Section 1: Life for Black People in the South after the Civil War
Topic 2) The Ku Klux Klan: Its History and Methods of Instilling Fear
The Ku Klux Klan was originally founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee by a group of six confederate veterans. This secret vigilante group was founded as a direct result of the South’s defeat in the Civil War; the Klan targeted not only Black people but also their allies. This group had a mission to bring back White supremacy and return the world to the way it was before the Civil War. They instilled fear in Black people across the country with their methods of threatening people, beatings, lynchings, and killing people. These crimes were rarely prosecuted in the south and because of that many Black people were afraid of these criminals who were roaming around free (“Ku Klux Klan (KKK)”; “Lynching In America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror”).
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People were afraid of this Klan because of what they were doing to other people. The Ku Klux Klan would threaten people, beat them, and even go as far as to lynch or kill them. The Klan would force people out of their homes if they were Black or not on their side and would also go as far as to burn down churches to get people to notice them and what they were working towards. These methods were brutal and, consequently they instilled fear in people accessing the country. They wanted to bring back the age of White supremacy because they still believed that that was the right way of life (Wormser; “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial