Ku Klux Klan, << KOO `kluhks` KLAN, >> is a group of white secret societies who oppose the advancement of Black people, 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 has often used 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 white people, soon began to terrorize Black people 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 Black people 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 Black citizens 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 Black people, 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 organization. By the 1930’s, only local Klan groups in the South remained strong. The organization died out again in 1944.
Mid-1900’s.
Samuel Green, an Atlanta physician, revived the Klan in 1946. Green died in 1949, and the Klan then split into many competing groups. However, all of the groups opposed racial integration.
Increased civil rights activities during the 1960’s brought a new wave of Klan violence. Klan members were involved in many terrorist attacks, including the killing of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, and the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, church in which four Black girls were killed. President Lyndon B. Johnson used the Federal Bureau of Investigation to probe the Klan. Some members were sent to prison, and membership fell to about 5,000 by the early 1970’s.
Late 1900’s and early 2000’s.
Beginning in the mid-1970’s, new leaders tried to give a more respectable image to competing Klan groups. Some accepted women as members and set up youth groups. The KKK especially appealed to white people who resented both special programs designed to help Black people and job competition from Black workers and recent immigrants. Also in the 1970’s, it largely abandoned its opposition to Roman Catholics.
Klan membership rose to about 10,000 by 1980. The KKK still attracted people with extreme views who often used violence. In 1979, Klan members and their supporters killed five anti-Klan demonstrators in Greensboro, North Carolina. Klan members murdered a Black youth in Mobile, Alabama, in 1981. Since then, Klan membership has declined due to prosecutions for illegal activities and financial penalties for KKK violations of civil rights. Membership has dropped to less than 6,000. Most members live in the South or the Midwest.
