KU KLUX KLAN

The Ku Klux Klan (abbreviated KKK) is a white supremacist group—members believe in the superiority of whites over other races. The first part of the name ("Ku Klux") is derived from the Greek word kyklos, meaning circle. Klan is a derivative of the English word "clan," meaning family. The group was originally formed in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, when Confederate Army veterans formed what they called a social club. The first leader (called the "Grand Wizard") was Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877), a former general in the Confederate Army, who, on April 12, 1864, in the final days of the American Civil War (1861–1865), led a massacre of three hundred African American soldiers in service of the Union Army at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.

As the unofficial arm of resistance against Republican efforts to restore the nation and make full citizens of its African American (formerly slave) population, the Ku Klux Klan waged a campaign of terror against former slaves in the South. Klan members, cloaked in robes and hoods to disguise their identity, threatened, beat, and killed numerous African Americans. While the group deprived its victims of their rights as citizens, their intent was also to intimidate the entire African American population and keep them out of, or in some cases remove them from, politics. People who supported the federal government's measures to extend rights to all citizens also became the victims of the fearsome Klan. Membership in the group grew quickly and the Ku Klux Klan soon had a presence throughout the South.

In 1871 the U.S. Congress passed the Force Bill, giving President Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877) authority to direct federal troops against the Klan. The action was successful, causing the group to disappear—but only for a time. The society was newly organized at Stone Mountain, Georgia, in 1915 as a Protestant fraternal organization (called "The Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc."), this time widening its focus of persecution to include Roman Catholics, immigrants, and Jews, as well as African Americans. Members of all of these groups became targets of KKK harassment, which now included torture and whippings. The group, which proclaimed its mission to be "racial purity," grew in number and became national, electing some of their members to public office in many states (and not just Southern states). The KKK's acts of violence, howveer, raised public ire, and by the 1940s, America's attention focused on World War II (1939–1945) and the Klan died out or went completely underground. The group had another resurgence during the 1950s and into the early 1970s, as the nation struggled through the civil rights era. The Klan still exists today, fostering the extremist views of its membership and staging marches to demonstrate its presence on the American landscape. Such demonstrations are often attended by protestors, with violence being the sad outcome.