstruction groups in the south, like the Men of Justice, the Pale Faces, the Constitutional Union Guards, the White Brotherhood, and the Order of the White Rose (Infoplease.com). The Ku Klux Klan was created in fear of an insurrection by the ex-slaves, now the freedmen. The most recognized founder of the Klan was Nathan Bedford Forrest. Their white robes and masks are supposed to be a representation of ex-Confederate soldiers who died during the civil war. One of the Klan’s biggest goal was keeping the freedmen away from the voting polls to assure the success of ex-Confederates in gaining back their political control in many states. In 1871, President Grant took an aim at the Klan for their interference in black suffrage but by this time the support for Reconstruction was beginning to diminish because racism was still very much alive in both the north and the south. As time progressed the Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives. The democrats waged a campaign of violence to take control of Mississippi to which President Grant responded with a refusal of federal troop intervention which ended support of the Reconstruction era. In the election of 1876, Republican, Rutherford B. Haynes, reached a compromise with

Both articles The Golden Era of Indiana (1900-1941) and Rank-and-File Radicalism within the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s shared some similar information about the Ku Klux Klan. Both articles talked about the Ku Klux Klan membership, Ku Klux Klan activity in Indiana, and anti-Catholicism. The article The Golden Era of Indiana (1900-1941) gave brief information about how the Ku Klux Klan was growing and gaining power again in Indiana, due to a film that was released throughout the nation that was based on evidence of the Ku Klux Klan. “With Birth of a Nation providing free recruiting advertisement for the Klan, membership soared” (Lutholtz). The article also discussed all the violent activities the klan was committing in Indiana. “The Klan’s tools of intimidation included lynching, shooting, stabbing and whipping” (Lutholtz). The Ku Klux Klan members believed they were saving America which is why they would commit the crimes they did. “America now had to be ‘protected’ from the Germans and others: Catholics, Jews,

The Ku Klux Klan was formed as a social club by a group of Confederate Army veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee in the winter of 1865-66. The group adopted the name Ku Klux Klan from the Greek word "kyklos," meaning circle, and the English word clan. By 1944 the Ku Klux Klan had lost most of its influence and membership. It was revived during the Civil Rights era and continues today as a small organization that continues to stage demonstrations in favor of white supremacy and fundamentalist Christian theology. William J. Simmons, a former Methodist preacher, organized a new Klan in Stone Mountain, Georgia in 1915 as a patriotic, Protestant fraternal society. Then and Now: KKK membership peaked at four to five million in the mid-1920s; today there are an estimated 5,500 to 6,000 Klan members among roughly 100 groups. Although the Klan still reverted to burning crosses, torturing and murdering those whom they opposed, the organization became a powerful political force in the 1920s. This new Klan directed its activity against not just blacks, but immigrants, Jews, and Roman

Frustrated confederate soldiers made their way back home after losing the war that they had been fighting for four years. These men formed vigilante groups, attacking black people. While soldiers did this, wealthier men who had avoided fighting in the war formed agricultural and police clubs for the same purpose; both groups soon took shape and evolved into one large group, known as the Ku Klux Klan and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest became the first leader, known as the Grand Wizard. The name Ku Klux Klan is derived from the Greek word, Kyklos, meaning circle. The Ku Klux Klan, often shortened to the KKK, was founded in Tennessee in 1866 and grew to be one of the most feared terrorist groups in the United States, before dying off in 1869, but later being revived in 1915 (History.com Staff). The Ku Klux Klan negatively impacted the Reconstruction period through terror, intimidating Republican voters, and killing Republican officials.

The KKK made their beliefs clear, and imprinted the memories of them by committing acts of hatred on those whom they opposed. Even though the KKK had reemerged in the South in 1915, it wasn’t until after World War I came to a close that the organization gained a national resurgence (Getchell). This version of the Klan was known as “The Second Ku Klux Klan.” The resurgent Klan of the 1920s was a short-lived but potent phenomenon. The second KKK was a mass movement that invoked the memory of and built upon the first KKK, which was a terrorist organization founded by white supremacists in the U.S. South (“The Ku Klux Klan In Washington State, 1920s”) The majority of klan members confined their opposition tactics to parading and burning crosses,

Eight months after the Civil War, in the south the government was weak and there were no jobs available. On Christmas Eve of 1866, six confederate veterans started a social hate group in Pulaski, Tennessee. The six confederate veterans were John Lester, James Crowe, John Kennedy, Calvin Jones, Richard Reed, and Frank McCord. The group started off as just wanting to have fun and keep themselves entertained. The six founders were well educated and came from wealthy families. From their Greek knowledge, they use the word kyklos meaning circle and then added the word Klan. The Ku Klux Klan was then born. Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first leader of the Klan. He was known as the “Grand Wizard.”

The Ku Klux Klan strongly came about after the Civil War. The group was officially established on December 4,1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee where a a group of Confederate veterans created a secret society. In 1869 the KKK'S first grand wizard, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, unsuccessfully attempted to disband it after he became aware of the Klan's over the top viciousness. The group practiced violence whose aim was to instill fear and intimidation by terrorizing African Americans and white Republicans with night raids. During these raids members would destroy property, assault, and murder people and communities. All of this was done in hopes to repress and discriminate against freed slaves. They instilled themselves as a white southern

Furthermore, in 1922, 1924, and 1926, The Klan elected many state officials and on top of that, a number of Congressmen. States such as Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, Oregon, and Maine were particularly under its influence. Its power it had in the Midwest was torn up during the late 1920s when a vital Klan leader by the name of David C. Stephenson, was convicted of second-degree murder. Later on, there was evidence of corruption that eventually led to the allegation of the governor of Indiana and mayor of Indianapolis, who were both supporters of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan often took extreme and non-legal measures, and had a great hatred against those that it considered to be their enemies. Just like the earlier Klan, many of these tactics, whether certified by the central ruling or not, were absolutely extreme. At its peak in the mid-1920s, the Klan’s membership was around 4 million to about 5 million. The Klan membership by 1930 eventually decreased to an estimated thirty thousand. Its collapse afterwards was largely attributed to rules that prohibited

Brief History of the Organization: The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 by a group of men John D. Kennedy, Captain John C. Lester and Frank O. McCord, In the town of Pulaski, Tennessee. The name comes from