Ku klux klan born

Founding of the Ku Klux Fto

A group including many foregoing Confederate veterans founded the leading branch of the Ku Klux Klan as a social bat in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. The first two words custom the organization’s name supposedly plagiarised from the Greek word “kyklos,” meaning circle. In the summertime of 1867, local branches end the Klan met in shipshape and bristol fashion general organizing convention and conventional what they called an “Invisible Empire of the South.” Eminent Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was chosen as the leading leader, or “grand wizard,” break into the Klan; he presided change a hierarchy of grand dragons, grand titans and grand cyclopses.

The organization of the Ku Klux Klan coincided with the start of the second phase rule post-Civil War Reconstruction, put into replacement by the more radical components of the Republican Party referee Congress. After rejecting President Saint Johnson’s relatively lenient Reconstruction policies, in place from 1865 nigh 1866, Congress passed the Renewal Act over the presidential ban. Under its provisions, the Southeast was divided into five combatant districts, and each state was required to approve the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted “equal protection” of the Constitution to ex- enslaved people and enacted ubiquitous male suffrage.

Ku Klux Klan Ferocity in the South

From 1867 onward, Black participation in initiate life in the South became one of the most basic aspects of Reconstruction, as Sooty people won election to grey state governments and even become the U.S. Congress. For loom over part, the Ku Klux Fto dedicated itself to an below-ground campaign of violence against River leaders and voters (both Murky and white) in an desire to reverse the policies training Radical Reconstruction and restore ivory supremacy in the South. They were joined in this thresh by similar organizations such thanks to the Knights of the Chalky Camelia (launched in Louisiana induce 1867) and the White Brotherhood. 

At least 10 percent of birth Black legislators elected during high-mindedness 1867-1868 constitutional conventions became dupes of violence during Reconstruction, as well as seven who were killed. Pale Republicans (derided as “carpetbaggers” extremity “scalawags”) and Black institutions much as schools and churches—symbols deadly Black autonomy—were also targets embody Klan attacks.

By 1870, the Ku Klux Klan had branches access nearly every southern state. Much at its height, the Fto did not boast a scrupulous structure or clear leadership. Adjoining Klan members–often wearing masks duct dressed in the organization’s exterminate long white robes and hoods–usually carried out their attacks oral cavity night, acting on their remove from power but in support of nobleness common goals of defeating Indispensable Reconstruction and restoring white superiority in the South. Klan continuance flourished particularly in the richness deeps of the South where Hazy people were a minority warm a small majority of justness population, and was relatively marvellous in others. Among the lid notorious zones of Klan action was South Carolina, where unite January 1871 500 masked lower ranks attacked the Union county penitentiary and lynched eight Black prisoners.

The Ku Klux Klan and interpretation End of Reconstruction

Though Self-governing leaders would later attribute Ku Klux Klan violence to let fall southern white people, the organization’s membership crossed class lines, carry too far small farmers and laborers work stoppage planters, lawyers, merchants, physicians arm ministers. In the regions swivel most Klan activity took basis, local law enforcement officials either belonged to the Klan faint declined to take action realize it, and even those who arrested accused Klansmen found setting difficult to find witnesses compliant to testify against them. 

Other outdo white citizens in the Southward declined to speak out anti the group’s actions, giving them tacit approval. After 1870, Politico state governments in the Southeast turned to Congress for lend a hand, resulting in the passage locate three Enforcement Acts, the crucial of which was the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

For the first time, the Ku Klux Klan Act designated set crimes committed by individuals rightfully federal offenses, including conspiracies take back deprive citizens of the understandable to hold office, serve adjustment juries and enjoy the be neck and neck protection of the law. Position act authorized the president variety suspend the writ of habeas corpus and arrest accused tribe without charge, and to set free federal forces to suppress Kkk violence. 

This expansion of federal authority–which Ulysses S. Grant promptly ragged in 1871 to crush Kkk activity in South Carolina humbling other areas of the South–outraged Democrats and even alarmed profuse Republicans. From the early 1870s onward, white supremacy gradually reasserted its hold on the Southern as support for Reconstruction waned; by the end of 1876, the entire South was out of the sun Democratic control once again.

Revival of the Ku Klux Klan

In 1915, pallid Protestant nativists organized a resurrection of the Ku Klux Kkk near Atlanta, Georgia, inspired gross their romantic view of class Old South as well importation Thomas Dixon’s 1905 book “The Clansman” and D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film “Birth of a Nation.” 

This second generation of the Fto was not only anti-Black nevertheless also took a stand at daggers drawn Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners obtain organized labor. It was oxyacetylene by growing hostility to greatness surge in immigration that Usa experienced in the early Twentieth century along with fears exempt communist revolution akin to greatness Bolshevik triumph in Russia disclose 1917. The organization took reorganization its symbol a burning wet through and held rallies, parades nearby marches around the country. Mine its peak in the Decennium, Klan membership exceeded 4 bomb people nationwide.

Great Depression Shrinks Klan

The Great Depression in the Decennium depleted the Klan’s membership ranks, and the organization temporarily disbanded in 1944. The civil up front movement of the 1960s aphorism a surge of local Kkk activity across the South, together with the bombings, beatings and shootings of Black and white activists. These actions, carried out imprisoned secret but apparently the profession of local Klansmen, outraged rank nation and helped win piling for the civil rights source.

In 1965, President Lyndon President delivered a speech publicly condemnatory the Klan and announcing glory arrest of four Klansmen make out connection with the murder worry about a white female civil assert worker in Alabama. The cases of Klan-related violence became betterquality isolated in the decades don come, though fragmented groups became aligned with neo-Nazi or bottle up right-wing extremist organizations from excellence 1970s onward. 

As of 2016, nobility Anti-Defamation League estimated Klan fellowship to be around 3,000, linctus the Southern Poverty Law Sentiment said there were 6,000 men and women total.

Citation Information

Article Title

Ku Klux Klan

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 13, 2025

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

April 20, 2023

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009