The Ku Klux Klan Is A Gang With A Notorious Past

The Ku Klux Klan, known as the KKK, has been one of the most feared groups in America since the end of the civil war during post-war reconstruction.. The civil war was not just about the rights of the black man, but it was a very important part. People in the north mostly believed the black person was due the same liberties insured by the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment of the constitution gave equal protection to former slaves. However people in the south saw the black man as inferior and a slave needed to work on the plantation. This led to continued unrest after the war. Some felt the black man and those that supported his cause needed to be stopped. They wanted to control the black population. The Klan also would torture white people who were sympathetic to the blacks and their situation.

Motivated by nationalism, The Birth of a Nation, and Mary Phagan’s murder, the Klan was officially reformed by William Joseph Simmons in 1915. Radical patriotism, “public fears, and intolerance” fueled the group’s revival, and it steadily gained members until the late 1920’s (Benson, Brannen, and Valentine, “Ku Klux Klan”). A nostalgia for the old Southern ways also pushed people to reform the Klan. Sentiments felt by the group were common enough that a large amount of people could relate and join, bringing in more money and often more press. The Klan gained a lot of media coverage as it began to protest, which brought more national attention to the group.

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

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

reconstruction of the south. Ever since 1865 the KKK are well known for their hatred toward

The Klu Klux Klan was formed in 1866 by a group of Confederate soldiers in Pulaski, Tennessee. It was a social club or fraternity for the veterans but later had different views and became a terrorist group (PBS). The name of the group came from the Greek word “kyklos” meaning circle and then they added Klan to make the name flow (History.com Staff). It did not start with the thought of malicious activity. They would have secret meetings and elaborate ceremonies to discuss how they could stop reconstruction after the civil war. The members would wear white sheets that covered their whole body and pointy white caps to make them appear taller. This was an all white group and ended up being one of the deadliest terrorist groups (EyeWitness to History). General Nathan Bedford Forrest was the Klu Klux Klan’s first “grand wizard,” also known as

The start of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in 1866, expanded throughout most of the southern states by 1870. This Klan is known for its discrimination against African Americans, which has had major effects on today’s society. “Making or perceiving differences and distinctions,” is the definition of discrimination (Webster dictionary). Not only did they discriminate against Africans Americans but also Jews, and Catholics (history,com staff). Since the birth of the KKK society was not only affected by the discrimination of the Klan, but also the activities, and the brutal events.

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

The Ku Klux Klan was a racial hate group in the south that made sure blacks did not get any civil rights. Members in the Ku Klux Klan believed whites were superior to other races. The KKK hated the blacks because they believed slaves, who were the blacks, are to be less than human. Only white Anglo-Saxon Protestants or known as “WASPS” could become members. The members also had to pay monthly fees so they could “adopt a highway” to look good in the eyes of the communities.

The Ku Klux Klan initially started as a, “loosely organized group of political and social terrorists” (NGE) they started out by going after Republican leaders who opposed their belief of an all-white nation. The group started in Tennessee in 1866, and was formed by former Confederate soldiers. In 1868 it became evident that the group was terrorizing the freed slaves, “It is clear that attacks on blacks became common during 1868. Freedmen's Bureau agents reported 336 cases of murder or assault with intent to kill on freedmen across the state from January 1 through November 15 of 1868.” (NGE) The Ku Klux Klan was not happy the state passed the Fifteenth Amendment which let the freedmen vote, so it was not long until the clan made a stand against that. During the 1868 elections the (KKK) surrounded the poll buildings forcing the state to send federal soldiers to guard the polls. The (KKK) also tried to control the freedmen’s social lives, “Klanlike violence was also used to control freedpeople's social behavior, but with less success. Black churches and schools were burned, teachers were attacked, and freedpeople who refused to show proper deference were beaten and

They were a group that went far and wide to rid the “negroes;” The KKK was filled with rich white supremacists that hated African Americans. The KKK was founded in 1915 and made an appearance when African Americans were gaining pieces and glimpses of freedom. “The growing black population in the North also led to conflicts with whites that included rioting in several cities between 1917 and 1919. In the summer of 1918, racial conflicts in Chester and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, led to ten deaths and sixty injured. That was only a prelude to 1919, when twenty-five race riots erupted across the United States, leaving about one hundred people dead. During these years, membership in the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a white supremacist hate group, also grew rapidly and continued following the war. The KKK was founded only a few years earlier in 1915 in the Southern state of Georgia. It continued to grow in the 1920s to a membership of four million. Klansmen dressed in white robes for secrecy and to create fear. A burning cross was its symbol of terror. In the 1930s the KKK greatly declined in popularity only to come back in the 1960s in some Southern states in reaction to the fight for civil rights protections for blacks.,” Stated by the Modern world reference library -Government. This was evident that groups were instilling fear into the brains of African Americans and showing just how unjust things used to

In the 1920s the second Ku Klux Klan was reborn. The first one originated in Tennessee shortly after the civil war. The Ku Klux Klan was a secret society that was dedicated to white supremacy in the United States. Novels such as “the Leopard’s Spots” and “The Clansman” written by Thomas Dixon were encouraging the values of the Klan. William J. Simmons established the new KKK. He made the secret group only available to white American-born Protestant men. He also made the white hooded outfits, the ritual for the secret order, and even got an official charter from the state of Georgia. Thanksgiving evening in 1915 Simmons and sixteen of his members lit a cross on fire and proclaimed the rebirth of the secret society. The second generation of the

The Ku Klux Klan began almost by accident during the rebuilding process after the civil war in the Southern United States. The southern people had suffered allot from the effects of the great war. Many of them lost their homes and plantations, many also lost friends and loved ones to the war.

The Ku Klux Klan founded in 1865 by William Nathan Bedford a former confederate general, began a campaign of terror against free blacks and their white supporters. The KKK had a wide array of uneducated people because their main incentive was to recruit young, homeless, and mindless

infamous and oldest of American hate groups” (SPLC). The Ku Klux Klan started during Reconstruction, a period of rebuilding in the South after the end of the Civil War. It was originally started as a vigilante group to terrorize and intimidate former slaves and to try to keep former slaves from gaining equal rights and to influence control over the so called “carpet baggers”, or northerners, that moved south to try and bring equality to the former slaves and profit from the damaged south. Although the first era of the Ku Klux Klan was violent and associated with tar-and-featherings, lynching’s, rapes, and other attacks, it had a relatively short lived height of activity given the period of time. The Ku Klux Klan officially disbanded after