Ku Klux Klan, secret terrorist organization that originated in the southern states during the period of Reconstruction following the American Civil War and was reactivated on a wider geographic basis in the 20th century. The original Klan was organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, during the winter of 1865 to 1866, by six former Confederate army officers. Although the Ku Klux Klan began as a prankish social organization, its activities soon were directed against the Republican Reconstruction governments and their leaders, both black and white, which came into power in the southern states in 1867.
Original Targets and Tactics
The Klansmen regarded the Reconstruction governments as hostile and oppressive. They also generally believed in the innate inferiority of blacks and therefore mistrusted and resented the rise of former slaves to a status of civil equality and often to positions of political power. Basically, the Klan became an illegal organization committed to destroying the Reconstruction governments from the Carolinas to Arkansas. Attired in robes or sheets and wearing masks topped with pointed hoods, the Klansmen terrorized public officials in efforts to drive them from office and blacks in general to prevent them from voting, holding office, and using their newly acquired political rights. It was customary for the Klansmen to burn crosses on hillsides and near the homes of those they wished to frighten. When such tactics failed to produce the desired effect, their victims might be flogged, mutilated, or murdered. These activities were justified by the Klan as necessary measures in defense of white supremacy and the inviolability of white womanhood.
A secret convention of Klansmen, held in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1867, adopted a declaration of principles expressing loyalty to the United States Constitution and its government and declaring the determination of the Klan to "protect the weak, the innocent and the defenseless,to relieve the injured and oppressed, to succor the suffering" The convention designated the Klan as an Invisible Empire and requested a supreme official, called Grand Wizard of the Empire, who held virtually autocratic power and who was assisted by ten Genii. Other improtant officials of the Klan were the Grand Dragon of the Realm, who was assisted by eight Hydras, the Grand Titan of the Dominion, assisted by six Furies; and the Grand Cyclops of the Den, assisted by two Nighthawks.
From 1868 to 1870, while federal occupation troops were being withdrawn from the southern states and radical regimes replaced with Democratic administrations, the Klan was increasingly dominated by the rougher elements in the population. The local organizations, called klaverns, became so uncontrollable and violent that the Grand Wizard, former Confederate general Nathan B. Forrest officially disbanded the Klan in 1869. Klaverns, continued to operate on their own. In 1871, Congress passed the Force Bill to implement the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing the rights of all citizens. In the same year President Ulysses S. Grant issued a proclamation calling on members of illegal organizations to disarm and disband, thereafter hundreds of Klansmen were arrested. The remaining klaverns gradually faded as the political and social subordination of blacks was reestablished.
Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
The name, rituals, and some of the attitudes of the original Klan were adopted by a new organization incorporated in Georgia in 1915. The official name of the new society, which was organized by a former preacher Colonel William Simmons, was Invisible Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Membership was open to native-born, white, Protestant males, 16 years of age or older. Blacks, Roman Catholics, and Jews were excluded and were increasingly made targets of defamation and persecution by the Klan. Until 1920 the society exercised little influence. Then in the period of economic dislocation and political and social unrest that followed World War I, the Klan expanded rapidly in urban areas and became active in many states, in Colorado, Oregon, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Although the Klan everywhere fiercely preached white supremacy, it focused its attack on what it considered to be alien outsiders particularly the Roman Catholic church, which it believed was threatening traditional American ways and values. All non-Protestants, aliens, liberals, trade unionists, and striking workers were denounced as subversives.
The Klan burned crosses to frighten its victims. Masked Klansmen also marched through the streets of many communities, carrying placards threatening various people with a threat punishment and warning others to leave town. Many persons were kidnapped, flogged, and mutilated by the Klan a number were killed. Few actions against the Klansmen resulted, and in some communities they were abetted by local officials.
Reports of crimes committed by the Klan and of corruption and immorality in its leadership led to a investigation in 1921, and for a time the Klan changed its tactics. After 1921 it experienced a rapid growth of members and became politically influential throughout the nation. One estimate of its membership made in 1924 when the Klan was at the peak of its strength, witch was as high as 3 million. In that year a resolution denouncing the Klan introduced at the national convention of the Democratic Party, and precipitated a bitter controversy and was defeated.
In the mid-1920s, a strong and exploitive leadership, group problems, and alleged Klan immorality and violence badly damaged the Klan's reputation, and political opposition increased. By 1929 it had been reduced to several thousand members. During the depression of the 1930s the Ku Klux Klan remained active on a small scale, particularly against trade union organizers in the South. It also threatened blacks with punishment if they tried to exercise their right to vote. In 1940 the Klan joined with the German-American Bund, an organization financed in part by the government of Nazi Germany, holding a large rally at Camp Nordland, New Jersey.
After the entry of the United States into World War II the Klan decreased its activities. In 1944 it disbanded formally when it was unable to pay back taxes owed to the federal government. Revival of Klan activities after the war led to widespread public sentiment for the suppression of the organization. It suffered a setback in its national stronghold on Georgia when that state revoked the Klan charter in 1947. With the death of its strongest postwar leader the obstetrician Samuel Green, of Atlanta the Georgia, Klan unity broke down into numerous, independent, competing units, which often did not last long enough to be placed on the list of illeagel organizations issued by the U.S. attorney general.
Recent Activity
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling, on May 17, 1954, that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, stirred the Klan into new attempts at recruitment and violence but did not bring internal unity or greatly increased membership, power, or respectability in the South. Most opponents of the desegregation chose other leaders, such as the White Citizens Council while the Klan chiefly attracted the fringe elements of a society and remained more of a status than a resistance movement.
As the civil rights movement gained force in the 1950s and as resistance to integration began to diminish throughout the South, the Klan continued to offer hard-core opposition to civil rights programs and was believed to be involved in many incidents of racial violence, intimidation, and reprisal, particularly bombings. After the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, it experienced a marked increase in membership reaching an estimated 40,000 in 1965.
By the mid-1970s, the Klan had a little power. Noticed Klan leaders ran for public office in the South, influencing sizable numbers of votes. Approximately 15 separate organizations existed, including the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the United Klans of America, and the National Klan. A resurgence of Klan violence occurred in the late 1970s, and in 1980 a Klan office was opened in Toronto, Canada. The total amount of members was estimated at about 5000 at the end of the 1980s. A former grand wizard of the Klan, David Duke was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1989 and ran unsuccessfully in the state's gubernatorial election in 1991.