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Ku Klux Klan Research Paper

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The Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan was a discreet organization formed in 1866 by a group of retired Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. The first two words of the group originated from the Greek word “kyklos,” meaning circle (History). The Klan spread like a disease to almost every southern state. (pbs) The summer of 1867, all local branches of the Klan gathered in an organizing convention to establish what became known to them as an “Invisible Empire of the South.” In the 1870s, members of the Klan started an underground campaign of violence and intimidation aimed toward black and white Republican leaders. The Klan attracted retired member of the Confederate Civil War generals such as Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was named the leader …show more content…

Anyone from men and women to the aged and crippled were victims of the Klan’s mighty wrath. In Mississippi, a man by the name of Jack Dupree was a victim of the Klan. They sliced his throat and disemboweled him in front of his wife and twins. Klansmen would burn churches and schools, and lynch educated blacks and teachers. Blacks that owned land would be driven off of their property and if they refused, they were murdered. If blacks refused to work for whites, had an intimate relationship with a white person, had a job a white man wanted, read a newspaper, argued with a white person, or had a book, they were whipped. The places where most Klan activity took place, the law enforcement officers wouldn’t help or even pretend to care or notice what happened. (pbs) Northern Cummings recalls going to the police about bottles being thrown at him but, would be sent away because “the police didn’t care.” According to Cummings, he was the “fastest” kid alive. (Interview) Most of the officials though, belonged to the Klan. Then, when some officials decided to do something about it, they found it hard to find witnesses to testify to what they saw because they were terrified. White citizens whom everyone looked up to refused to speak out against the Klan, therefore giving them approval

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“ On the 29th of October 1869, [the Klansmen] broke my door open, took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead.” “ About two days before they whipped me they offered me $5,000 to go with them and said they would pay me $2,500 in cash if I would let another man go to the legislature in my place.”. The KKK tried to silence a former slave who ended up becoming a Georgia State Legislature to drain the support of Reconstruction policies and to attack the empowerment of the African-American community he represented. As political violence was still a thing in the South the North started to become weary of fighting for equal rights.

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In the South, there was a group called the Ku Klux Klan, or the KKK. They would run rampant killing whoever they pleased, and no one would stop them. The KKK would kill political figures who supported Reconstruction or freedman. In a testimony to the Senate, Abram Colby states, “On the 29th of October 1869, [the Klansmen] broke my door open , took me out of my bed, took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead” (Colby 513). The KKK targeted African Americans and tortured them to death.

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Additionally, Klansmen were arrested and prosecuted in court for their crimes against blacks and Republicans. As a result, state branches of the Klan began to disband and the Klan as a whole died down. The Ku Klux Klan was built upon the racism that unfortunately was ingrained into the culture in the United States at the time it originated, especially in the South. The fact that it was founded by Confederate Army veterans who had just suffered a big loss and the South as a whole had been humiliated just added fuel to the fire.

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Within the regions wherever most secret society activity befell, native enforcement officers either belonged to the secret society or declined to require action against it, and even people who inactive suspect Klansmen found it tough to seek out witnesses willing to testify against them. Different leading white voters within the South declined to talk out against the group’s actions, giving them silent approval. After 1870, Republican state governments within the South turned to Congress for facilitate, leading to the passage of 3 social control Acts, the strongest of that was the KKK secret society Act of

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During this time, Klansmen were holding public parades and initiations throughout the nation while projecting their racist beliefs of purifying American society with native-born White Protestant males along with their White supremacy. With their massive growth, their

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Even if officials were to charge Klan members with a crime it would have been hard to prove due to lack of witnesses willing to testify. Agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau reported weekly assaults and murders of blacks. The Klan violence was very successful in suppressing black voting. The prevention of black voters in itself was a blatant refusal to accept the 15th amendment. The Klan by itself prevented blacks from receiving the rights they were supposed to receive as a result of

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In 1866 Nathan B.Forrest, with the backing of Confederate veterans, founded the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tn. The group began as a social club. The “ku klux” came from the greek word “kyklos” which means circle. This was meant to symbolize a never ending brotherhood among the Confederates. In 1867 the group organized, becoming what they called an “Invisible Empire of the South, “ with General Bedford leading the way as the Klan’s first Grand Wizard.

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The KKK On the day of December 24 in 1865 a group named the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was formed. The group was formed to fight against the equality of blacks. In the 1960’s the Klan fought the Civil Rights Movement in the south. The Klan is made up of war veterans that served in the different wars. The members of the KKK are violent and have a range of groups they hate.

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The Republicans tried to fight back by organizing militia groups to break up the KKK for good. In 1871 the Ku Klux Act was passed by Congress, which was authorized by Ulysses S. Grant and he used military force to suppress them. This resulted in about nine counties in South Carolina being placed under martial law, and in addition to leading to tons of arrests. In the late 1800s, the U.S. Supreme Court claimed that the Ku Klux Act was unconstitutional, but Reconstruction was coming to an end causing the KKK to disappear. Unfortunately, the 20th century was an era when the Ku Klux Klan made the decision to revive themselves.

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Stories about According to Ben Johnson who was born a slave around 1848, Ben always remembers the time when they hung Cy Guy for an insult to a white women. They brought about a hundred guys for him and wrote with his blood on a tree,”tween the heavens and the earth till he is dead, dead, dead, and that any N***** what takes down the body shall be hanged too”(“The Ku Klux Klan, 1868,” 2016). A man named Jim Williams was responsible for a rash of fires at white-owned properties and the KKK heard about this, making him the number one priority. They took his wife an kids making them tell them where Jum was being held and they ended up finding him underneath the floor boards. They brought Jim out to the try but he wouldn’t let go of the tree, and they had to cut his fingers off before lynching him(Pearl, 2016).

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This is when the lynchings, murders, whippings, and more, were happening. Grant sent detectives undercover to the states where the majority of the assaults were happening. The Justice Department was going to find a way to break up the Klan (Bartoletti 131). In the year of 1871, starting in May and ending in December, the government went and got testimonies from everyone they possibly could have (Bartoletti 133). After this, the Klansmen in South Carolina were told to surrender.

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The Ku Klux Klan, made up of former Confederate officers who idealized an antebellum Southern heritage, became folk heroes by terrorizing outsiders who challenged race relations by assisting blacks. Catholics, foreigners, former slaves, and their sympathizers were targeted for wanting to push reforms that went against the Southern way of life. As one historian points out, the KKK gained sympathy because they were seen as defenders and policemen of the people who protected the prevailing values of society, including Protestantism, whiteness, and genteel southern culture (Kinshasa 15). The KKK and its sister organizations were even sponsored by state governments, such as Kentucky and Mississippi, as a police force to maintain the status quo (Parsons 160). The presence of the Klan and other forms of white resistance offered white residents a form of security during this uncertain time period.

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“ The Klan directed its activity against not only blacks, but also immigrants, Jews, and Roman Catholics.” The Ku Klux Klan grew rapidly from there and had more than two million members throughout the country by the mid-1920s (Wormser). Klan rallies were major recruiting grounds for more people to join. Southerners wanted different groups to have different rights than white people. During the twentieth century, the south didn't want black people owning land and living normal lives.

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According to PBS.com in 1871, the government passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which gave the government to take action on the terrorist groups. The Ku Klux Klan started off as just former confederates and eventually turned into a terrorist group full of people that believed in white supremacy. They felt the only way to show the supremacy was brutally torturing and or killing African Americans because of their race. Though the act on the KKK was created when the Panic of 1873 occurred, all attention from the North made its way

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