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Founding of the Ku Klux Klan -

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865, born out of the ashes of the smoldering South after the American Civil War. Pictured is a Klansman in 1869.

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KKK objectives -

The organization was formed by Confederate veterans, ostensibly to repress the rights and freedoms of former enslaved African Americans during the post-Civil War Reconstruction.

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"Invisible Empire of the South" -

In 1867, local branches of the Klan met in a general organizing convention and established what they called an "Invisible Empire of the South." In the same year, a splinter organization, the Knights of the White Camelia, was established. Similarly, it supported white supremacy and opposed freedmen's rights.

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First grand wizard -

Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) was the founding member of the Ku Klux Klan, and its leader, or imperial wizard, from 1866–1869.

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Klan hierarchy -

Forrest presided over a Klan hierarchy composed of sinister-looking robed grand dragons, grand titans, and grand cyclopses.

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Violence in the South -

Members of the black community were attacked by the Klan, as were their houses, schools, and churches.

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Republican targets -

With the Republican Party in control of the Mississippi state legislature— achieved during the 1867-1868 constitutional conventions—and South Carolina electing an African American to the US House of Representatives, white Republicans (derided as "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags") were singled out by Klan members, often rounded up during terrorizing horseback night rides.

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A secret and violent organization -

By 1870, the Ku Klux Klan had a presence in nearly every southern state, and violence escalated. Lynching and intimidation prevailed.  The KKK used secrecy and violence to prevent the black vote. Murder was commonplace.

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Ku Klux Klan Act -

In response to the wave of terror engulfing the South, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law in 1871 the Ku Klux Klan Act. Martial law was declared and arrests followed. But in just a few years, the Act was practically rescinded by far more malevolent legislation.

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Jim Crow laws -

After Reconstruction ended in 1877, the Jim Crow laws were enacted by white southern Democrat-dominated state legislatures. "Jim Crow" was a pejorative term for an African American, and the laws it was named for effectively legalized racial segregation and disenfranchised the black population.

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'The Birth of a Nation' (1915) -

With its goals seemingly achieved, the early Ku Klux Klan had by the late 1870s disbanded. But in 1915 it was dramatically revived on the back of the epic silent drama 'The Birth of a Nation.' Directed by D.W. Griffith and originally called 'The Clansman,' the picture has since been called the most controversial film ever made in the United States for its falsely heroic portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan and the fact that white actors in blackface were hired to portray African Americans (pictured).

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The Klan march on the nation's capital -

At the peak of its power in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan exceeded four million members nationwide. On August 8, 1925, 30,000 KKK members paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. "White-robed Klan cheered on march in nation’s capital," read the front-page headline in The Washington Post the next day.

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New enemies -

While this second generation of KKK was still vehemently anti-black, it also declared war on Jews, Roman Catholics, most foreigners, and organized labor. Worryingly, it flourished both in the south and northern states, fueled by a surge in immigration that America experienced in the early 20th century.

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What is the meaning of the burning cross? -

Cross burning dates back to medieval Europe, when Scottish clansmen would set fire to a cross, or crann tara, as a statement of military defiance or call to action for soldiers ahead of battle. But cross burning only became synonymous with the Klan after it was first described by Thomas Dixon Jr., in his 1905 novel 'The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan,' and later depicted in 'The Birth of a Nation.' Here, both Klansmen and women stand beneath an ignited cross.

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Congressional hearing -

The Klan's activities and growing sphere of influence were investigated in 1921 by a US Congressional House Committee on Rules. During the hearings, Imperial Wizard William J. Simmons, the founder of the second KKK, testified, stressing the Klan's fraternal nature. The outcome of the hearing did little to besmirch the reputation of the organization.

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KKK decline -

That said, by the mid-1920s public support for the Klan began to wane. Its reputation was further damaged by Indiana's grand wizard D.C. Stephenson's 1925 conviction for sexual assault and murder. A few continued to publicly support the KKK, including this gas station owner in New York state, who operated the only KKK filling station in the East.

