Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan, is a group of white secret societies who oppose the advancement of blacks, Jews, and other minority groups. The Ku Klux Klan, also called the KKK or the Klan, is active in the United States and in Canada. It often uses violence to achieve its aims. Klan members wear robes and hoods, and burn crosses at their outdoor meetings. They also burn crosses to frighten nonmembers.

The KKK has had four major periods of activity: (1) the mid-1860's to the early 1870's, (2) 1915 to 1944, (3) the late 1940's to the early 1970's, and (4) since the mid-1970's.

Birth of the Klan. The KKK was formed as a social club by a group of Confederate Army veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865 or 1866. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Confederate general, was the Klan's first leader, called the Grand Wizard. The group took its name from the Greek word kuklos, meaning circle, and the English word clan.

Klan members, who believed in the superiority of whites, soon began to terrorize blacks to keep them from voting or exercising the other rights they had gained during Reconstruction, the period following the end of the American Civil War in 1865. The Klan threatened, beat, and murdered many blacks and their white sympathizers in the South. To hide their identity, Klan terrorists wore disguises, draped sheets over their horses, and rode at night. The KKK spread rapidly throughout the Southern United States and became known as the Invisible Empire. Its attacks helped drive blacks out of Southern political life.

In 1871, Congress passed a law called a force bill, which gave the president the authority to use federal troops against the Klan. The KKK soon disappeared.

Early 1900's. In 1915, William J. Simmons, a former Methodist clergyman, organized a new Klan in Atlanta, Georgia, as a patriotic, fraternal society for American-born white Protestants. The Klan directed its activities against groups it considered un-American, including blacks, immigrants, Jews, and particularly Roman Catholics.

The KKK grew rapidly and by the mid-1920's had more than 2 million members throughout the country. Some Klan members burned crosses and whipped, tortured, and murdered people whose activities angered them, but most relied on peaceful means. By electing public officials, the Klan became a powerful political force throughout the South and also in many Northern and Western states, including Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, and Oregon. However, public criticism of Klan violence and quarrels among Klan leaders weakened the