Reflections on the KKK: Background Essay

A Brief History of the Ku Klux Klan

*Mississippi Ku-Klux members in the disguises in which they were captured.*

In 1865, the Ku Klux Klan was founded as a social club for Confederate veterans of the Civil War who felt disempowered once the Union regained control of the South. At first, the Klan was a rowdy bunch of young Southern men who dressed up in sheets and rode their horses through the dark countryside. Very quickly, however, they realized the power they had to inspire terror, especially among the many displaced freed slaves. The Klan began to take violent action to preserve white supremacy in the South despite the reforms instituted under Radical Reconstruction. They beat and lynched freed blacks, Northern carpetbaggers, and Northern sympathizers and supporters.

Soon, news of the Klan’s actions and goals spread, and within a year there were a number of Klan organizations in various counties and states in the South. The Klan had its first organizational meeting in April 1867, and Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest assumed leadership as the Klan’s first Grand Wizard. Despite the early attempts at centralized organization, it continued to operate primarily as a collection of independent local groups bound together loosely by racist and anti-Northern ideologies.

Because the Klan had little influence on Republican policies during Reconstruction and because many Southerners were repulsed by the violence of Klan actions, the power of the Ku Klux Klan quickly declined. In 1871 Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which enabled federal troops to suppress Klan actions and provided that Klan members could be tried in federal courts. This essentially ended the early reign of the Klan in the South, although the Klan would re-emerge in the early twentieth century.

Proceed to the Background Essay Questions.