Ku Klux Klan Research Paper

The Ku Klux Klan or the KKK is an organization founded in 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee, by a group of former confederate veterans. The organizations primary goal was to reestablish white supremacy through Democratic victories in state legislation across the South. For membership into the KKK you had to be a native-born white Protestant US citizen. The first general organization of the local Klan was effected in 1867 in Nashville, Tennessee, where ex-confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest became the first leader of the Klan. By the 1870’s, the KKK had extended to almost every southern state. Actions from members include murder, lynching, arson, rape, and bombing. Other names that the KKK have been called include White Brotherhood, Heroes of

The organization waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed towards white and black Republican leaders. Historians generally classify the KKK as part of the post-Civil War insurgent violence related not only to the high number of veterans in the population, but also to their effort to control the dramatically changed social situation by using extrajudicial means to restore white supremacy. During the beginning stages of the Klan is when the members started wearing masks and dressed in the white robes to hide their identity and were designed to frighten the people. Members of the KKK claim that the robes represent the ghosts of the dead Confederate soldiers. Klan members carried out their attacks at nigh acting on their own but in support of the common goal of the group. During the 1867-1868 constitutional convention 10 percent of black legislatures became victims to violence during the Reconstruction, also during the November 1868 Presidential election more than 2000 people were killed or wounded in Louisiana. The most notorious zones of Klan action was South Carolina- where in January 871, 500 masked men attacked the Union county jail and lynched 8 black prisoners. Two years after the Klan’s creation its activity started to decrease and members were hiding behind Klan masks and robes as a way to avoid prosecution

In the early 1970s the FBI estimated that there were fewer than 2000 active Klansmen in the nation. By 1975 there were known KKK groups on college campuses such as Vanderbilt, University of Georgia, University of Mississippi, and the University of Southern California. Many Klan groups attempted to mainstream their image by using euphemisms instead of racial epithets, taking pride in their heritage rather than hating other groups, and participating in state-run good-citizenship initiatives, but at the same time other Klan groups adopted camouflage uniforms and paramilitary activities. Violence still continued in to the 1980s when four elderly black women were shot but not killed in Tennessee by Klansmen who had just taken part in an initiation rally. About a year later a young African American named Michael Donald was a victim of a random lynching by two Klansmen in Mobile Alabama. And in 1997 one of the Klan’s members that was involved with the lynching Henry Hayes became the first Klan member to be put to death for a Klan murder in the state since 1913. After civil liberties groups successfully started hitting the Klan up with multi-million dollar lawsuits the movement split into small groups while curtailing its criminal activities. Today there are about 180 chapters with about 8000 members per chapter and two-thirds are still in southern states. The largest chapter today is