The Ku Klux Klan is a secret terrorist organization that was very active during the period of the Civil Rights Movement. They were the leading underground resistance group that fought the political power of the freed slaves during reconstruction after the American Civil War. This group was not originally formed to hate. There main goal was to reestablish the power of the white people and proclaim white supremacy. The Klan is sometimes called the "Invisible Empire of the South". They claim not be a hate group or "terrorist organization", they say they are just pro-white.
The Ku Klux Klan was organized in 1866 by confederate veterans as a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee. The KKK was reconstructed a year later at Nashville, Tennessee to change from a social club to a club based along racial lines. It was run by a grand wizard, a descending group of grand dragons, grand titans, and grand cycloses. They dressed in robes, satin sheets, and wore high peaked hats to scare their victims and to avoid being caught or identified by the police. They wore white for local klavern members and officers, red for provincial and state officers, green for Grand Dragons, and purple for the Imperial Wizard.
The members of the Klan whipped, tortured, and killed innocent, freed people during the night time or during part of their raids. They drove blacks and whites that were trying to help victims out of their communities by destroying their crops and burning houses and barns. The Klan's victims included anything or anyone they didn't like such as Negroes, Catholics, Orientals, Jews, Mormons, drugs, immigrants, liquor, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, but they especially hated Catholics. Since so many kidnappings and murders were happening the Grand Wizard of the Klan ordered it to stop in 1869 and they were to no longer hold meetings but some groups remained active. The US reacted extremely strong to the violence that was increasing in the south so congress passed the Force Act in 1870 and the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871. This made it where the president had to put heavy penalties on terrorist organizations. When the Klan members were proscecuted the south felt very upset for them. The Ku Klux Klan was reorganized in 1915 near Atlanta, Georgia.
Interesting Facts about the KKK
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