The Ku Klux Klan

Born in the wake of the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan remains a significant, though lesser, force in American politics today. It constitutes one of the world's earliest terrorist organizations. The organization's specific intent is the advancement of white supremacy. Originally this goal had been sought for the entire United States, but contemporary Klansmen have revised this objective by calling for a separate all-white region in the nation, preferably located in the west. The purpose of this research is to document the history and evolution of the Ku Klux Klan from its origins in the 1860s to its current status in the 1980s.

Slavery had long been institutionalized into the Southern economy and culture by 1860. Slavery had become so engrafted on the South that its abolition was considered tantamount to the utter destruction of the region's way of life. In 1861, the South had gone to war largely over these beliefs about slavery. Four years later, the region had been defeated by the North. By 1865 the Confederacy lay in ruins.

Although President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had abolished slavery primarily as a means to disrupt the Southern economy during the war, the abolition of slavery was eventually codified by the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. President Lincoln and the Republican Congress established as part of the Reconstruction program the Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees and Abandoned Lands - better known as

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the Confederate dead. Branches of the Klan quickly spread throughout the South. By the end of 1867 many of the pranks by branch Klan groups became increasingly serious. Some groups were breaking up black prayer meetings; others had begun night-time raids on black homes and confiscating their weapons. Eventually the Ku Klux Klan had become associated with the bushwackers and violent gangs waging a campaign of terror against blacks who asserted their rights as freedmen. With the passage of Radical Reconstruction, the Pulaski den of the K.K.K. called a reorganizational meeting of all Klan leaders at Nashville's new posh hotel, the Maxwell House. At this secret meeting, rules were promulgated for membership and activities to ensure tighter central control. A Grand Wizard would be the supreme commander over the "Invisible Empire," followed by Grand Dragons who presided at the state level. County organizations were headed by Grand Titans, while local organizations fell under the auspices of a Grand Cyclops. Along with the military-style reorganization of the Ku Klux Klan, a stated purpose of white supremacy was finally articulated and the use of violence was sanctioned. The Klan had now become a terrorist organization. REI

Category: History - T