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The Black Legion -

The Great Depression of the 1930s further depleted the Klan's membership ranks. In its place rose the Black Legion. A KKK splinter group, the Legion was largely made up of native-born, working-class, Protestant white men in the Midwest. Membership was concentrated in Michigan and Ohio. Here, Detroit police officers pose with weapons and regalia seized from Black Legion terrorists. The officers, dressed in the black robes and pirate hats of the Legionnaires, display captured weaponry and a leather whip used to flog victims.

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Threats and intimidation -

In this 1939 photograph, a member of the Ku Klux Klan displays a noose as a menacing reminder to black citizens not to take part in local elections in Miami, Florida. Around 75 automobiles were patrolling the city at the time, driven by KKK members intent on holding off African Americans in casting their vote.

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KKK temporarily disbanded -

The Klan limped into the 1940s attempting to procure members on the street of America's largest cities, including Los Angeles where white-robed Klan members are pictured distributing handbills on LA's Broadway. The Second World War, however, effectively stymied the Klan's efforts to swell its ranks, and by 1944 the organization had temporarily disbanded.

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Resurgence in the 1950s -

The third and current manifestation of the KKK emerged after 1950. At its head was Imperial Wizard Eldon L. Edwards, an automobile paint sprayer from Atlanta, Georgia, who worked to rebuild the organization by uniting different KKK factions from across the country. He's seen here as he appeared as a guest on 'The Mike Wallace Interview' show on ABC-TV in New York in 1957.

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Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore -

The KKK marked the new decade by bombing the home of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) activists Harry and Harriette Moore in Mims, Florida. The blast took place on Christmas Eve 1951, with both later dying from their injuries. The attack was just one of many notorious acts of aggression carried out by Klan members in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Murder of Medgar Evers -

The brutal killing of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963 made national headlines. In 1994, former Ku Klux Klansman Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of his murder.

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Rise of the civil rights movement -

In the wake of Evers' death, hundreds of African Americans demonstrated in Jackson, Mississippi. The march was blocked by local police. The protest further galvanized the civil rights movement across the South.

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The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing -

Three months later on September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed. The explosion killed four girls and injured between 14 and 22 other people. The attack, which Martin Luther King Jr. described as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity," was carried out by four members of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter. Three of the bombers were eventually convicted and jailed for their part in the atrocity. Pictured is the funeral of one of the victims, 14-year-old Carol Robertson.

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Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner -

In another dreadful incident, three civil rights activists—James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner—went missing in June 1964 and were later found murdered. The FBI ascertained that members of the local White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, together with elements of the County Sheriff's Office and the Philadelphia Police Department, were involved in the incident. In 2005, Klan member Edgar Ray Killen was jailed for life for his part in the slayings.

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Murder of Viola Liuzzo -

The killing by the Ku Klux Klan of white civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo on March 25, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson to publicly condemn the organization. Liuzzo had participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches and was returning home when her car was ambushed by Klan members. She was shot to death. One of her accused killers, Gary Thomas Rowe Jr., was in fact an FBI informant who had earlier infiltrated the Klan. He was later given immunity by the Bureau and was never convicted of any wrongdoing.

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Murder of Vernon Dahmer -

Civil rights activist and NAACP member Vernon Dahmer was murdered on January 10, 1966, a victim of firebombing. A suspect, Sam Bowers Jr. (pictured), the founder of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was arrested in connection with the attack. He was eventually found guilty of Dahmer's murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment—32 years after the crime.

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David Duke -

Cases of Klan-related violence became more isolated in the 1970s. But it is the decade in which David Duke rose to prominence. A former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Duke campaigned for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination but later crossed the floor and was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for the Republican Party from 1989 to 1992. Duke remains politically active despite being described by the Anti-Defamation League as "perhaps America's most well-known racist and anti-Semite."

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The Klan today -

According to the Anti-Defamation League, there are around 3,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan currently active in the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center, however, estimates the figure to be closer to 6,000.

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Still active -

On July 8, 2017, around 50 members of the Ku Klux Klan took to the streets in Charlottesville, Virginia, protesting the planned removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee, and calling for the protection of Southern Confederate monuments.

Sources: (American Experience) (History) (National Geographic) (United States Senate) (Britannica) (The Washington Post)

See also: Historic monuments torn down or defaced in protest

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